Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, September 15, 2006

THIS OLD TEAM

I have already gotten the signal. This team will not be simple. They won’t be as easy to coach as last year’s team. It is not the players’ fault or whatever. It just is. It may not necessarily even be true. It is just what I see. That is okay. I like to coach.

ALWAYS GOAL ORIENTED

I keep trying to ask good questions based on my personal first commandment of form, which is to ask a good question when confronted with a problem or dilemma. The theory is that this will give you (me) good answers to work from. This can help you (me) to narrow things down to more profiled and stable states, rather than just finding one’s self cast into the abyss of the unknown or undecided and then being caught in its spidery web of indecision.

The query I seek wisdom from has something to do with me, nine goalies, and yes, one team to do it all with. The math just is not great here. Not only that, but in a waspy sort of way I have the rainbow coalition of goalies and personalities, a veritable freak show. Arguably my biggest problem is that I have a real soft spot for goalies. They are very often very special people.

I’m working on it!

BACK TO THE FUTURE or.....

IS IT IN YOU?

I used to view and treat my own personal body like the proverbial temple. Back when I played every single thing that I ate, drank, slept on or thought about was important. I did yoga, I ate only certain things the night before a game, and went through my playing ‘moves’ with discipline, like they were karate forms to be perfectly done. Like the De Lorean in the first Back to the Future movie I needed to get going just exactly the right speed of 88 miles per hour and have the perfect mix of ‘uranium’ or whatever (bananas and protein shakes for me). Specific ingredients were critical in order to make that trip from one place to another time. In the movie the destination was to squeeze in between the dimensions. For me it was, and still is about getting ready for game time, and to get supremely ready whether or not it is taking place ‘in prime time’.

In later BTF movies the old professor could take basic trash from a wide variety of resources and throw it into his gas tank and he could use this bunch of almost anything as fuel to go anywhere back or forward in time, no problem. The DeLorean had been rebuilt many times and he had done it himself. The De Lorean even became his ‘second’ time travel vehicle if you will. He had others in the time warp garage. He knew how to make the time machine thing work on many levels because time passing (real time?) had simplified everything for him and evaporated parts of the process in the process.

My hope as a coach and I guess as a human is that (my) experience will always allow me to simplify.

But the real point of this little rave is that I no longer treat my rapidly aging body as something sacred. I run on Cherry Pepsi and cheeseburgers whenever possible. Throw in some pond scum (algae), and I'm good o go. My wife tries to take up the slack and spends much time pounding HEN (chicken) soup and other good things into all of us, while we (Jordan, George, and me) scream for more bacon. Left to my own devices it is not pretty and anyway it is only about hanging on for dear life at this point. It is no longer about sculpting the perfect Flip.

Basically, other than water (good for everyone, and lots of it) I pretty much care way more about what players put in their bodies than I worry about what all goes into mine. I, too, have been rebuilt many times (not by me, but by well paid surgeons) and I’m not sure I run any better on the high octane stuff anymore. An X-ray of my knee looks like an erector set project in black and white.

FROM THE WONDERFUL FOLKS THAT BROUGHT YOU IRAQ

From observing my own children watching television I am convinced that the greatest minds of the generation are clearly not teaching high school or making laws that we live by. No, the brilliance is now on Madison Avenue in New York City and they are selling whatever you need to sell to all the 6-year old policy makers in America. Oy vay.

If Bush could hire a couple of these guys (and gals) away he might have the "war" looking good in no time.

POKE YOU VERY MUCH

By the way, this Pokemon card game thing is new (for me) and it is stressing me out. I DON’T GET IT! The directions are more complicated than I am capable of assimilating. Son Jordan is only 6, and he likes everything to be EXACTLY like it is on the box cover or whatever. In other words he wants everything perfect. So I am playing Pokemon cards with him in my own way (picture the card game War). I am using a game with only 2 possibilities on each play instead of the 47000 there really are. Soon the jig will be up because he will get it. I will still not get it. Basically, when he learns to read I’m screwed.

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