Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Saturday, August 12, 2006

THE BOYS WILL BE BACK IN TOWN

It looks like we are going to be able to travel and play in a potentially great fall ball tournament in Lax, I mean Las Vegas in late October (27,28). This is almost refreshing to me at this point. Fall ball hasn’t been that inspirational for me lately in terms of the number of games that we played, and ‘little things’ like that. Last year flat out sucked.

We, of course, were banned from going to Vegas last October, based on our Disney/Van gate problems from the year before. It has been two years since we were "Nothing but money" in Glitter Gulch, but it has been many years since it was really a "Best of the West" type of tournament, and that was the original plan back around 1998. This year they are planning it like a regular tournament, where there is, in fact, a winner at the end of two days of playing.

FUTURE GAMES

I like contemplating upcoming seasons during the summer months. It is definitely coaching without pressure. I have, however, discovered that one summer can be the polar opposite from the next for me on this level. It depends pretty much on whether we won the last game of the year or not. Last summer was painful. We had not won or lost. We had simply been shoved off the cliff and into the abyss. The hardest part was that I had provided the impetus for the final push from the edge on that one. The summer and fall were not a helpful part of reconstruction. It’s a wonder we did what we did in 2006 now that I think about it. We have a chance to do much more to help ourselves prepare this year.

Except for scheduling, which is always a pain in the butt, I have enjoyed internally assembling the building-a-team and season process a lot this summer. I think I already know what ‘kind’ of a team I want us to be in the spring. I think about how I am going to prepare us to be that team with drill emphasis and my overall philosophical approach. I think about what style of play that might suit us better or where our strengths and or weaknesses seem to be.

I do not think about individuals and who will play where all that much. There are too many variables for me to deal with all that now.

AFTER CHANGES UPON CHANGES WE ARE MORE OR LESS THE SAME –
Paul Simon
We do have changes to deal with at CSU lacrosse for 2007 that are significant and that will take serious coaching focus on my part for things to have any chance at being anywhere close to a seamless sort of transition. We have veterans who will come in thinking they are empowered by their status. That doesn’t work for me. I am truly the coach who should have come from the state of Missouri (wink), as in the "SHOW ME" state. Show me and show me now. Whoever a CSU lacrosse player might be, he need not only impress me, but also his teammates. That’s how we do it here, and there is never any time like the present says I.

I do not project depth charts in August. I find this whole concept to be counter-productive for my "style" of coaching.

REALITY BITES?

I was in a meeting recently, and a thought came into my head about the real meaning of knowing the truth and that it doesn’t always necessarily set you free. I have been a part of four national championship teams here at CSU, and I know that at least for the most recent three of those I didn’t go to sleep thinking about how great of a coach I was. No, I invariably went nervously to my bed wondering if I would later be awakened by a phone call from someone that I wouldn’t want to hear from at 3:00 a.m. about something I didn’t want to know about at all. "MY" kids were celebrating loudly somewhere, there could be no doubt, but could the team leaders keep it all together and make it so I would be posting no bail money the next morning?

Shouldn’t I have a paid someone by now to do all this worrying for me? Oh wait, no it cannot be, for we are still clubby after all these years.

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S BEEN 8 YEARS!

I am not sure how clearly I remember the way I felt after the first championship we won in 1999. I do remember thinking immediately after winning that one that it wasn’t nearly sufficient for my hedonistic self. One championship was not good enough to prove the point I had in mind. I’m afraid I knew right then that it would take more than that to knock the massive chip off of my shoulder. I might feel the same basic way today. I still had Lyme disease pretty good in the Spring of ’99, so winning it all in St. Louis that year was really just the beginning of the rebuilding of me process that took me a long, long time.

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

Then, of course, don’t forget that we have the whole high expectation for the Rams thing to deal with. This is not news anymore. We will likely be voted #1 in the nation during preseason polls, and then for as long as we can hold it. This stuff no longer makes me fret. It used to worry me, but then I got used to it. I am also afraid that in reality it probably boils down to how superstitious I might be feeling, and right now I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

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