Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

TAKE A DEEP BREATH

Okay, it’s almost August. I have no schedule for next year. This fact is beginning to concern me. I yearned for the schedule to come to me more this year. I wanted to just let it happen naturally, but this is getting ridiculous. We are bound up. I need a schedule enema. No wonder I am usually so pushy so early about getting a good schedule for the next season. Last year I had 15 games on the slate by now. My kingdom for an Athletic Director.

HEY, CAN ANYBODY SPARE A GAME?

I am hoping that there is someone and somewhere out there for us to play some meaningful USLIA games and teams, but so far good opportunities are not presenting themselves. Maybe we will have to lay low and hope to peak late by being extra fresh at the end. Maybe I will have to pad the schedule with men’s club teams in the area.

I would play D III, D II, D whatever.

Perhaps no one (USLIA/MDIA) likes us enough to even play us anymore. I can’t see how last year’s team could have increased our nationwide popularity. Between the trash talking and the lopsided scores of many of our games, it is likely that they all (highly ranked rivals) hate us now more than ever.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine why they (rivals) wouldn’t be lining us up for the chance to take us down now. After all, we have lost the great Plonkey, and some other stellar performers as well. We cannot be so scary without the Plonkster presence.

HOWARD WHOOS?

I can almost hear the outside voices inside my head sometimes saying things like, "They (CSU) have had things their own way a long time. Surely this will all start to change now. He (Flip) can’t really coach. He just has had good players".

No argument there. We have had lots of good players.

Yeah, it’s all those recruiting incentives I offer to each prospective player when they visit campus.

Maybe I am just turning into an old paranoid. Maybe? Sssshhhhh.......I think I just heard something.

BLAINE OR BUST!

It is very hard for me to get my personal passion for pen (Imac) and metaphor all fired up about the new USLIA Mecca. The USLIA National Championships have been moved to a new host city. It is Blaine, Minnesota where we all strive to end up in May now. It just doesn’t sound the same as the whole meet me in St. Louis thing. I will have to work on it.

WHERE TO NOW ST. PETER?

The USLIA leadership is having a pretty good-sized makeover as well. In the last two years several key individuals have left. These were the pioneers of this renegade national organization that is now made up of more than 150 "club" teams. The loss of Sonny Pieper will be hard to measure before it actually happens next season. He put great passion into the web site and that will be missed. The web site has much to do with our great exposure, at least that is what I have always thought.

ALEX THE GREAT

We (CSU) will miss Alex Smith as assistant coach, and we will also miss him as our "beat writer" and stats guy at CSU. Man I don’t know how we will make up for lost articles. There must be a young journalism majoring lacrosse player in amongst the units here somewhere. He (Alex) might be one of those that don’t come along very often, however. He input talent and passion to the program the whole time he was here, both on the field and off.

Anyway, we wish him well, and look forward to hearing about his future coaching exploits, because there will surely be some.

KALE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN A NOT-THAT-GREAT-OF-A VEGETABLE

Meanwhile it does look like we will have Kale Nelson as a full time assistant and this will be helpful for us on many levels. He is a great teacher, and he is a perfect link to the players for me. He was a three-time captain at CSU (2003). I have always thought of him as the "Colonel", as in I could get him to handle the "troops" for me sometimes. I don’t want all things to always have to be coming from my mouth or my mind. That would be folly because I am, as we know, not that smart.

In reality I guess there are some things about the chain part of the "chain of command" concept that I like. I have always professed it all to be too military for me. At any rate Kale will do nicely as assistant coach thank you very much. He is also the "new" National Sales Rep for Rock-it Pocket. People think we (Kale and I) sound alike on the phone, which is weird because he is half my age. We do seemingly share a (lame?) brain at times.

We hopefully can also help him (Kale) prepare for his next tryout for the Mammoth this coming fall. I think we (CSUers) will have a few representatives trying out for the pros.

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