Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

I CAN'T BELIEVE I ATE THE WHOLE THING (Alka Seltzer commercial)

We had a NOT very great practice Sunday night. We are catching practices when and where we can. Now if we could just start catching the ball....

Sunday's late 10:00 p.m. starting time somehow didn't lend itself to inspirational play. I'm sure many of them had spent most of that day more or less prone, couch potatoes, watching the AFC and NFC Championship games on the tube while eating too much junk food, and no doubt nursing varying degrees of regret about what they had done Saturday night.

TEAM-HAB

Even with some reason for rationalization, it (a lousy practice) still got to me, and it stung, a slap in the face as it were, I guess because I had been so pumped up about the way I felt about the previous 4 practices under our belt.

Sometimes I take the realities of an individual practice perhaps a bit too seriously, but to me building a team is similar to rehabilitating an injury. Maybe I feel this way partly because I constantly look at the team as if it were something that always needs some kind of fixing, that it needs to often be rebuilt or reinvented a little or a lot.

When rehabilitating a knee, for example, you want to progress and get stronger each day, but you never want to overdo it or somehow tweak something, because ANY step backward will cost you double or more in terms of time to my way of thinking. You have the backward step of trauma (costs time), then you have to stabilize (more time), and then you have to take another forward step (even more time) just to get back to where you were way back in the first place.

It's not exactly the same with a team, but you never want to wander too far down the wrong path, and you never want to end up on some kind of team treadmill, that is for sure.

It frustrates me when I do not create a practice environment where we can move forward and progress, whenever or wherever we are able to get together. I might want to rethink the Sunday night at 10:00 slot as a viable practice time. I don't like using Sunday that much anyway. In a perfect world it is the day to chill or whatever. At the same time, we gotta do what we gotta do, and unfortunately there is no warm and fuzzy practice schedule for us to work with.

DISEASE DU JOUR

I have heard the words "Mono" and "Whooping Cough" whispered this week. I am afraid "Outbreaks" are not out of the ordinary at a university this time of the year. I will keep my fingers crossed that we have no team epidemics forthcoming. Those can really be a step back. They will hopefully eat lots of vitamin C, and be very careful with whom they swap spit.

ONWARD AND UPWARD

Practice-wise, we recovered from the messthat was Sunday night with a pretty good effort last night, Tuesday. Even though The Edge is only a 1/2 field set up, we are getting more comfortable in there, and therefore we get more things accomplished during those precious 60 minute sessions.

I can't really tell if we are getting good enough conditioning work inside, but at least we are not dealing with frostbite, or getting shin splints from running on frozen tundra.

Today the weather appears to be willing and we should be able to get some good scrimmage stuff done outside. By the way, the weather in Northern Colorado in late January is often freakishly fabulous, as it is now. Do not be fooled by this trend. The worst of winter is likely delayed somewhere en route, and you never know when it will show its frigid face, but you know it will be here at some point.

LATER THAT SAME DAY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

COACH, TRY NOT TO LET YOUR PERSONALITY OR LACK THEREOF GET IN THE WAY OF A PERFECTLY GOOD TEAM

We had a long and good scrimmage earlier today, but I think I am being a little too hard on them, that maybe I am pointing out more basic "flaws" (and in my inimitable way) than I am handing out "attaboys".  Tomorrow my focus will go back to positive reinforcement as a priority.

BITCH, BITCH, BITCH

I think I have been especially critical and demanding with the defense and our defensive play in general.  I think this is because I had been a little worried about that "Team Defense" I spout on so much about.  Worried or not, they are getting better daily, and it is important for me to acknowledge that both individually as well as collectively.

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