Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Saturday, January 22, 2005

WHERE DID ALL THE FLOWERS GO?

While making up teams for a "situational" scrimmage the other day, I was looking around for some attackmen, and with 40-something players on site on a very playable afternoon, there still weren't that many attackers around. What happened to the twenty or so we had in September? Scattered like buckshot I guess.

EARLY SCOUTING REPORT ON CSU

One player (Matt Reiss – former attack, now LSM -#10) mentioned to me that the reason there were so few attack choices for this spring season might be that I had busily "moved" them all somewhere "new" during the fall season, as was the case with him This is only partly factual, but we definitely have some A's (attack) playing M (midfield) and that sort of thing on this team.

BOY’S GOTTA HAVE A DREAM

Yes, it might be true what some say. I have heard the whispers that I likely have lost IT, and on many levels, too. I am capable of monotonously adding more fuel to that fire of perception.

Anyway, my current little fantasy is that I really can do things like take a willing attack man like Matt Reiss, one with excellent offensive skills but who has never even pondered playing with a long pole, let alone played it, and turn him into a Defender where defensive thoughts are his passion and his priority. Sure, you say, that's fine if he is a sophomore in high school, but you can't seriously believe it can be done at this level, do you, Coach?

REISSES PIECES

In my mind, with a little speed, which this Reiss person has, a player could make that big of a mind set change. Yes, he might be better at some things than at others in the beginning. Patience will be a virtue for me at times, but it often is.

There is also some chance (again, in my mind) that he might become something a little different and somewhat special as a long pole. I love the Long Stick midfield position in lacrosse. I always have. I'm not sure there is another position in sports quite like it. As with the goalie, there is only one Long Stick midfielder on the field at a time, and so in my opinion and in my game plan it is a position that naturally lends itself to stardom, no matter how many players may actually man the spot.

The point for me about this train of thought is that however this season churns out, I admire Matt Reiss and this team in general for its overall willingness to commit to the pure concepts of a TEAM, as in what can I do to help make US more? Not only do they ask the question they try to answer it, too, and to my way of thinking, this type of selflessness automatically makes us more..

YOUNG FRANKENSTICK

I still and always seek to have the monster roaming the middle of the field. This year it will preferably be multi-headed, a co-operative beast made from a team's natural resources. We always want the LSM to be a position that shows itself as some kind of individual lunatic unleashed. If we can do that, I will be good.

For four years here at CSU the Long Stick Middie position has been a singular concept, as in it was whatever Mark Plonkey wanted it to be. For better or for worse, "We" allowed him to be the player who defined us and who WE were as a team for most of that time. What I now want is for two or even three to collaborate, to mesh and form a new, many-faceted "Pole". Together they could perhaps re-define this position for this team, recreating it, adding more roles to the character.

YOUNG FRANKEN PHILOSOPHY

Sure, we would like to instantly create the same kind of Plonkey thing (midfield dominance) again. That would be hard. He is Plonkey. At any rate, this time I want to do it sort of a little Plonkey at a time, attaching parts and pieces (remembering the Franken-team metaphor) in search of becoming a something that ultimately will live, and also to be a little bigger and better than at first it might have appeared.

Of course this Frankenplonkey will have to have a totally different mouth attached to its head or heads. We want this new voice to resonate with a much more Evansly sound (Ian Evans – LSM #77).

OH, MY, GOALIE

I know I have never coached a team (20 years or so) that has not had at least one player on it who was named Matt. We usually have more than one Matthew. I also know that in all that time I never felt that I had enough goalies, particularly for practice purposes. That is until now. We have I don't know how many goalies, and I'm not kidding, I really don't know. When I can't sleep nowadays, I just count Goalies jumping in and out of the crease area, and I'm out like a light in no time.

As a cosmic joke, another one (goalie) showed up just the other night at the Edge. Have you heard the one about how many goalies it takes to make a CSU lacrosse team? Is this all the trickle down affect of the Alex Smith factor? My God, either he was even better than I thought, or CSU seems to all-of-a-sudden be THE fit for the goalie mentality or perhaps the goalie GPA.

Next Entry | Previous Entry


Flip Started Blogging Before it was Cool, Read Over 400 of His Entries Since January 2001
Jump to a Period:
2006: Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov
2005: Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
2004: Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
2003: Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
2002: Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
2001: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Sept Oct Nov Dec