Friday, November 9, 2007

I think it’s going to be a long one.

WRITE WHEN YOU GET WORK

Yes, it is true I did not do my journalistic reporting of my take on CSU lacrosse action in a prompt fashion last Saturday.  Usually I always write something on the same day (or wee hours of the next one) that we play one or more games.  The tournament was last week and I still have not commented.  What is up with that, Chatty Cathy?  Blog got your tongue?  Well, uh, you see I was ‘stuck’ in Las Vegas last week without this computer being internet worthy for the room I was in and, uh, well, I could not log on to blog on, and….. 

I was not at all happy at the end of last Saturday as it was, so having no hook up going for me was ample excuse for me having my own personal writing filibuster.  I just let it go.  As we got home and the week wore on I decided that since time was no longer a factor I would wait until I was good and Goddamned ready to write.  I’m not sure I’m all the way there yet, but I’m on an airplane with nothing much to do…… Although, is it me or is the slightly chubby, obviously married, elementary school principal with her perfect hair and huge breasts hitting on the hunky and very hip younger, tall-dark-and-handsome Canadian dude that I am sitting next to?  My window seat is a window of journal opportunity don’t you know.

YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME

We played a bunch of games out there in Vegas.  It was a very nice tournament with a semi-big time feel. Including ‘Dog’ and ‘Underdog’ match ups we had six games in much less than 24 hours.  We did indeed ‘win some’ (U of A, UC Davis, Westminster, and UVSC) and 'lose some' (ASU Friday night, and then BYU in the tournament final).  I learned a great deal about us, where we are, and unfortunately for me, how far we are from where we need to be.  I have been awakened at night a few times during this most recently past week by something more than the usual middle-of-the-night urgency to go to the bathroom…… again.  I feel like I have much to fix with this team and a limited amount of time and resources to do it with. Urgency is perhaps not an urgent enough word. 

BITE ME!

I am not afraid of what might come.  For example, losing does not scare me (much).  I have done it before, but losing without a fight or losing while playing ‘poorly’ are things that I can Lord over and will not accept.  I will neither lose nor win without attempting to honor the game.  We will NOT be broken down.  We will stand as one.  At least that’s how the logic still works in my ancient mind.

TONY, TONY, TONY

My personal first response to things as they are is to take some of my urgency back to using some of my chosen mid-life, back-to-basics educational tools of almost 20 years ago.  I went to some seminars in the early nineties with Anthony Robbins, ‘master motivator’, and boy wonder (back then).  I wanted to learn and to change.  At the time I was doing some coaching, but I had far greater coaching dreams than the reality I was living.  I was recently married only to have also become freshly divorced.  I was 40.  Rock-it Pocket was a few years old and had already put a brave new world in motion for me, but I was no longer a boy.  I needed to get on with it.

As much as I loved being in Santa Barbara I was not quite where I really wanted to be in terms of living my actual life.  My solution was to send me to a coach for help.  It seemed only logical and natural for a sport addict such as yours truly.  Tony Robbins was my choice.  I’m not sure if I remember exactly why, but it was not from seeing an infomercial at 2:30 a.m. (I hope).  In the end it was hardly individual instruction and it was certainly not cheap in terms of time or money that was invested, but it was definitely a really good thing for me to do. 

So, a few 'live' meetings and lots of tapes listened to while riding my stationary bike later I had learned a lot of things from Tony and his techniques.  Who says you can’t teach an old dog some new tricks?  I became refreshed in my life and its pursuits and the next thing I knew I was living in Colorado, coaching here at CSU, and I had remarried ‘right’.  And by the way that will be nine years next week (Married to Ada). 

Goal setting became a huge part of my personal metaphysical movements, and for the most part I have been doing some of that fairly regularly ever since.  I think I have always organized my life (sort of) by setting specific goals, but after my time with Tony it became a more tangible practice using better techniques.  The results became more real as a result.  Come to think of it, ditto for the journals.  Back in the day when only Al Gore was hooked up on line I actually wrote journals with pens and paper and stuff like that.  I did not type them with two fingers and then post them more or less nakedly in cyberspace once I ‘finished’ writing.  By the way it was only much later when I found out that all this had a name, and its name was blogging.  Now I’m confused about whether I was ahead of my time or just, as always, the last one to ‘get it’.

In conclusion I think I have been a bit rusty recently in some of my Tony techniques, and I think I have been taking things somewhat for granted in recent years in the goal setting sector of my life.  Meanwhile I have been giving myself credit for composing the right goals, but truthfully maybe I haven’t spent as much time or whatever to clarify my focus on a constant sort of basis as I should have.  I can do better and I will need to.  Besides, my life has more than just the one challenge these days.  One might think I actually have a life until you really review the realities to determine that in the end I actually don’t.

BEATING A DEAD HORSE, I MEAN CAT

I am tired of losing to BYU.  The last time we beat them was in the 2006 national semi-finals in what I would call one of the better games we have ever played in the history of our program.  We spanked the Cougars that night in Dallas, and they (BYU) were a good team.  We have lost four times in a row now since then, and I would say that is a first for me, although I have been here a while and when I write it sometimes seems like the past is a blur, or at least unimportant at the later point in time.  Anyway, we lost last fall, twice last spring when it counted and then again the other day in fall ball’s finish.  All four of these recent defeats were fairly sound or convincing wins for ‘them’, and I am not interested in continuing the trend. Unfortunately I am feeling very much like it is a ‘back to the drawing board’ thing for me right now.

Another thing I learned from Tony as I tried to awaken the GIANT within me all those years ago, and by the way he is like 6’6” so there really was a giant inside him, was that you cannot solve a situation by simply trying the same solution over and over again while expecting different or better results just because you try to do it harder or better or more of it or whatever.  That road of ‘fix it’ will lead you closer to suicide than it will salvation.

The obvious avenue to take in order for me to start not failing as a fixer is to go someplace different from where I have been and what I have been doing in the fall and the winter months lately to try and prepare ‘my’ team.  We came out of last winter less prepared than we have ever been.  We were not necessarily less talented.

The way I have been trying to do things without the facilities and capabilities I would really like is sort of like trying to coach with smoke and mirrors.   I have been attempting to do things like simulate real lacrosse action and moments on a smaller-than-half-field indoor facility.  Outdoors my method to prepare and improve us is by working on making them game ready, doing a lot of full field scrimmaging so that situations would be familiar in the games and the decisions would come to the players easily.

I am here to scream, “Screw That!”  It is not working.  My next plan is to break the game down into workable sections.  My plan is to have far less than 60 players.  My plan is have them be HUNGRY for games and game-like situations rather than for them to have the been-there-done-that feeling of comfort about playing in games. 

When I say 'break it down' I mean to build a new attitude and a new altitude for us to cruise at as well.  In my mind it is time to bring out the mad scientist for new experiments and adventures in drills and drilling players in a real attempt to change the chemistry and how they actually perform in given environments. 

I am going to control the things I can and I will steer the things that will not be controlled as best as I can.

THIS IS WHY COACHES GET PAID THE BIG BUCKS

Wait, I’m a volunteer.  Why do I take it all so seriously?  Do I really need to judge myself on how my team does?  Well, kind of I guess.  Does that make me a sad and pathetic figure?  Probably.

I have requested that the players try to get with me now for an individual meeting.  Several have already done so (met with me).  That is good.  I want eager and I want concerned about the team.  To me, responding to this and spending some one on one time with me shows both those very good qualities.

Also through the meetings a coach can get a lot of ‘grapevine’ stuff, too.  For example there are those who might think that our struggles this fall might be at least partly because they didn’t get to play enough.  To all of those older, younger, or middle-aged, ones who might feel under utilized, I say, “Show me more.  Do something while you are out there other than take up field space and kill minutes” Make me want you to be in there more because you, whomever you might be, haven’t done it enough yet.  The time clock starts re-ticking for me all the time.  If you are in the game how is our plus minus?  If you can’t help us to have and keep hold of the ball and if we aren’t scoring more goals than the other team when you are in the game, then I am looking elsewhere for someone who is good enough and brave enough to be someone the other team perceives as dangerous.  Right now we scare no one with the possible exception of me.

I don’t care if you 'get in a groove', although if you get in a good one I am all for that.  No, I want you to go out and make an impact right now.  There are a ton of teams that can’t wait to kick our ass.  That is who we have set ourselves up to be at CSU lacrosse, and we don’t seem to have the gladiators who really want to do the large amount of work necessary to back it up right now, at least as I see it.

I LOVE YA’ BABE.  NOW GO RUN

The importance of NOW is something that only I need to feel. ‘They’ only need to know exactly what I want or expect from each and every one, and that is where I can begin the transformation.  They very much need to pay full attention to that expectation, however, or those if there is more than one. I hope many of them do.  Either way they cannot help us if they have solely their own agenda in mind.

OKAY SO WHAT ARE THESE GOALS?

Let's talk about what kind of goals I'll be setting. Do I want us to be better shooters for example?  No, not really.  I could care less about how well they shoot right now.  It’s the big plan I want.  I WANT US TO GET AND HAVE THE BALL more.  That is my first tactical wish.  Where do ‘I’ need to go to get that?  Then I want warriors, ones who prepare for the struggles and challenges, not just for the games. 

What is my first step?  I will break the game down to where I can deal with getting them to make basic fundamental decisions and to execute simple things in consistent ways.  There is no choice if I make the drill have no choice.  My thought process is that (A) if I want them to take our practices into the games they play for real, then (B) things have to be just so.  Let’s see (C) if I can make that add up to some kind of workable equation.

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