Sunday, June 17, 2007

MORE THAN SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD

It has been 27 days since I have placed written words in the "journal".  That is the longest I have ever gone since I began doing this late in the year 2000.  Remember?  I was going to document the 2001 season and that would be that, a beginning, a middle, and most certainly an end.  Here it is 2007 and my so-called journal has included a great deal of my last 7 years, and not just the lacrosse part.

MELTDOWN

I have and had two Apple computers, a lapper that has never actually been on my lap, and the big one in my office which is all but clinically dead. So, of course, my son Mike wants to take it and save it.

Until now neither computer has been internet friendly for my level of play since before Dallas.

Anyway I write this, and for the first time, I write on my brand new Imac with a huge screen that is all wonderful, but I still have to pull that screen to within two inches of my nose in order to be able to read everything the world may send to me that is perpetually sized to that #12 font that everything is and that I have always and still will take OFF my glasses in order to read.

SO, HERE'S TO YOU, OH KING OF THE COMPUTER KEYBOARD

I confess that it has been a lot longer than that one month since I really wanted to write at all.  What!  What do you mean Mr. Master "hobby" writer who vainly thinks he has some minor value as a writer?  Why?  Well, I would say there are many reasons. Many I'm willing to put right out there while some, albeit very few, I am not. 

The pressure of writing was something that I had put on myself, like I somehow owe it to others to keep them abreast of my innermost thoughts or whatever.  This is stupid, of course.  The world, and obviously myself included, is far too self absorbed to care about all that as much as I got to caring about all that, and that is inclusive of the fact that so many of those thoughts do include the subject of lacrosse, and more importantly my lacrosse team.

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

I want always to give the parents and friends of players to get real insight into our time and our journey. I felt like I wasn't doing that anymore, or at least as much.

NOTHING NEW NOTHING OLD?

Another part of my recent absence of sprinkling around fresh prose petals has to do with the fact that sometimes anymore I was beginning to feel like I was sitting down and pecking out the same clichés and or bullshit that I had probably already thought and written at some other time.  I guess it felt 'old' or I wouldn't describe it that way, now would I? So, where were the new thoughts?  Well, in some small way, and at 55 years old, I think I am off to begin some kind of new search for same.  I suppose we shall see on that one, but to use one of my recent catch phrases, that is my story and I am sticking to it.

GET OVER IT

I am still not over losing the game we last lost exactly one month ago.  If I have learned anything in the last month it is just what a poor loser I am.  The other shoe on that one is still that I completely feel like I could have controlled that game more and better than I did. 

THAT AND THREE OR FOUR BUCKS WILL BUY YOU A CUP OF COFFEE

Was it the most talented team I ever had or whatever?  Not even close.  Did we have injuries and other losses of individuals that would clearly cripple any team? Way! 

Did I have too many players NOT reading my journal?  You betcha!  Does that really matter?  Well, no, not really, but what it says to me is that there aren't enough true believers, not enough of them that really wanted to know exactly what I was thinking. One would think a hungry player would want to be as much of a part of his coaches and their process as possible, and not to rather 'distance' himself from any part of it. We do not do offensive coordinators, etc. Whether you think it or not or like it or not, that guy is always me.

Okay. Yes, I know, they are just kids. They may or may not check the email, and what I say is never true for all of them, but each team does in fact have and own its very own soul. The coaching is more than just a part of that no matter how much the players do or do not change as the years roll by.

JACK OF ALL, MASTER OF NONE, or BYE BYE BOB BARKER, THE END OF ONE MORE ERA

By the way, I'll bet if you add up the number of players that have actually played for me for the full four years you will find an alarmingly small number or percentage. It's not like I hand choose it all like a master recruiter might. We get many transfers. The Birds and Plonkeys and Stevens' are not always dying to come here. We always have a few, though, for whatever reasons, and that is still our saving grace. We fortunately do have a few who are here for the haul now, and they will understand even more about hunger next year, because they will mainly be juniors. We will likely lose more than 12 from this year's team when graduation, moving on, and other carnage has taken its toll, so as Bob Barker says goodbye, I say to any interested lacrosse player/college student, "Come on down!"

THE BIANNUAL REPEAT BEAT DOWN

Perhaps most importantly there weren't enough of them that wanted IT enough. There were some. It takes a few more. Playing in a program that has won 4 National Championships since 1999 does not entitle a player or a team to anything.  Those players and people have to go about winning with the utmost hunger and humility each time and every year.  Anything less is a chink in your armor.  Well, we got dented right on the old front fender with the 19-6 thing on the first day of the 2007 season against Oregon.  In Dallas, however, we so turned that score more or less 'upside down', but then we got 'scared of losing' or WHAT-EVER and we did not step on the F-ing Duck's neck until it was dead. 

That loss came about at least in part because they did not fully trust ME, the COACH.  It's funny almost, too, because what I did was TRUST them when, and I am sorry to say this, but they (as a team) were not always worthy of that total trust. 

If I ever had a team that at times needed to be told how and exactly what to do when, this one was it. 

At any rate all decisions need to have prior process and understanding between coach and players. So, yeah, I blew it, and I will quit before I go there again.

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN

I am not displeased with our in-team leadership in 2007 as much as with mine, but when one Captain asserted to me not long after the game that coaches have nothing to do with the game once it starts I realized that my message had not been made clear enough for this team, and even though I would call this one captain who said that an unusual and perhaps even a special, very emotional case, it still spoke volumes to me as I thought more and more about it. If I believed what he said to be fact I would never have become a coach in the first place. I'd still be designing and making matching mahogony and maple bed tables with hand crafted handles and inlaid walnut coffee table groupings or whatever you call them these days instead of designing and building lacrosse teams to play in important games.

MUST YOU ALWAYS JUMP?

I realize that the player who said this coach doesn't count during the game thing not long after the Oregon loss had said it because he felt like the players should have won the game or whatever. I appreciate that, but the truth is that is not only what he meant, and I know that, too. Besides, we are family first. We share everything. The final truth is that I didn't share enough of myself this year, and unfortunately I know exactly why, too. Now let's see if I'm too old to fix me. I have some time, but not a lot of it.

LEMONS TO LEMONADE?

Now, having further revealed the extent of my bitterness about the National semi-final loss I want to give props to the BYU Cougars.   I know we should have beaten Oregon in Dallas.  My thoughts for the subsequent final 'would have should have' game against BYU, and that was the one I had wanted and thought might happen starting way back in February, were thoughts more aligned with hope.  They had an excellent team in Provo this year.  I knew it in September when I looked at the same names on their roster for the seemingly 18th year in a row, and they were still all juniors, and I wasn't sure if we could actually beat them, and they had already handled us twice before Dallas, but I knew we would be the only MCLA team with a chance to beat them in Dallas in 2007.  Oregon could not upset them again if they had a month of games with them, at least that is my opinion, and we still had a few little hoops left for the Cougars to jump through, and I likely will never get over not getting that chance.  I blame no one but myself.  That's what I do, and that is the way I coach when I coach right.

By the way, BYU might consider going Division I because for all intents and purposes they are.  They have it all, from well-paid coaches to awesome facilities (snow or not) and I believe they have some sort of 'scholarships' as well.  No one else in the MCLA has anything close to what BYU has for resources.  They also have 26-27ish year-old seniors with 2-3 children at home, not to mention that any Mormon in the world that can catch has an obligation almost to go play lacrosse at the BYU Holy Land.  A coach in Provo need not worry if his players are out drinking/partying the night before a game. I don't care about any of that, we'll play them anyway, but we don't have anything close to that.  In fact we have children running our club sports department because the university can't pay anyone enough to stay and really do the job.  I don't care about that stuff either.  I don't deal with the university for the most part.  I pretty much have others do it for me so no one important can see how I react when I see what we don't get. Don't get me wrong, I think our club sports people do as much as they can for us. I just think that the capabilities at their disposal are extremely limited.

ONE MORE RANT

I wasn't feeling great yesterday, so I didn't go to the Denver Outlaws vs. Rochester Rattlers professional MLL game in Denver last night.  The final score was 27-26 in overtime.  No offense to a pretty great game, but I take exception to this score and this kind of game.  I am a lacrosse purist in many ways, yet I love the MLL field and its lines, too, including the 2-point arc and shot.  I love outdoor lacrosse far more than the box game.  It is so weird that the box game (Mammoth) way outdraws the Outlaws and the outdoor game here in Denver, but they did have 8000 at Mile High last night.

So, I didn't see the game, but I choose to shoot my mouth off anyway.  First of all this is way too many goals for what the Lacrosse Gods had in mind, at least that is in my opinion.  This was a track meet with face-offs.  Face-offs are supposed to mean something in a game where you actually have the ball in your stick and in possession.  The game doesn't need to be broken up into 60+ face-offs, or one per minute.  That takes the titanic struggle element away from that beautiful part of the game.  Also, if it is tied after 52 goals are scored in a sixty-minute game, how can you settle it in sudden death fashion?  Why not just flip a coin, or give it to the guy who won more face-offs.

Goaltending is another important part of lacrosse.  So Trevor Tierney makes like 25 saves last night in the Outlaw goal, but he gives up 27.  The power the goalie has in a lacrosse game is part of what makes the game great.  Well, I'm sure the young man made some exciting saves last night, but from the statistics I think it would be very hard to determine that the goalie had much of an affect on the game.  In fact, when you think about that many goals being scored, it pretty much really was a track meet with face-offs, and I have always thought that was the least compelling for me, not the most exciting.  Hell, that's more goals than they score baskets in most any college basketball game.  They don't have goalies.

To finish it off, part of this is because they use or allow only three long poles in the MLL.  To me they are missing out on the most exciting position in the game of lacrosse, the long stick middie that brings so much to the game, especially if you can find someone with true star power who will play it. 

To me, the capability of playing great team defense is a wonderful part of our sport/game.  I hope this does not completely die in our modern America where more (offense or in-your-face or whatever) is apparently always better.

Since it has been so long since I have written, I know less people will be reading.  Hey, I feel better already.

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