Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

All that Mularkey I wrote before the BYU game about how we gotta have more than 10 goals manufactured offensively as a given in every game didn't come to pass, and, in fact, not by a long shot.  Nor do I think that a new scoring machine will be delivered to my house anytime soon. Scoring goals will seemingly NOT just happen on its own for us in the nearby future.  We had a lot of good shots against BYU, but we were far from a dominant offensive force in any way, shape, or form.  A potent offense and lots of goals will not just happen naturally with this group.  There would seem to be no easy Gimme's from a Timmy (Farquhar M #13 2005) in our immediate future.  We will have to somehow unearth another one of those little scoring machines if we can, but more on that later.

DRIVING MR. CRAZY

For now we will more or less take the stock issued engine and "bore out" the cylinders. Then we will proceed in the attempt to build ourselves a more powerful offensive motor for this here team vehicle.  The way I see it is that we will need more torque than our pistons can now generate. I seek a faster 0-60 capability or whatever.  That becomes Job One.  I think I've ordered the necessary parts.  Hopefully they will be in soon and here in time to be useful on the 2006 model. 

I'm not very patient, more the pedal to the metal type.  As proof of that I'm still paying sky high insurance premiums for my past sins. 

BACK TO THE FUTURE

I recently became inspired to go back in my thoughts before going on to the future.  I took a little ride in my mental De Lorean to gather up a few of the things I thought I had left permanently in the past. My present situation reminded me of times gone by I guess.  I often try to spend time poking around in the "old" closet part of my mind anyway just in case I find something that I might be able to recycle.

To drive the metaphor completely into the ground, we still have some garage time in order to do some work under the hood before go time comes around. Now is the time to try stuff.

THIS AIN'T NO FAIRY STORY

Anyway, once upon a time a long time ago I had a lot of players on one team and I didn't know what to do with them all.  I was a regular coach Mother Hubbard, no kidding.  I got all the orphans in those days. I guess I still get my share.

EARTH,WIND, & FIRE?

As a fairly inexperienced coach at the time and in my desperate attempt to get a grip on my then huge J.V. team at UCSB, I made up multiple lines (3-4 players) from all three field positions, attack, midfield, and defense.  The attack for instance was originally split into 3 groups with the labels EARTH, WIND, and FIRE.  My aim was to get some individual player units playing and working together in actual working units, and at all the different positions.  This is no big revelation, just my way of doing things.  The other thing was that a player could be on more than one line, like he could be on Earth and Fire or whatever, too. The line and the purpose it served were more important than the exact personnel manning it on a given day.

GOOD GREEN EARTH

I gave colored names to the multiple midfield lines, and we had a crayon box full, of them, while the defense had other handles something along the lines of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY.  So anyway, during games I could shout something like, "BAD, RED, FIRE" and voila' those 9 players knew that they were supposed to be in the game.  Since there was always a horn available for substitution back then, there was never a problem, just people constantly reading my board postings to find out what line or lines they were supposed to be on.  The name game "system" was fun and it kept the bench on its toes.  Other teams we played probably thought I was some kind of Napoleonic Nut.  I know, that's hard to imagine, but if you just close your eyes…..

HORN PLEASE!!!!!

I did all this back when coaches could totally control the games with those substitution horns that a coach could ask for upon the blowing of pretty much any whistle.  We (coaches) all used extensive platooning in the early 1990's, changing some or all players with most every whistle/horn.  It looked like a Chinese fire drill at times.  By the way, what do those look like? 

You could also use 5 long sticks (poles) in the game at the same time back in the day, and you no longer can (4 only). 

My plan now is to use some of this older organization technique I used then to help me get to know the players on this team here more quickly.  That alone will help me determine things like when we need to see more game time for a particular player for example. 

Mostly I always feel the strong need to get in touch with every player, even ones on the outer team reaches, and with every team that I coach, but I suspect that I will feel that need more than ever with this one.. 

SUBSTITUTE YOUR LIES FOR FACT

I feel I have not been able to get off to a really good or fast start in the "evaluate talent" and get close to everyone department.  I need to learn and know each individual better and thereby find his "special purpose" for our mission. That's my mission.  We have a lot of kids that are pretty good, but no one I am prepared to throw a saddle on.  We are a little, dare I say it, Generic in terms of talent, especially on offense.  I mean that in a good way, really I do. 

Defensively I could probably fill out a depth chart for this group of poles fairly quickly.  That is where much of our experience and expertise resides.  On attack I am as close to clueless in terms of individuals and their true talent potential as I might have ever imagined myself being, and the goalie thing is a regular quandary.  I know who goalie #1 is, and then although it's close, I think I have a handle on who goalie #2 is as well.  The problem is that we have 6 of the damn things.

This number craziness has also helped create a completely different coaching dynamic for me.  My questions as this year moves along will likely be quite a bit different, from the ones I have asked in years past, and therefore the answers I get likely will be, too.

LONG POLES THAT ONLY PLAY THE WING ON FACE-OFFS WHEN THE GOALIE ON THE OTHER TEAM IS LEFT HANDED and other stupid stuff

We "specialize" in lacrosse a lot nowadays.  There are long stick specialists, short stick defenders, fogoes, dodge and dumpers, clearing middies, red riders, and on and on.  Still, there is something that appeals to me about the really old skule "two way kindah middie" from a time gone by.  He is the midfielder who is all but extinct.  He plays offense and defense and stays in the game for several minutes at a time and for a few changes of team possessions.  He faces off, scores goals, grovels for grounders, and plays tenacious mano a mano defense.  "He" now mostly comes in the form of 4 or 5 middies.

In fact I am amazed at how many midfielders that were "great players" in high school come to college with no clue how to play defense of any kind.

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE CHUCK BEDNARIK?

We are working on some of these back to the two-way midfield way methods now.  I hope to use this and other forms of individual and team versatility as an advantage and as a way to hopefully expose an opponent's potential problem or its underbelly opening.  I want to make it harder for other teams to change their players in and out at times because we have players who stay in the game both ways, and if the other team does change anyway, then we will have a numbers advantage.  Maybe it will open only a very small window, maybe it will only be for a very few seconds, but we will have an extra man while that substitution happens and I want to do some cleverish things as a team with all that lame substitution time now happening in games, and that time really adds up over a whole season.

ACCURACY – DEPENDABILITY – CONSISTENCY - DURABILITY

At any rate, and lately, I'm too busy shuffling 9 midfields and 15 long poles around so people can play and have fun and learn the system, and meanwhile we can be "game ready" at all times.  It's a tall order for Fall ball.  Maybe I'm overdoing it, but perfection (and not cutting players) is still the obsession and I don't know how else to do this if I'm not more or less constantly manic about it all.

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