Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Saturday, August 14, 2004

"I KNOWED IT WAS NO" 

George Thoroughgood and the Deleware Destroyers, a band that once played 50 states in 50 days.  I think that's cool.

Yesterday the boys (Kale and Pete) showed up for Rock-it work holding on to two sticks and crestfallen looks.  They had showed our little women's stick creation to an actual woman who actually knows how to play (Jennie from CSU women's team, a very up and coming team I might add).  The Rock-her Pocket in the bastardized Brine Superlight 2000 men's stick had not stood up that well in competition with what was already out there, or so it would seem. Our balloon of success had lost some air.

IT'S NOT OVER BOYS

My questions were simply ones of legality.  That is my main concern at this point.  I think I am getting a handle on the rules finally, but either way nothing can be "developed" until we clear that particular hurdle.  They had brought back "prota" and in addition she had another little friend with her, They brung me a Gait made women's stick strung with his (Paul Gait) Tracker pocket, the best on the market right now, and apparently my current "measuring" stick.  Thank you.

ONWARD AND UPWARD

I have been rejected by the opposite sex before.  I know there is work to do on product development.  Besides, these little things (brainstorms that might actually potentially be somethings) don't just fall out of the sky.  No wait, yes they do sometimes. Actually I think the stork brings them, but whatever or wherever, once the idea is brought into your world, you got to get after it, and more importantly keep after it.

It took me six months after I already thought I knew what I was doing to come up with the original Rock-it Pocket in 1987. I kept taking the same pocket apart and putting it back together. That sounds funny now. It (Rock-it Pocket) remains forever a work in progress. Millions of people use mesh (non Rock-it Pockets that are cheaper and also easier to put in and maintain). The Powell mesh pocket wave that took off a few years ago scared the hell out of me. This past year has been our best ever in spite of me as spokesperson and the presence in the lacrosse world of so much mesh.

Nothing that is good is ever easy. Old, but true. This project, no matter how far it goes, will be no different.

COURTSHIP COUNTS FOR A LOT (You just gotta woo)

In the process of banging around in my memory closet I have started to see how to work with the rules and how they relate to the stick head to pocket relationship in the women's game.  That union comes from a whole different legal place from what I am used to.  In the men's game and in their sticks, pocket legality is almost a joke when it comes to pocket depth.  In the women's game, pocket depth is no joke I can assure you, and the marriage of the catch to the throw is a whole lot trickier. 

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES _ can't we all just mosh?

With lacrosse sticks, as with many game aspects, the women's rule of lacrosse is the men's rule flipped over backwards, the "anti-men's" rules if you will.  They (women) use yellow balls, men white ones.  Men use goals painted orange while women use white ones. The list of differences is long. Women also cannot use mesh pockets, though, so I got that going for me.

USE THE FEMININE FORCE, LUKE

The metaphor for women's sticks is something like trying to hold on to a super ball with a tennis racket.  Ball control is very difficult.  So is catching. With men conversely it is more like using a fishing net to catch and scoop with.  Ball control is much easier. 

Getting the ball consistently OUT of the pocket is often the bigger problem for men.  I can't believe sometimes how many good players use sticks and pockets that can either pass or shoot, but that can't do both.  As a coach I am obsessed with this little aspect of versatility, and that fact ultimately has nothing to do with brand names of pockets.  I do, however, still believe that the pocket remains as it always has been, and that is the single most important part of any lacrosse stick.

So the two women's sticks I had yesterday became three by today.  I spent all afternoon yesterday making my second recently completed attempt at getting around the same obstacle,  that of trying to make a better women's lacrosse stick.  This morning I tweaked.  Prota II is ready to be sacrificed to the cause……. "JENNIE!"

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