Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

7/3/06 - CITY GRILLE/FLYING DOG – 9 – ROCK-IT POCKET – 7

Our chance to get back near the top part of the seed 'pod' for the Vail Lacrosse Shootout 2007 tournament went down in pre-fourth-of-July 2006 flames. We got way, way down, 8-1, and the first 12 minute quarter had not yet expired. I maintain that if you "manage" yourselves as a team, this kind of deficit cannot possibly happen to you in just one quarter of play. There are ways to avoid this, and I say that it almost doesn't matter who you are playing. Anyway we didn't manage well at all, so it was all like, face-off, fast break for them, goal for them, and then back, Jack, do it again. I was not happy at all, mostly with our effort and the overall state of hung-overness I was surrounded by. Gag all of me with a spoon.

LAST CALL?

In my opinion Vail has become somewhat over-saturated in the party portion of the event, and in some ways the celebration of lacrosse 'friendships' now almost overshadows the playing of and the honoring of the game itself. To me and to my way of thinking this disrespects the rich spiritual history of lacrosse and why we are here playing, and I do not care how many All-Americans have "blessed" us with their presence in Vail.

Team Rock-it Pocket, with just a few Division I players (Cornell, Rutgers), is not immune to the focus on the nightlife in Vail over the Fourth. Our opponent today showed up just minutes before the game started and did not warm up. I think our team was sitting there hoping the other team wouldn't show up at all, and that we would win by forfeit. The thought seemed to be that if they did surface, they would be over-partied and easy to beat. NOT! At any rate this was not a good team frame-of-mind for us to be in. The result became that we weren't ready for the onslaught that was on the way.

PUT SOME MUSTARD ON THAT BUNCH OF HOT DOGS

The City Grille/Flying Dogs had many Denver University helmets on its heads. D.U. players dot the tournament rosters with Pioneers past or present on almost every team in Vail this year. There is nothing particularly new with this, but this was not that. Rather, what I saw here was a concentration of red and gold helmets that reminded me of our own C.S.U. bunch of green and gold hats that cover much of the Team Rock-it Pocket head.

They were good and skilled lacrosse players of the highest level, these City Grillers, and they were indeed grilling us early on. Would you like fries with that?

YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONES YOU LOVE…. Or.. SUPERSIZE ME

Unfortunately I still had my self-righteous, can't get no respect attitude thing going on almost a day after the fact, so when these guys started laughing loudly at us while the score for them quickly grew, I started to take it very personally, at least for a short time. At one point, however, we needed to stop the madness, especially me. Alex gave me the cue, but I knew it was time already. I did stop talking to the other team, and I began to just 'shut up and coach'. This is what my mind set should have been before I started yapping during the previous day's IAS game.

So I took all the anger that I had now drummed up for this group of D.U. players that were laughing at us and me and I put that all into getting us going in the right direction. I never said another word to the other team for the rest of the game. I didn’t think about them again until much, much later. We subsequently scratched and clawed at the score all the rest of the way, ultimately falling just short at 9-7. Unfortunately, and even though we were only in the first quarter at the time, the turnabout had come too late for us to get the victory. We eventually just ran out of time in this one.

ACCURACY – DEPENDABILITY – CONSISTENCY – DURABILITY, or…. ROCK THIS!

The other team had also jabbed at me and us for taking the game so "seriously" as they forged their large early lead. They talked loudly about how the ‘famous’ Rock-it Pocket "adds two miles an hour" to the shot (but apparently was not helping us much at the moment, ha ha). Boy, they were sure having fun. I’m sure that by reacting the way I did initially I was giving them the desired result as well.

I (C.C. Tiger lax team) was laughed at once by a D.U. team in my first college game against them while I was a rookie with Colorado College. way back in 1972. This alone motivated me for years. As a player I never enjoyed a victory more than our 16-4 romp at Denver University in 1975, my senior year in college. I remember just sitting on the bench, basking in the late April sun during the fourth quarter of that one, my work for the day having been well past done by then.

This 2006 'flashback' was different. There was far too much of a party atmosphere or whatever involved this time for me to take it the way I did back then, but I still know an ungracious winner when I see one.

IS IT IN YOU?

At any rate "they" only scored one goal after the first quarter. That is more than 36 minutes that we hunkered down and kept them at least within missile range. That sole tally for them was netted by a long pole player at that, making it almost a fluke more than a statement. As we crept closer the bitching on the other side of the scorer's table grew, and I guarantee that there was not much yukking at all going on at the other bench in the fourth quarter. We did not win, but in some ways that unhappiness on their sideline was salvage enough for me on this game day which had started out with us having a team breakdown of titanic lacrosse proportions.

We could have beaten that team, hung over as we were or not, if I would have just come in with the right attitude and not a malignant chip on my shoulder.

7/4/06 - ROCK-IT POCKET 10 – VINEYARDS VINES 4
ROCK-IT POCKET – 11TH PLACE 2006 Vail Shootout

Many of the players on the ‘Vineyard’ team play or played at division I or III programs throughout the East with a commonality of New England roots I think.

We played well in this one, and finished the tournament in style?. It was a methodical win, and much more of what I might consider a CSU style of game and victory. Many contributed. Recent CSU lax program grad Michael Murphy (M - #9 CSU 2006) emerged from the tournament lost and found pile and a sprained ankle with a nice little game. I'm not sure Birdie (#1 – M- CSU – 2007) could see the cage when the game started, but he had a good outing, too. The defense played well throughout the tournament with the exception of that 'Dog" game where we gave up the 8 first quarter goals.

We had a trio of UCSBers on the very large squad, again, and these Gauchos are becoming like part of the family here. This is scary stuff. Are we swimming in dangerous MDIA waters if we get too friendly with them? I think we will be together with a couple of them again in Lake Tahoe a few weeks hence for a lax tournament there. I guess there is some kind of logical irony to this CSU-UCSB-Flip connection. I even practically fell in love with one of the current Gauchos, Dustin Benesch (UCSB - M - #45 for them). He is my kind of player (short and intense).

Maybe it is a credit to UCSB coach Mike Allan, but whatever the reason, I feel like it is easy for me to step in and coach players from his team. I had fun with that and with them.

IT (lacrosse) NEVER STOPS and it’s my own damn fault.

TAKE A CHILL PILL – less is always more

I felt good and strong on the sidelines against Vineyard Vines. I feel very comfortable coaching a game with Alex as my ‘assistant’. We work well as a team. The win felt smooth and almost easy.

We (Rock-it Pocket) lost two games by a total of only three goals. We won two fairly comfortably. Obviously things could have been much different for us over the four days. I think I promised them (Team) custom helmets for next year. They (we) better not suck then

CANADIAN JUSTICE as interpreted BY THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM

As a pro lacrosse player Alex Smith (#26 in your Denver Outlaw program) was not allowed to play goal for us this year. No out door MLL pro players can play in Vail, except of course, the entire Canadian National Team. All those players (10-15) had an exemption and COULD play in Vail. So this bunch of guys came to the tournament as Team Mammoth, but they were really the Canadian National team, complete with the Great Gary Gait, and of course they won the tournament easily, pounding Team Go Fast. That seems fair, right? I wonder if THEY had to join US Lacrosse to play ($45). Everyone else (American) does, but I'll bet they (Canadians, eh) had an exemption on that, too. They brought all the national team coaches, managers, etc. with them to Colorado.

TOO FAST TO LIVE, TOO YOUNG TO DIE, BYE BYE – The Eagles (James Dean reference)

Now if I could only convert the Red Bull and Vodkas they (my team) consume in Vail into water or Gatorade, then I would have a chance at something more.

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