Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Saturday, December 2, 2006

IT LIVES!

Our team lives. We have survived the latest crisis to confront us. Thank you…. I think.

TOGA, TOGA, TOGA

We are not worthy of Animal House status by any stretch of anyone’s imagination, but I could swear that we are, as a program on ‘double secret probation’ and will be for some time to come. Officially we have been on probation for the last two years, and now we have ‘re-upped’ for two more. It happened just in time, too, because we would have been off program probation a week later or whatever. Sounds like my driving record. Ain’t life grand?

ROAD TRIP!

I think that we are perceived by some as perhaps the ‘Delta House’ of club sports at CSU. I say we are not ‘bad boys’, but as things are, well, it is what it is.

So, my estimation of the situation is that as long as everyone who will ever play lacrosse here at CSU acts absolutely perfectly from now until forever we might just be fine. Anything short of being nowhere close to the scene of any mini or maxi misdeed in a group of more than one lacrosser won’t do in the 2000’s. We could subsequently be guillotined as a team for any individual or group transgression. So, good luck to us/me. This won’t be hard to live up to.

GEE, NO DISTRACTION THERE

We waited 28 days for a decision that, according to the document recently sent to us, was already decided upon three weeks ago. Thanks so much for your sensitive consideration in this matter and during these trying times. The rules were that we were to get a ‘ruling’ to us within 10 days, but rules apparently only apply to some. It became almost a month before we heard.

ONWARD THROUGH THE FOG

Anyway, the politics of what is or isn’t correct in the situation we just endured may not be over with. Regardless of how pleased I am with the results or ‘sanctions’ right now, and I am, I have no intention of having our program admit guilt to charges that ‘we’ are not responsible for. That is NOT the legacy that I intend on leaving on this deal. At some point evidence either backs up the charges or it does not, regardless of constitutional construction or a lack thereof. It cannot be both ways.

KANGAROO COURT?

I might be wrong, but it is my opinion that there really was ONLY judgement on this, and that in fact our judgers did no investigation of any kind following the first one done back in September on the night originally in question. And that initial inquiry (inquest) was done by others obviously, not them.

The struggle for more justice will therefore likely go on a little while longer.
The team, however, has been informed finally and formally that they do in fact still exist. So let’s get on with getting ready for the Oregon trip in late February thing.

BACK AND WHITE

Next week we will have our fall banquet a little after the fact. It will be something new in concept. For one thing it won’t be happening at my house. For another we have mixed it up and stretched it out to a Christmas dinner buffet with parents/relatives of players and maybe even with a few alumni lax players to be in attendance. There will be close to 200 people there next Friday I suspect, and it will be held at a public establishment. I plan on sort of showing and talking about some of our traditions to the ‘extended’ family (player’s parents, etc.). Hopefully it will be a family building function of semi-epic proportions. I’m not kidding. I want this upcoming night to be an important one for our program.

THE POLITICALLY CORRECT TIMES THAT TRY MEN’S LIVES

I actually ‘asked permission’ about if we could hold such a dinner now that there is more or less a new rule against any more than two lacrosse types being seen in public together lest we/they be described as a mob or worse. I didn’t really know if we could have such a Christmas gathering and be legal unless sanctioned or blessed by some anagram labeled organization. We indeed got the okay. It should be a great night. I am actually looking forward to the ‘public speaking’ part of it. I’m sure that means I will screw it up somehow……

I TAUGHT I TAW A PUDDY TAT

This year’s team will need as much FAMILY as it can get. Our perch and our schedule tell me that there will be no business-as-usual aspect to or of this season. Teams are coming after us. People think we are better than I think we are. Some of those people are on our team. Call me crazy, but I say OH BOY, I think it all sounds exciting. Where else would you rather be other than OFF of double secret probationary status?

SOMEWHERE OUT ON THAT HORI-ZONE

I am thinking a lot about defense now. I (still) want to be aggressive defensively. I want to pressure the other team even if they are very skilled, as in BYU, who pretty much picked our sorry asses apart in North Las Vegas a month ago. There is a gap we need to close as a team, and my hunch is that it will not be bridged even slightly by us becoming more passive on defense.

There are teams that will be ahead of/more talented than we will be. To my way of thinking we have to get out and get after these teams, and by that I mean I want us to collectively philosophically agree on our team approach to the opponents. Then I want us to construct a dream box of defense that we can later fill up with our team aspirations.

So I am currently desperately seeking new ways for us to approach old defenses used before that we might have stored up in the attic or whatever and things like that. I never want to watch other teams play with or just have the ball. That remains my motivation. I want us to go after that ball with a variety of methods. I want to make the other team screw up. I do not simply want to create favorable match-ups where we can try to take the ball away with one player in a one-on-one situation. Those are easy to see, and I think there is no need to ‘plan’ them. It is the overall team defense that needs the plan, the gun, and the trigger. I want us to dictate, and to do it even if the peril known as defensive ‘breakdown’ afflicts us once in a while because we are willing to try anything.

Right now I’d actually settle for a solid core group of long poles, but I actually do think we are approaching the having of that important element. The core group concept in general still looms large in my mind, as in it’s not big enough and it doesn’t have enough of the correct parts inside its vital center.

MIDFIELD DEPTH

How do you get the right mix with midfield depth and talent? How can you really make it and the rotation of the player and players work for your team? How do you keep it (midfield platoon) healthy if you do get lucky or smart enough to have good depth in the first place?

I want more short stick toting players to come to practice that can’t wait to put on the green side of the reversible jersey (play the defense in drills). Usually, I turn around and there are umpteen in white but only a very few in green. That is not the truth. The reality is that most of them will be playing some defense at some point of most any game, whether or not they want to.

It works better for me when they do this on their own (put on the green). I don’t think it works as well when I have to remind or tell them to do it. Part of hunger is hungering to cover up or ameliorate things that one may not do as well as a player as he might like. Anyone can always get better at defense. For one thing the game so heavily favors a skilled offensive player. The guy with the ball usually has the built in advantage. At least that is how I approach defensive philosophies.

DEE-FENCE

My plan for this team is to put the highest defensive responsibilities upon the shoulders of our long poles. In the recent two years it was short stick defenders and or the goalie position that we looked to for strength and the extra kick, more or less. Before that it was Plonkey power. What I have in mind now is sort of a ‘special forces’ look to our nucleus of long sticks. What we will work on is capabilities. The fundamentals are more or less in place.

Change is fun, but it can also be good. We shall see.

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