Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, September 17, 2004

PRECIOUS MINUTES

I'm not going to lie. In many ways this has been a very difficult week and fall. The casualties continue. I am not talking about just injuries either. I am talking more about the players that have decided not to play. The third shoe dropped last night. Three players who would be seniors this year are here yet they are gone, not playing. These are stars.

The news is always difficult to take, and no matter how hard I try, it is almost impossible for me not to take these team-changing events personally. I try so hard to invite and promote passion for the game, the team, and the family. When three great players just don’t play, it makes me wonder about me more than I wonder about them.

I want people making good choices for their lives, and that must be true no matter how much I will whore myself out in order to have talented players. That is why I must try not to beg players to play, no matter how much I might want them to. It must come from inside them, and I must be man enough to accept it when a player makes a decision that doesn’t go "my way".

One of the three I will miss because I always had to search for ways to coach him effectively, and at times I thought he brought out some of the best in me. I will miss his "old soul". I always looked for ways to write about him in here, because I found him to be so delightful to be around and talk to, and he is also quite a character. The next one I will miss because of the fire and competitive spirit he has. The penetrating intensity of his eyes is scary, and his anger can be a weapon. Then of course there is the fact that he has won pretty much every face off for us over the course of the last two years. I’ll miss that, too. Finally, we lost one of our home grown (Fort Collins) sons just the other day. It hurts to lose him just because of his speed, and his God given ability to play the game at its very highest level. I also feel like there was something left undone with him, and now I won’t get the chance to find out if that is true.

This TEAM stuff can be a very delicate and shifty vessel in a great big sea of goo.

All I know for me is that I would have done pretty much anything for one more minute of playing eligibility, and likely would have killed for one more year. I know that I never felt more alive or more powerful than I felt during that spring of my final playing year in college. I wanted nothing more than to commit all of that energy to something greater, a team. It made me feel alive in a way that I still remember (vaguely) to this day. I also know that I have no right to project that kind of passion onto anyone else. At the same time it is my greatest hope that I am never the one that pulls the plug that drains their passion, and right now my cup doesn’t feel exactly half full on that little issue in light of recent events.

Everything happens for a reason. Isn’t that what they say?

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