Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Sunday, July 23, 2006

ISN’T THIS THE DAY THEY LANDED ON THE MOON?

Although my actual involvement was pretty much inert yesterday, for July 22 it was none-the-less a fascinating/interesting lacrosse day for me. It started in the morning when I got an email from a goalie who is thinking of attending CSU, but that that doesn’t even really count I guess because that (a new goalie might be coming here) is pretty much a daily occurrence. I think that I am glad that more coaches don’t do what I do, which is to pretty much rely 100% on word-of-mouth recruiting. I think it works pretty well, at least for us.

PLEASE WAIT 45 MINUTES AFTER EATING BEFORE YOU SWIM

I get emails pretty much every day (no kidding) from perspective CSU laxers. This is giving us quite a pool of players to get a team from anymore. Some of them are bound to come to Colorado State University and will likely jump in and swim well with us is the way I figure it.

FIELD OF POPEYES

I maintain my aging yet hopefully still fresh attitude of the ‘if you build it they will come’ mentality, and so far so good. I work on evolving that thing (program/family) that players want to come and be a part of. I encourage our own players to bring others from the school where they they came from, etc. I do not focus particularly hard on the process of getting them to come here or what position they play, although we do seem to attract goalies of late as if this were Goalie U. Is this the Alex Smith factor?

I still do (or don’t do) recruiting things in this same way in spite of how much money it costs to play nowadays, but I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I yam.

CANADIAN MOON PIE

Yesterday afternoon I watched Team Canada spank Team USA with a sparkling and inspiring second half performance to win the 2006 World Championships held in Canada.

My personal interest in all this was heightened somewhat by the fact that this Team Canada team had begun their World Championship training in Vail by winning the Vail Lacrosse Shootout, Elite Division, as the Colorado Mammoth entry just over two weeks ago. That team was not really the Mammoth, however. Who they were was this Canadian National Team, right down to the multiple coaches and training tables. They won our tournament and in the final game it was more or less a mercy rule situation. They (we) kept the clock running late in that blowout over Team Go Fast and all the Hopkins helmets that the Go Fasters wore.

The Canadian project was already rapidly coming together three weeks ago, and you could see it happening in those four days at 8000 feet. They practiced and trained like crazy in Vail over those days, too, and I watched them whenever I could.

I was therefore even more keenly interested in this World Championship than I might have normally been. Overall, I like the International game with its International rules and implications, but not as much as I like the college game we play here in the states. It also hadn’t been that interesting in recent years, given the fact that it had been 28 of them (years) since the only time a team other than the one from the USA had ever won (Canada in England in 1978) the thing. Canada had brought their national team to Vail before, too, two or three times in fact, but this one had a different feel to it. This group was seemingly on a mission, one they were enjoying as it unfolded.

It seemed that for once they (Canada) might have also had what they needed to be able to match-up with the Americans all the way to the tournament's end. Plus they still had Gary Gait. He might be graying at the temples, but everything he touches turns more or less into Gold before too much time goes by. This would be no exception.

I watched the first meeting of the two teams, USA and Canada, in the preliminary round of these World Games last week. Canada, as they have for the past few of the every 4-year series of meetings played the Americans close. They had the chance to win, and then let it slip away at the end. The final was like 13-12 for USA. It seemed like that trend had become the pattern almost. The North-of-the-border guys could hang, but could not finish the international summit with the intended result. Even as I watched the early part of the Championship game yesterday, which was taking place in the rain in London, Ontario, it appeared that the USA team just had more talent and would likely again be the last team standing. The Canadians hung, again, however, and with a few terrific late first half saves by the Canadian goalie Chris Sandersen, the game began to take on a different feel. Momentum was shifting and the second half would indeed bare that out.

The game ended up at 15-10 for Canada. The USA had led by one at the half I think. Canada started to take over early in the third. They grabbed the Eagle by the tail feather and would not let go.

Then, the team from the USA got actually ‘bum-rushed’ in the final quarter. They were flattened, punctuated, run over. Any which way you look at it, Team USA was in a mess and a world of hurt at the end, trying feebly to get the ball away and back from the opponent with inprecise double teams that came from the goalie position. The plan was that this tactic could hopefully allow them to come from behind. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like they had practiced the whole coming from behind concept very much. It only took Canada a matter of seconds to score off of each of these double teams that were coming in from the America side. The desired US effect was replaced with something that looked like a Canadian Blitzkrieg, a north of the border barrage, more than it reflected the planned American attack.

What the fourth quarter really ended up becoming was three or four easy empty net dunks (huge goals) for Team Canada, and mostly for Gary Gait his own self. The Gaiter Man can still bust up a double team, and do it pretty much blindfolded, and that’s all he had to do to get the whole net to shoot at. He finished with 4 goals in that fourth. It seems somehow fitting that he could still fit a whole game’s worth of production into one crucial quarter.

EDITORIAL

I am not a coach, but I have actually played one recently on TV. I would never second-guess the efforts of our national team. The squad was awesomely talented, they were in the finals, and they appeared to have every chance to win. What more can you ask for in life?

There are also more great lacrosse players in the USA than there are in any other country. This number is certainly factual, and likely the ratio is staggering. Talent should account for success from time to time and at certain points within a struggle.

In my humble opinion the USA team was missing a couple of ingredients that would have almost guaranteed American gold. We (USA) did not bring in a face-off guy to be on hand just to help gain some measure of team confidence in this most important phase of the game. ‘We’ did not have the best face-off guy in America on the team. I am positive of that. I am not sure why that was not a priority. The one used to face off is a great short stick defensive and offensive middie, but at the X he was beaten cleanly or blown for illegal procedure almost every time.

‘We’ seemed to opt for overall talent and potential versatility throughout when choosing the United States’ national team. Also, there seemed to be an emphasis on getting everything politically correct instead of just getting the best team for the job at hand. That job at hand included playing with international rules and on a field that would suit the ‘box’ needs of the Canadians. The surface was old school Astroturf carpet, and the Canadians threw more bounce passes than regular flying passes, for Pete’s sake. They played like they had always played there. The Americans seemed almost intimidated by the wet, less than great conditions, and even by all the bounce passes. The Canadians were poised and kept coming all game long.

JUST PLONKEY IT!

The other thing I did not understand was the whole long pole thing. We chose seemingly old school, great one on one style defenders for Team USA, and, again in my opinion, that is not where we are in lacrosse anymore. You need great and aggressive defenders who have great sticks, too. On top of that they need to have the ability and know-how to do more than your mere mortal. That includes slide and recover defense (team defense). There are now many, many great stick handlers that are also, in fact, long poles. I’ve seen them. These players are potentially stars in my 'scheme'. They are offensive creators, even momentum shifters, and Team USA didn’t bring some of them along for the ride.

In my opinion (again) you must own the middle of the field or your task always becomes larger. At least that is my thought and my goal is to own and or dominate that chunk of very valuable lacrosse real estate.

With great long pole midfielders and team oriented defenders I feel that one can do so much more as a coach. To cite just one simple example, a coach can effectively shut off or close down people who might be killing his team at a particular time and he can do that with simple ‘team defense’ concepts. These work with and above the one-on-one match-ups that are alive and constantly changing in a game. 'Team defense' is not magic by itself, but you can make magic from it.

Great ‘team defenses’ are the ones that do not allow single individuals to beat them, no matter who they match up with on our team. Playing your ‘best’ player and getting him the ball so he can 'go' against our ‘worst’ defender doesn’t necessarily scare us (if only that was really so). Once this team belief is in place, so the story goes, the long poles with star quality can then be turned loose to do more. I have always thought of the process as sort of the "unleashing of the Plonkey," because this style of playing came to fruition as an aggressive game tactic for me and us with Mark Plonkey and during his years here.

TUPELO HONEY

To my way of thinking great ‘team defenses’ force an offense to be excellent or perfect in their execution every single time. That is a lot of pressure. If ‘they’ still insist on relying on one guy dodging or whatever, well, we have ways……. At least that is the sweet theory.

Am I one of only a small group who thinks that the Long Stick Midfielder can and maybe should be the biggest star on the field, and perhaps the game’s most complete player, the Queen Bee as it were? With Brody Merrill I think Canada gets it. Where was our great USA long stick middie? I know they are out there. I see them on TV all the time with all the lax coverage we now get Spring and Summer. I am searching right now for one (LSM Superstar) for us here at CSU. We already would seem to have good possibilities, but I always look for more of them from this position. I am looking for volunteers. For me it is Job One, right after the fixing of our face-off failures of recent times.

One would think that with more or less the whole world to choose from, we (USA) could have done more with that Long Stick position. I can think of one, and I even have his phone number.

By the way, this Canada team had Geoff Snider, who was MVP for his face-off prowess and versatility in both the Vail and the World events. I am sure the Outlaws will be glad to get him back for the MLL stretch run, and speaking of Outlaws…….

I AM NOW A FULL BLOWN OUTLAW – So what else is new?

The evening yesterday featured me playing the part of a geriatric bachelor. I was alone, but I have no clue what to do. I have no life. I just pretend to have one. I was at a personal and social crossroad. Fortunately I had tickets to the Denver Outlaw professional lacrosse game in Denver. Alex Smith, CSU’s own (G – 2003 - #26), would be starting in Goal while Trevor Tierney was in Canada playing for the USA team in the game up there earlier in the day. I could not, would not miss this one at Invesco. I love the atmosphere there anyway. The evening was warm, pleasant. My hopes and expectations for Alex were high.

I was proud of us (CSU lacrosse) and excited for Alex (the professional lacrosse player) about everything that had happened for him. I also spent much of the game wanting to go down and coach him and them, but I had to restrain myself and act the part of a regular fan for the most part.

The Outlaws won the game, 17-12 I think. It got sticky and almost close at one point (14-12?) later in the fourth quarter. Then the local bad asses (Outlaw stars Mike Law, Josh Simms, and Brian Langtry) did their timely bank robbing jobs by stealing a few much needed late goals so the team could get away with the final five goal margin.

I spent much of the game moving around rather than sitting in my 50-yard line season ticket seats. I was interested in observing the almost 13,000 members of fandom that were there. There are some hard core fans that get all dressed up like they are part of Jesse James’ gang, and it is very festive.

I also tried to position myself near Alex (in case he needed me, right?). He was (almost) great, played stellar and solid thinking lacrosse, and I stayed to hear his interview with the media after the final horn. He is a bit of a fan favorite, this red headed rookie.

There was much talk by the knowledgeable fans as I moved about during the game about the club goalie, about Trevor, the starting goal tender, and in fact their differences as players. That part of the evening was fascinating. I think I was a voyeur in an earlier life because it seems to come naturally to me to look and listen in.

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