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Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal
Sunday, September 4, 2005
Today would be the 17th anniversary of my first marriage. Time sure flies when
you are divorced.
ROLL UP FOR THE MYSTERY TOUR * STEP RIGHT THIS WAY….
We haven't even decided on how our traveling (away) uniforms for ‘06 will look. Last
month we were going to have Raider Black somewhere in all that we wore, but discussions
have been reopened and who knows how we will be dressed February 23, 2006 in Santa Barbara.
Our negotiations could reach NHL proportions before the final fashion decisions are faxed
home.
TEMPT THEM TO PLAY A CERTAIN WAY
I am onto the tactics mode this coming week. Already? We don't really play
anyone until February. Regardless, I will try to begin to make us aware of a lot of
the "If they play this way, we will do that" stuff. I will do this with
many situations, some we might never see until well into the 2006 season or maybe not at
all. Why practice those really specific game plan kinds of things now? Don't
we just roll the ball out and play in the fall?
OH YEAH, LAX SCHOOL
Everyone might forget stuff later that we learn on the field now, so why bother complicating
things? Well, even if they do "forget", it all before Santa does his deed
in December, by doing reality of the future possibility now, it will then make it easier
to put whatever in place when the concept has to be taught over at a later date.
In the process of going over styles to defend or create and specific situations to prepare
for we hopefully gain a great deal of versatility and some needed seasoning as well. I want
us to always look ready and steady. I want us to BE ready and steady whenever we play.
THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED
The overall end of fall idea is for the team to appear as though it definitely has a group
clue by November, to the point that they almost (key word, almost) look like they don't
need no stinkin' coach to tell them when to go in and what to do when. The initiative
is for the team to "get" our team thing as soon as possible, and then to eventually
go home over the long Christmas Break and work on their "personal" sword sharpening/inner
game thing.
PLAYIN', PLAYING IN THE BAND….THE 11TH MAN SOUNDS LIKE A GOOSE
I still almost always try to involve myself in the mechanics of "our" game (or
practice) whenever possible by barking out helpful hints from the sidelines. My "play
book" has the combination coach's thing somehow working for us as an 11th
player sort of deal. This is not a secret plan I thought up, nor is it a new concept
for me in general. My personal motivation as coach on the sidelines has always been to try
and be help to those on the field and also those standing behind me wearing our shirts.
It just always seems like a good place to come from. Coaches need practice, too, by
the way.
STYLIN'
I don't want to be yelling at and telling the striped shirted referees what all they should
or should not be whistling about during a game too much. I want to use and apply my
energy to more positive natured tasks in hopes of bringing us some small amount of momentary
success. Rather than bitching about things I have little or at times no control over
(refs), I will usually and hopefully try to use my field voice, at least whatever I have
left of one, to alert the team to dangers in the crease or other such useful in game information.
I want to have us (coaches/me) help to be their eyes or perhaps even their ears. I
aspire to be the proverbial little bird sitting on their shoulders.
THE UNFORGIVEN, or I really don't want us to end up as a picture on a milk carton
Apparently we remain a "club" on the dreaded "double secret probation"
these days and seemingly without an expiration date, as if we have been the road company
for bad behavior as a group since the dawn of Club Sports. It has been made clear that they
will not hesitate to pull the plug on CSU Men's Lacrosse operations. Thanks, and on
that encouraging note….
They should have seen it when I first got here. I did not invent partying in college.
Whether it be true or not, I feel like someone out there might be rooting for us (lacrosse
club) to make a behavioral mistake of any sort. That is the game as I see it.
An opening just big enough to bury a hatchet in would do us in for sure. As a Club and at
all times we must be so prudent and so careful now.
Image is everything I guess and we have our flaws in that department according to some.
I don't mind being scrutinized. I want us to behave well at all times and in all places.
It is one of my biggest team goals. I try to mostly behave well myself. Unfortunately
I also seem to attract lots of kids (or maybe it's CSU that attracts them) looking for a
"second chance" in lacrosse or in a school as it were. Sometimes they (individual
kids) are not that easy to control, no matter how much "good team leadership"
you think you have in place, and no, I don't just cut them out of the field the second my
nose twitches or I sneeze, as if they were weeds that strangle. I know I should.
I can recognize them and sometimes see them coming from a distance.
I really hope this team gets this behavior on and off the field part of things as a whole
and right now. We can afford no individual or team transgressions with alcohol/drugs,
grades, eligibility, and or whatever.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO SUSTAIN THE HITLER YOUTH THING
I try to a degree, and I have specific rules, but I have no aspirations to have a military
stranglehold on all the actions of my team. That is not the way I feel that I can
get them to "play". My hope is that by continuing to appeal to them to do
the things that are the right things in life that they ultimately always will, and that
will enable us to continue to be one big happy lacrosse family.
BASEBALL BEEN VERY GOOD TO CHICO ESCUELA
Anyway, I am not afraid. I have hit with two strikes on me in clutch situations before,
and while facing pitchers with some "nasty" stuff to throw at you.
AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP
And speaking of baseball, I just love the daily torture and tension that comes along with
being a baseball fan of a team that is marginally part of the post-season possibility during
the late summer pennant chase. Go Phillies. This time you might actually kill
me.
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