Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

NEW FACES SAME PLACES

It is very important to me that players that have been in our program for a time take on some kind of leadership role in the family or in the organization that we call a program. I want our experienced players to help the new ones learn, and perhaps even more than that, I want them to root for the new kids to do well. I like the whole "strong as your weakest link" concept. This is part of the on the field demands that we put on our experienced ones.

"We" want everyone new to understand what is going on and how we play, and hopefully to become a part of it all somehow, some way, and asap. Four years is not that big of a playing window.

ORIENTATION

My first speech of the year to each new team has come to be one that has very little to do with things that happen inside the lines. I feel that it is my responsibility to deliver a sort of temperance speech as my attempt at university placement orientation for the individual. I will be trying to discourage any quick turns down the wrong path. The wrong road is the one on which you are not doing your schoolwork and perhaps letting your grades get away from you. That not-so-great path is also lined with a host of people trying to get you to party harder and more regularly, nightly if possible. Then there are the ones lurking on the other side of the street (cops, dorm monitors, etc.) that are looking to catch you drinking, partying, etc. to excess. These people can and want to legally punish you. They believe that is the way to learn the lessons of life. I disagree. I believe in prevention over punishment. I want to see the new kids get out of the blocks well, and not to quickly find themselves behind some kind of eight ball that makes every future movement more difficult.

That is my first mission.

SO THERE I WAS, ON THE GROUP W BENCH…Arlo Guthrie

Stuff does happen fast, too, if you are not careful. Many of these freshmen are away from some sort of parental supervision for the first time. They can go nuts with too much freedom. This is a fact. They often feel like they just got the "Get out of jail free" card, but there are a million ways to screw up that good thing.

This is always my message: A good time can be had without wrecking cars, tearing down walls, terrifying the neighborhood, and flunking out of school. This easy-does-it party concept is at times not an easy one to sell to a college kid.

Whether they hear/believe me or not, all I can do is bang away at the bad things that can hurt player and or team. Where’s my hammer?

GOIN' TO KANSAS CITY….

The Kansas City Royals are a Major League baseball team, sort of.  They are in the woes and throws of a seemingly endless losing streak.  It stands at 17 in a row right now.  I bring this up because it has sparked a memory.

ON THE WHOLE I'D RATHER BE IN PHILADELPHIA – W.C. Fields on a bad day

Anyone who knows me at all past acquaintance status knows that I am a Philadelphia Phillie fan.  The Phillies are the gum that has stuck to my shoe for virtually my entire life, as if put there with glue. I was rewarded in 1980, but the other 50ish times they were not world champions.

It does not matter where in life I may have tread, the only team I have been perfectly faithful to is that one in red.

PHILLY, PHILLY, PHILLY

I guess I was geographically born a Phillie fan, but it only became emotionally hopeless when I was 9, in 1961, when the Philadelphia Phillies lost 23 consecutive games, a Major League record that stands to this day.  I don't know what this says about me, because most people jump on to a winner as fans, but it was these 23 games of failure and futility that sparked the flame that still burns (pathetically) for me to this day.  I don't remember exactly, but I assume that when they finally won after those 23 losses that it was something like my first semi-mature moment of contentment and personal accomplishment. 

As I write this it puts in perspective just how loyal I am to something that for the most part is nothing more than a baseball uniform with Phillies written across the front.  If I could carry this combination of attention to and enthusiasm for to everything I did, who knows what the possibilities might be.

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