|
Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
REFLECTIONS ON A GOLDEN SEASON
Last year writing about the season just completed was very difficult. The journalizing
of it made the actual typing it out even harder than it already was in the light of 'Eligibilitygate',
not going to 'nationals', and all the negative fallout from that. I really had no
idea where to begin from last year at this time, because last year in the middle of May
I hadn't even gotten close to closing out 2005 and I daresay its ongoing ramifications.
We lost a lot more than a chunk of one 2005 team season when all was said and done.
My hope is that the post-season essays this year will come from a lighter heart and emerge
from an 'easier' place.
HEY EVERYONE, I'M GOING TO FLORIDA!
I am writing some of this on my way to see my mom. After the rigors of the
2006 season this also seems to fit well. Ma is 82 and still doin' it, but I want to
see her every chance I can. My personal goals have changed this week. They are much
less urgent somehow, and my energy has just gone bye bye somewhere, too. I hope it
is okay to relax, though, while on this mother visitation trek to Central Florida, because
sleeping for 10 hours straight sounds great to me right now.
I want to do quite a bit of reflecting on this year (writing) while there/here, because
I think there is much for me to be learned from 2006, and I don't want it to get too far
away……
As stated my new 'goals' have indeed found altered states to be in, and I don't mean I'm
going to Disneyworld exactly. In this case it is just Florida. My sister gave me one
task for resolution, which was to clean out mom's refrigerator. Done and done. I can
find my role. I have another ambitious undertaking, a biggy. It is to help Ma pick out a
small, quiet, clean dog pal for golden year companionship. Good luck on that one,
coach.
AND THE GAME BALL GOES TO…….
We had our banquet just two nights after the championship final in Dallas. It was
a far more festive occasion than the tear filled edition last year.
By now, Wednesday, we have scattered like buckshot, each with the symbolic championship
Texas style belt buckle in hand that we all received and some have already lost.
My 2006 season ending oration at the dinner lacked inspirational delivery. I wish
I could have done better. Let's just say it took all of me to get the dinner and the
team ceremonial trimmings together on such short notice, so when I went to bring out the
big speech it didn't come off as inspirationally as I might have hoped. The message
was clear, however. What I said was that they can be extremely proud of what they
accomplished this year, and I said that without condition. I also added very
seriously that it was in fact made possible by all those CSU lacrosse players who have come
and gone before them, and that they should never forget the sum of that equation as well.
I told them that they, this team had raised the bar for team play here at the U., and maybe
in the whole USLMDIA, too. I then added that it wasn't enough, and that what we have
here is a real live program and the only way to continue the upward trend is to also raise
those 'bars'; the level of talent, the quality of play, and the realities of their actions
off the field. In light of the whole Duke thing this last part might be truer than
ever. All that stuff is not just about guilt and or innocence. Image really
is everything in many ways. Image is a part of my thoughts and team aspirations now.
As anyone who knows me knows, it wasn't always that way, and, of course, it's (I am) still
not always that pretty.
BEEF AND BREW FOR ALL
We gave out 18 (or so) game balls at the banquet for our 18 wins in 2006. There still
weren't enough to distribute as many as we needed to. Everyone that deserved that
kind of recognition did not get it. We had so many contributors on this team. One
thing this group of humans did well, and it can never be taken away from them, is that they
did a great job of finding roles for themselves on the team in a positive way that would
add to our success, and it was not in all cases the role that they wanted or the one they
will seek in 2007. In other words, many sucked it up and cheered their guts out during the
games in which they did not get a chance to play. I admire this ability very much. I also
demand it.
AND THE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN
Through the years we, as a program, have accomplished new achievements almost every year.
For example, last year we were the first CSU team to be academically ineligible, and therefore
we became the first CSU team in 7 years to not play in an MDIA final. That would be
an example of a not-feel-so-good deed done. Well, this year we got back to the final
and we won it. If our appearances in the final were a single World Series, we finally
would have won the whole shebang, 4 final games won to 3 final games lost. I really
didn't want it to tilt the other, Buffalo Bill/Minnesota Viking way.
THE BOY HAS TO HAVE A NEW DREAM
This was the first year we have been a #1 seed at the tournament, but we are not the first
#1 to win. Sonoma did it first in 2002. This was also our first championship
earned in an even year, as in we won in '99, '01, and '03 only. Well, I have been
reminded and asked about this fact a lot, but I never put much thought into it. This
trend seems unfounded, stupid. I never thought our winning or losing had much to do with
that sort of thing, but people love to talk about junk like that, so now we are done with
that, aren't we? We still have not won back to back, and since UCSB accomplished it
in '04 and '05 it is a first feat no longer available. I do think the Gauchos owe
us an assist on that second one, however, as we were 'kind enough' to not be in their way
last year.
YEAH, COACH, WHAT ABOUT THAT WHOLE RIVALRY ON A NATIONAL STAGE THING?
Another popular subject in my 2006 championship game day interviewing junket was how much
that rivalry thing meant to us for this game. I didn't get it I guess, and I probably
projected a less-than-great attitude, but my feeling then and now is that we beat them at
Invesco on the big stage under the lights, with a huge crowd present, and pretty solidly
in the "Rocky Mountain Showdown". Two weeks later we beat them in the Nexturf
heat in Utah after 'dueling' bus rides out there for the "league" championship.
It was a closer score, but last time I looked we still won that game. So, doesn't
that finish our 'local' business for 2006? The truth for me was that C.U. was in the
way of something we wanted that was in Dallas (Plano), and it didn't matter to us who they
were or where they were from. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but to me it makes more
logical coaching sense, and that is where I came from. Why do I need to beat the big
rivalry thing to death? I don't and I didn't.
PIRATES AND PENDULUMS
We played our best game of the season against BYU under the Friday night lights. The intimacy
of that field and the way they set it up made the 1000 fans or whatever sound like a stadium.
You could barely hear the "WOOH WOOOHS" of Anne Stone above all the others like
you usually can……
Even though we won 12-7, seemingly with ease, it was not easy. It happened that way
because we played so well in so many ways, and I firmly believe we needed that kind of game
on that night. That was the key game in my mind. I would deal with C.U. later
if it came to that, and that was my thinking all along, but BYU just has skilled players,
good coaching, and they never seem to play anything other than well against us. They
had recently beaten us. They weren't scared of no Ram. There was no looking
past the Cougar.
THE EMPIRE STRUCK BACK
We did, I would say, far more pre-game scouting for the first BYU game in 2006, the one
that we lost 11-8 on April 14, than we ever had done for pretty much any other single game
in my tenure here. It then went out and became, in my opinion, the worst game we played
this season, although NDNU was a close second. In preparation to play the Cougars
the other night, May 12, about a month later, I did nothing specific to, for, or about BYU
for our prep. IT was 100% about us, and what we do. We had two days to prepare,
but we did that in a fairly unconventional way I would say, a step back and take-a-deep
breath way if you will. Then, we went out and, also in my opinion, played our best game
of the season. One can draw conclusions or not. These visions of worst and best,
however, were even evident and reflected in the flipping over of the scoreboard numbers.
The differences in CSU play level and quality between the two tilts as played on the field
would have been fairly clear to anyone who might have witnessed both encounters, and even
if you only want to talk about that one single word, "energy". In the end
neither BYU game was a game of a very close kind. It was like having winter and summer in
the same month, and our change of season worked well for us this time.
EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY LORDY (Rod the Mod Stewart)
I called to ask Jason Lamb for a tape of the game. He (BYU coach) tapes every game,
and will come to Fort Collins to tape us on occasion. We have been mostly happy, friendly,
rival coaches for nine of my ten years (we were pitiful the first year), but I have never
asked him for one second of video of any kind. I asked him for a DVD of this one.
I want to see if we played as well as I thought we did, or if it is just my imagination.
THE PARROT DIED BUT THE HAT MADE IT, and I'm not ready for the wooden leg yet, I hope.
Many of the BYU faithful refer to us, the Colorado State University Rams lacrosse team
simply as the "Pirates". They started doing this several years ago, and
we took to the moniker like ducks take to water or in our case like Rams to 'grassy' meadows
across the street from the hotel. It (The Pirates vs. The, uhh, Righteous???) has
almost become an actual part of the unique rivalry that is CSU vs. BYU lacrosse.
Anyway, we went big last Friday night. We had carried the Pirate banners all week,
but on this semi-final occasion we made the full stage entrance. We marched two by
two from the parking lot, all in dark colors (black), waving banners high, and led to battle
by a coach wearing a black felt pirate's hat, full on with green and gold feather and with
skull and crossbones embroidered on the crown. In retrospect I might have looked like
Daffy or Dufus Duck more than Napoleon or D'Artagnon, but whatever, we were making some
kind of statement I suppose.
Some in the crowd (fans of a rival school we would soon play) mocked us for our mocking
ways, and something was said about how we should perhaps go back to high school with this
stuff, and the National Championships is not a place for such antics. I apologize
somewhat to any offended sensitivities, but I do not apologize for having fun, and I am
sorry, but we had fun all week and not just Saturday night after we had won.
YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT - The Rolling Stones
I know I am going to be on television with this MDIA boat ride when College Sports TV airs
the final game and the tournament highlights later this month. I got the feeling that
'they' weren't all that comfortable with 'me' on camera, however, and that it might have
been better if one of the younger, better looking coaches had won the thing, an athletic
looking one with hair and no follically challenged, one week old playoff beard thing going
on. Maybe all that is my personal paranoid fantasy, and just another part of my sarcastically
psychotic form of me rearing up on my hind legs, to the ready as it be. We shall see
if it is so and if I do indeed end up on the floor of the editing room metaphor.
They certainly won't try to hide the last five minutes of the game. That was something
visually special, at least I think it was. It should be there to see when replayed. I'll
have to tune in and see if memory serves me.
LET'S HEAR/HERE IT FOR THE BOYS
And, by the way, I know I wasn't there to confirm it from 2005, the year without us, but
I am saying that having CSU around makes the USLMDIA championships just a little bit more
fun, love us or hate us. I know 'being there' makes it more fun for me to 'be here
now'…………
Next Entry | Previous
Entry
Flip Started Blogging Before it was Cool, Read Over 400 of His Entries Since January 2001
Jump to a Period:
2006: Jan Feb Mar
Apr May June
July Aug Sept
Oct Nov
2005: Jan Feb Mar
Apr May June
July Aug Sept
Oct Nov Dec
2004: Jan Feb Mar
Apr May June
July Aug Sept
Oct Nov Dec
2003: Jan Feb Mar
Apr May June
July Aug Sept
Oct Nov Dec
2002: Jan Feb
Mar Apr May
June July
Aug Sept
Oct Nov Dec
2001: Jan Feb
Mar Apr May
Sept Oct
Nov Dec
|
