Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Sunday, December 25, 2005

There is a phone line next door, but I was unable to link up and be on line.  This writing stuff won't be posted for a while, and by now everyone should be bored enough with a single entry.  I have this fantasy that if I go over about 200 words it's enough to make everyone stop reading "the journal".   So, I figure I can probably get away with saying just about anything at this point. 

I did find out that the Broncos were leading 22-0 in the third quarter yesterday, so home field and a week off are looking possible from my vantage point here at the end of the sports earth.

THE SPIRIT OF GIVING

I have started to think about lacrosse again.  The overwhelming amount of new stimuli available for me here in paradise has settled in a bit.  The waves have settled, too.  Apparently someone was killed by big waves in California this week as well, so it's not "Big Wednesday" around here all the time, and those really were huge waves for a few days.

I have been thinking that if all these lacrosse players I am in charge of do, in fact, put in the time to train their bodies to be ready when we return, and not just come in with the old "ready to get ready" look, then I will indeed have certain responsibilities as that very lucky coach, too.  Lots of the guys have been working their butts off.  I have noticed (maybe it's my imagination) that most of the sophomores and non-starters that want to start are just shutting up and striving to climb the next flight of stairs. During the recent so-called off-season of two practices a week several times I have noticed how hard certain players are working.  I must reward dedication with opportunity.  It will not be easy.  Practices are limited in scope and scale early on after everyone returns, and we have no easy schedule to start off with.

DON'T LOOK BACK

We have had very little competition since last April, period, partly a fact of the life imposed upon us as punishment.  We were supposed to learn a life lesson.  It's not like we didn't already know how hard it is to get 40 people on the exact same page, whether on field or in vans and hotels. Either way it was important to the powers that be that somehow the development of our program should be stunted.  That would be considered a productive turn, so that worked for them.  I feel a million miles behind and we haven't even started yet.

Meanwhile "they" will have been playing in California and in domes around the country for a few weeks by the time our players roll back in for our first session at the Edge on January 17.  We (CSU) return later than most from break.

Opportunity to ease some of the before mentioned hard working people in new and big situations to prepare them will not be an option this year.  First of all, we have basically nothing competitive until February 23.  We have few or no "JV" kind of games.  There is too much space between the haves and the have-nots in the MDIA these days.  Many teams do not want to play us anymore, and truthfully, I don't like too many of those kind of games either.

THE VOTES ARE IN

Our February 23 opening in Santa Barbara is against the defending National Champions AND their rowdy fans, who will be playing in their 4^th game of 2006 when we face it off.   It does not get that much easier for us after that.  We travel to Whittier two days later on that Saturday, and our second trip to California follows two short weeks after we return from this first one.  There we will start out with Sonoma State in their black knee-deep mud pit and with hostile fans as well.  The "Sea Wolves" are the team picked to win it all in this year of 2006.  I liked it better when they were the politically incorrect COSSACKS.

We were picked #2 in the before-the-season (straw) poll, based on what I am not sure, but they never pick us #1 anyway, nor have we ever been as low as #4 in one of the pre-season deals.  Well and whatever, if I ever saw us as underdog going in, it is now.  We have much to overcome, at least on paper, but I know this is not a paper team.

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