Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, September 2, 2005

EIGHT DAYS A WEEK

We have had eight scrimmages (I think) including today’s, and I am pleased to report that I like what I see so far. The coaches are saying to me that they think we are more fundamentally in place than we ever have been this early. Whether or not this is an actuality or not, and I suppose there is no way to tally or measure it, the perception alone tells me that we are marching in the right direction.

HEY VENUS

We may or may not have noticeably bright stars on this team. It’s too early to tell. The ultimate answer to whom will actually be there (here) on the team five months from now is blowing in the wind anyway. Right now it feels like we have lots of guys that can play while we might have no megastars bright enough to cause any opponent to change their game plan for us. We probably aren’t much on paper, I don’t know much about those things.

HEY HEY WE’RE THE MONKEYS

They (opponents) will hopefully, however, have to endure larger numbers of skilled players coming after them for the full sixty minutes. We have a bunch of kids that can play. We will go deep. I don’t care much about what grade they are in, only that they can play at what I consider to be our pace. Yes, we are young, but the "right of passage" on my team takes place when you can show your ability to do it (whatever) under pressure.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

I want to use more, never to be confused with less, players during a game. I want that number to always grow. I would love to use over 30 players against a BYU or whatever (really good opponent, not a blow out) that would be great. That’s my goal.

THE THREE AMIGOS

I am excited because I see all three of the veteran coaches making a difference daily in our little three-ring autumn circus. This kind of good coaching stuff gets me to making up numbers. When I see Kale doing his thing with individuals, Alex pounding his purposeful message home, and me not screwing up too badly in the overall philosophy and direction thing, I begin to see us coming together in the big picture way already.

In my opinion we are in a place now where our potential for improvement as a team can start moving along at an ever-increasing rate, like some sort of lopsided logarithm in a math equation, or with any luck maybe even a runaway train.

MORE of my MATH

Three people heading a posse in a single direction has to be more powerful than one, and the three of us see the game much the same. We are not naturally peers, but it feels like we are. They are young, but I trust my coaches very much. Trust is huge, especially during huge moments.

When we 3 sit and talk about planning upcoming practices, I get all pumped up and we really kick some good stuff around for 2:00 in the afternoon. Practice execution has been good, too. We are learning the game we will play, and we are doing it one exact step at a time. It is not going that slowly either.

HATE DAZE A WEEK

We have many questions to be answered. We have a long way to go to really be anywhere, but for right now we have had a nice little safe and sober barbecue at my house yesterday to boost team familiarity, and we’ve had some really decent (tight as the kids say) moments in scrimmage. The ball was on the ground a lot last week, but not that much today. I even see face-offs in my future. I’m not exactly positive where they will come from, but I can see them coming. It’s a start.

As far as where we are goes, well, wherever we really are I’ll take it for Labor Day. I say here we go, onward, upward, stay ready for change and be steady enough to take it when it comes.

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