Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Saturday, October 29, 2005

SO HELP ME GOD

I spent all day Thursday being legally deposed for the third time in just over two years, and more or less about the same thing. I do not know if attorneys have a time limit with a witness for a single day, or a number limit for sitting around one table and asking someone like me more or less the same 3 questions. Is it like truck drivers who can only drive a certain number of hours or miles in one day and then they have to stop and rest? If there is such a number it lies at somewhere around 100 for the asking of the same question in a different (or the same) way, and between 7 and 24 hours for the time because he used 7 hours easy.

I'M LATE; I'M LATE, FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE – Mad Hatter

I arrived late for practice at CSU that day, Thursday, but I did, God bless the lawyers(?) make it back to the Fort for the second half of it, which was great as we run out of daylight savings time this weekend, and therefore we will be running out of afternoon practices, too. The boys (Alex and Kale) had a very nice Flip-style practice going on and that fact made it an extremely smooth transition. It was as if nothing changed once and when I got there except who was blowing the whistle. That reality felt perfect. I already liked what I was seeing on the field as I changed out of my Sunday go-to-meeting outfit and into my sweat suited self.

I have already worn out and broken one whistle (bitten to death) so far this season, so we know fall ball hasn't been without "moments" of stress for the old Coach. However, the team family is coming along nicely by the way, and so is the play level at times. My attitude about this team has pretty much done a "180" over the last couple of weeks. Emotions are so strange and so often fickled.

THE BIG FOUR

I mean no offense to all of the wannabes out there hovering around the market place, but there are basically four major companies inside the lacrosse industry. They are Warrior, Brine, STX, and Gait / de beer. This was, as stated, my third of these depositions. What is happening is that Warrior is systematically suing the other three companies over some very serious stuff. All of these lawsuits are PATENT related, of course.

OLD 925

My part in all this is that I share a patent with David Morrow, the owner of Warrior, and some of these law suits are pressing the inseam of this "925" patent. In other words they are all fighting over how important ideas demonstrated in a hand-made cherry wood creation by Gipetto (me) are. I made and used the wooden model in question for a Warrior prototype over 12 years ago during a very exciting, Renaissance sort of period in my life.

The patent in question was sold by me to Warrior way back in the day, so I have no financial stake in any of these proceedings.

TOUCH AND GO

The first time that I was ever deposed (questioned with someone recording my responses) was just about two years ago. All three times that I have done it the meeting has been a rendezvous at a hotel near the Denver International Airport. The lawyers fly in late the night before, and the stenographers are local. It is nice that they and all "this" basically comes to me, but that doesn't make it an easy couple of days. After we finish each time sometime in the afternoon, the attorneys make a mad dash for the airport and they usually end up sleeping in their own beds that night after spending a full day at work in a city 2000 miles away from Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, or wherever. It's all just another commute I guess.

BIG BROTHER, or ONWARD THROUGH THE BLOG

I know I have written about these depositions in this "Blog" before. If I had forgotten what I had said, I was certainly reminded the other day when the Brine attorney produced a document and read an "excerpt" from this (my) journal, an entry that I wrote following the last deposition, the one taken by the STX lawyer. This quote from me might have been part of the plan for one evidential piece of Brine counsel's legal puzzle, but I'm saying it was nothing more than Flip busily being flip. The thing I had said was that I basically have no interest in lying to and or for anyone. Since some or all of these other companies would like to portray me as a liar I am not sure how that type of remark made in my personal journal would help the cause.

The fact that he (Brine counsel) had done so much research (web) on me and that he knew so much about me blew my mind a little. It also made me think immediately of George Orwell (author of "1984"), and the fact that anyone can be your "Big brother" in the modern era, and everyone is capable of watching over everything you do. Well, everything I do anyway, because I let my private life be public spectacle, but that is a subject for another entry. Anyway, I was impressed with the guy and his preparation.

By the way, I have a fairly strong feeling that all the legal parties involved with the events of the other day are checking for this update, and will eventually take a gander at what I might be writing in here. I must admit that this little reality brings a small smile of irony to my lips. Well, it would if I actually had the use of the smile muscles in my face.

It's usually the lawyers who get the last word and of course they still probably will.

SCOREBOARD WATCHING

In review, and to update I will briefly go over what has happened so far. The first time I was questioned it was for the de beer case. Paul Gait sat across from me that day along with their lawyer. That was two years ago. That case was settled. A check of some sort was written to Warrior by Gait/de beer as I understand it.

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

Next up was the STX chuck and duckers. That wasn't that long ago, but I don't know when exactly. The STX lawyer was gentle and nice. I felt comfortable with him. He came with no imposing figure such as Paul Gait by his side. He was instead armed with piles of head models for me to describe and critique. At first I think the plan was to make me look like an idiot or at least someone who had no idea what he was talking about.

Well, I must admit that I wasn't that impressed with his bag of toys either, and I said as much during the questioning. It appeared to me that when it became clear to him that, though strange, I wasn't a complete idiot, he cut the festivities fairly short, presumably so that he could get on with the business of making me out to be a liar, because that is all that has seemingly happened since. That case is waiting to go to trial.

THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST?

The Brine "team" came Thursday toting no former lacrosse super star and very few head models in hand. The models he did have were regular, stock, commercially available heads. This was unlike the STX lawyer, who had brought heads which were mostly obscure looking prototypes and the like, some supposedly from the Middle Lacrosse Ages, and brought all the way to Denver for me to see in person to prove that ideas like mine had been around before me or whatever. I never said I was the only person that ever had a good idea. Next question, please.

No, this Brine guy brought a few lacrosse heads to ponder, but what he really brought was paper, stacks and piles of pressed pulp that he likely did NOT bring in his carry-on baggage. It is my greatest hope that he recycles.

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS STILL ON FIRE

Brine did pick up with the liar (conflicting statement) thing, and I guess I was prepared for that. My take on me is that it would never be too hard to find some conflict in my testimony or even in my casual conversations. I am constantly flipping around the channels, as in I hate my team, and then, I love my team, and both things were written or said by me within a week's time. Neither of those statements could be classified as a lie. At the time said they were both true. I never claimed to be fluent in legalese either. All those "technical" words they throw around mean much more to them than they do to me.

CASH QUEST

The really interesting angle of attack for this day with Brine was where one of the three questions he asked me 100 times was one that concerned the area of how much compensation I might be getting from Warrior for what I was doing here. He produced any piece of paper possible that might potentially make me trip up and say that they were somehow and in some way paying me. The truth is that I had even accidentally paid my own hotel bill where Warrior should have and hopefully will take care of that before it is done.

SILLY ME

At one point in the proceedings the Brine lawyer slid a document over to me that I hadn't seen in a really long time and asked me if I recognized it. I did. It was a copy of an agreement from 1993, one making me a full partner of this new Warrior Lacrosse Company for some ridiculously small amount of a "pay-in" from me. That time rushed back to me at that moment. I had almost forgotten about that, because I turned down the opportunity almost as quickly as I had considered it at that point long ago. I explained to counsel that it was a short lived possibility that was cut off at the pass.

At this point he looked up from all his piles of paper and into my eyes. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that maybe he should have gone with the he's-an-idiot legal attack on me instead of the liar thing. After all, think how much "stuff" would I have now as a Warrior partner. Why had I not gone for it? It is important to note that as all this came flooding back into my brain, I had not one pang of regret. I must really be dumb, huh? Anyway, before he could say anything I basically called myself stupid so he wouldn't have to. I said something to the effect of I should have gone for it, right?

IT WASN'T just ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS

I'm now sitting there thinking to myself that part of the reason I backed out of that deal back then was because I didn't want to spend my life fighting over things like patents and other such issues. That side of it did not appeal to me at all. No, genius here (I) would much rather move his previously entrenched in Southern California ass half way across the country to freeze off that part of his anatomy and to coach lacrosse gratis (actually costs him lots of money) for a non-program with limited field use at a school that more or less officially doesn't like him, although they act like they do when he sends in one of those CSU donation checks.

Besides all of that, it seems like I am part of the patent wars as it is and after all anyway. Is that fact ironic or coincidental? So, I must ask myself now what part of my thinking in 1993 was sound? I can't remember, but it (my thinking) seemed good to me at the time. I was just off the whole Anthony Robbins thing (The Giant Within, Personal Power, etc.) back then as it was. I had firewalked with Tony himself and was good to go, or so I thought.

That idiot angle sounds better by the minute, doesn't it, your Honor?

TALK IS CHEAP, at least it used to be

I always have moments at these things when I knowingly continue to talk way more than I should but I do anyway. I editorialized ad nauseum the other day at one point, saying basically that I was sorry, Mr. Lawyer Dude, but money has never been a huge motivator for me. His response spoke of admiration, but it sounded more like suspicion, as if there were no such people in his mind. Well, there are, and in my case it's not always the greatest thing, because I do have a tremendous talent and appetite for wasting or spending too much money, and it doesn't necessarily go along that well with my lack of motivation for obtaining it. I would say that I am lucky to be where I am in spite of myself.

TRUTH OR DARE

I must admit that I am enjoying these little jousts with lawyers and the whole fore' into the justice system, and that I find it much more interesting than I ever would have thought possible.

LEGALESE

I guess you could say the Warrior lawyer is my lawyer, although no one has actually come out and said that is the reality of the situation. His job while I am being questioned has been pretty consistent. After "opposing" counsel asks me a question, and before I can answer, the Warrior attorney usually says either, "Objection, asked and answered", or, "Object to the form of the question". Whatever he says I pretty much answer the question anyway, or that has been the sequence pretty much as I have seen it. I am not clear about the meaning of all this verbal, legal posturing.

COPY THAT

All I know is that I screwed up the stenographer big time and often by doing things like answering the question before it was completely asked and things like that. I feel like they need to send her a bonus, because although she was gracious, my bad deposition form was stressing her out.

INHERIT THE WIND

I think there is a lot at stake here, and I doubt if I am done with testimony. My guess is that I have to do it again there will be a judge and jury somewhere close by. I'll stay tuned.

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