Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Sunday, April 23, 2006

COLORADO STATE - 9 - COLORADO – 6 –

Weather – A lovely Denver evening
Attendance – WOW! Maybe 4000-5000 people
Rating – ET – Excellent game and it was a Thriller, too
Record - Final regular season - 12-3

A TALE OF TWO TRIPS

When we arrived at the stadium yesterday there was a high school game going on between two of Denver's powerhouse high school lacrosse teams. We chilled and watched that for a while as we soaked up the whole being there at the big show thing. We were assigned the visitor's football locker room. Local legend has it that Bill Cowher (HC of Bronco Super Bowl wreckers, the Pittsburgh Steelers) had personally ordered this full-length mirror that now stood in the visitor's HEAD coach's locker room. I suppose he just left it there in the wake of his Super Bowl shuffle. I preferred and felt more comfortable in the assistant coach's locker room, so I went in there to change instead.

Our player’s locker room for this Invesco deal was bigger than most of the places where we have practiced this season, if that gives a small idea of its grandness in scale. We were currently home based in the ultimate lap of locker room luxury. Last week at D.U. where we played the BYU game, we were basically put in a closet to dress. I felt like the useless afterthought that we generally seemed to be at that venue. They got the biggest lacrosse crowd they (D.U.) have ever had last Friday night after our game, but I’m sure it had nothing to do with us being the undercard.

I will not be begging to play at D.U. next year as I have for the past three. I love the place, but I admit that I don’t like being treated like we don’t matter or count. I guess I’m funny that way. That whole day sucked for me, as did the practices leading up to it, so the result was not a shock. Why would the rest of that day have been any different?

MILE HIGH MADNESS

I much preferred last night from the get go. Everyone at Invesco was nice, polite, accommodating, and let’s just say professional in their approach to everything. At D.U. it was all about getting us in and out and getting the proverbial and literal nickel rolling now. At Invesco it’s all about doing it all right, and from there, in theory, the nickels will come clamoring down later. Also, I’m quite sure that our crowd was actually larger than D.U.’s record attendance was for the big D.U. vs. Notre Dame game after ours last Friday. I am not sure why they (Denver U. architects) made the home lacrosse stadium so small in terms of seating capacity, because it is indeed a beautiful facility.

I know our crowd was larger than the one for the Denver Rapids Pro soccer team game at Invesco last week. They had but 3500 for that one, and the goal for us was always just to beat that number, not to get 50,000 or whatever. Still, I admit that I was surprised when we actually did go well over 3500.

BOULDER TO FORT COLLINS

Any way that I look at it, it seems great for us to have for our intrastate club game attract a crowd number even close to the size that D.U. attracts. After all, Denver U. and Notre Dame play the game at a higher level with scholarships and well paid coaches and stuff. People are much more interested in that than they are with that whole Hatfield/McCoy CSU/CU thing that's only CLUB, right? Perhaps that is not so. Maybe it is Coloradoans or maybe it is just that all people love to have something external to unconditionally hate.

The savage intensity of the CU vs. CSU rivalry was the first thing that really struck me when I came here from laid back Santa Barbara, California. Somehow it never seems to get more civilized in the stands when these two schools compete at anything. I am just the coach when it comes to how much alcohol is being consumed somewhere behind me. I think they cut off beer sales last night after the third quarter.

HE HATE ME

On the field, however, I think the level of respect between these two lacrosse teams has grown. They are both very much programs and not just clubs. The third annual Rocky Mountain Showdown game itself was a great game as it has been for all three of its years. The game has finally gotten to a philosophical place (for me) where it represents much more of what is good about intense sport rivalry between two institutions of higher learning. I'm not sure I can say anything like that about my first few years here.

WELCOME TO THE BIG TIME, KID

I had been to Invesco Field at Mile High. In fact I could see where I sat or whatever when I came to the Bronco game once, but never had I been part of a game that was to take place in a stadium as gargantuan as this. We played at Pepsi Center back in 2004, and the crowd size was very similar to the one we would eventually have on this night, but one cannot compare being in an indoor arena that holds 18,000 like Pepsi to where I was now standing, on this pristine grass floor, while looking up and around at 70,000 places to sit. With that cherry-blue, mile-high sky on top it was all a sight to behold. Can I say cherry blue? I guess I can because I just did. I couldn't even imagine what it might be like to stand where I was standing when the place is full and abuzz. I closed my eyes and tried anyway.

SUPERSIZE ME

Oh yeah, the game. There really was one. It didn't start out the way I might have hoped. That was definitely NOT a shock, though. I knew the hunger that the Buffs would bring to this mile high lacrosse buffet. They are having a great year and they are tired of losing to us. These appetizers of pre-game information sounded less than appetizing to me all season.

They (C.U.) have an excellent goalie, one who in fact played with us last year, and that was just the top story line of the personal connections that weave a tangled web in this 2006 C.U. vs. C.S.U. saga.

With 3:24 left in the first quarter I looked up at the Jumbotron scoreboard, the one with old Trigger the horse rearing up and all painted stark white. He was way up there on top of all the numbers and advertisements. Just below his hooves is where it was posted for me to see best: C.U. 3 – CSU 0. It came complete with a bigger than life replay of the goal action that made 3-0 so being replayed on the jumbo screen at the time. It wasn't bad enough to be behind by 3 early on, but there it was proclaimed on a scoreboard one can see from Fort Morgan.

We were being somewhat outplayed and maybe a tad out-hustled, too in the beginning. The C.U. team did want it all right, no doubt about that. I was secretly staring super-sized humiliation in the face, complete with the on-sight giant video replays to come, the ones that might be there for me to possibly have to endure. Fortunately for me I am too stupid to panic, or at least I was yesterday, and so I didn't.

I was saying to myself, "shucks," or something like that. I had really thought that we were fairly well prepared this week. I thought we were pretty good team getting better. I've thought that all year. Was I missing something? I thought we were finally ready to play a whole game as a whole team. Now I was laboring with the possibility and the thought that we might not be good enough after all, and that the possibility existed that we were 'no longer' always a step ahead of anyone anymore. The particular fact of the moment was that we were currently a step behind these Buffaloes, the ones who had just run over us with that small but significant first quarter stampede.

HELLO!........... AND I REALLY DO LOVE THESE GUYS

Near the end of the opening quarter we finally answered the ringing phone with a goal scored by game MVP Tyler Treece (#30 A – 2008), who had 5 goals on the day. That first one was a slam dunk kind of goal, neatly assisted by Danny Stevens (#32 A – 2007). Danny had 4 helpers on the day. We eventually crawled back in the game in the second quarter and it was tied at 3 by halftime. One of those 2 to tie was a Vickery (#21 - M - 2008?) goal, one you hope for but do not necessarily expect, and that was very helpful. Treece fed him. We had chances to go up before the half, but did not. Both goalies made spectacular saves on this night. The crowd roared for each one.

It's cool to go back inside to the locker room at the half, by the way. We had already made a few early changes or adjustments and I felt strongly that we were getting a little bit of a hold on the game and it's elemental momentum by halftime. I knew it could be ours if I didn't screw it up too bad. The halftime oration thing wasn't that big of a deal for me last night.

Maybe we don’t suck, thought I. I cheered us on I guess.

They (reporters) asked me after the game (again) what I had said at halftime, but the fact of the matter is that we had turned it around way before halftime.

AND IF 6 TURNED OUT TO BE 9 – I DON’T MIND (Jimi Hendrix)

Admit it Coach, they/we were playing hard, playing pretty well, and most importantly playing together, in sync as it were, and they were doing all these things more and more as the game went on, weren't they? Truthfully, what more can you hope for from your team on one given night, Coach? You were feeling better and better as the game went on, weren’t you Coach? And or But you were scared right up until that last minute empty-net goal was put gently to bed and in the net by Steven Lundberg (#16 – M – 2009) that made it 9-6, weren’t you Coach? WELL, weren't you?

I’M SURE IT WAS THE WHITE JERSEYS

The truth is that after we trailed 3-0 we outscored the Buffs 9-3 over the last 46 minutes of the game. The other truth is that in all our games this year, close or lop-sided, this was by far the 'soundest' team effort we have put on the field, and we produced it for almost four quarters this time. Yes, we got behind, but we never had a Richard-Nixon-tape sized gap in our game consistency, not yesterday. This gives me real hope, and it makes my coaching juices flow.

Earlier in the season and maybe even too often we had shown the inability to finish a game right. Last night we finished it correctly. This was something to build on.

BEAT THE DRUM SLOWLY, BUT BY ALL MEANS BEAT IT

I still do seek our sound, and last night we came closer to making it than we ever have. I say onward and upward. I think last night the boys really felt the power of team and that it is way stronger than any particular part of any team can ever be.

We didn't get behind early 3-0 to C.U. because we sucked. We got behind because that was how much the C.U. Buffs wanted it. Competition is a most wonderful thing. I am extremely proud of the team effort last night and how comfortably, confidently, and smartly they extricated themselves out of that early 3-0 hole to give themselves a chance. They played a wonderful team game and that's what ultimately allowed us to succeed against C.U. Lately we haven't exactly done things this way. This was better. So many contributed last night. I believe that many together will also be our key to unlocking any future doors we might wish to crack wide open.

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