Thursday, December 3, 2009

DEGREES THAT BIND

If one were to overhear a couple of lacrosse players having a random lacrosse conversation and he heard the words ten degrees, the educated lacrosse player would immediately infer that they were talking about the angle on the top part of certain STX handles that are angled or bent 10 degrees at the top of the shaft to create the offset head affect on a stick.  They (STX) do this so they don’t have to pay royalties to Warrior Lacrosse, the larger entity, the ‘Big Dog’ in lacrosse, the company that has practically bought the head production part of the industry by forcing and enforcing a literal multitude of patents that they own.  And by the way, their most powerful patent is, or should I say was my patent, the one for the curved head that I, like the idiot that I am, sold to Warrior over 15 years ago.  They have spent the last 10 years busting down companies like Brine by spending the money to enforce these patents.  They now own Brine. Good for them (Warrior) and shame on me.

So, and anyway, back to the 10 degrees.  If you heard that 10 degree conversation at our practice tonight, likely the final practice for 2009 that took place in Loveland at our ‘home field’ away from home that is a mere 15 miles from campus, you would assume that they were talking about the finer points of lacrosse shaft technology.  That would be folly because the only 10 degrees we were talking about on this night would be the 10 degrees that was about the temperature of the air outside.  Man, it was cold, and since the practice began as darkness fell, it just got more or less colder by the minute.  My tongue was sticking to the PLASTIC of my whistle.  My face became numb and my toes began to tingle.  I had like seven layers of Underarmor shirts between my skin and the air, but still the frigid elements found their way through the fainted maize of protection to find my bones.

 MOTIVATION OR POLARIZED?

It was a very interesting practice, illustrating the limitations of that kind of cold.  For example you could just see the time delay between a player and his brain.   Making a choice to do something and the time lapse between the thought in the brain and the action with the body was apparent.  Flow was not part of the process tonight, but conditions were ripe for a coach to point out that we were somehow special because we were out there working at getting better as a team when clearly there would be no other teams anywhere in America out there at the moment working in similar conditions.   This suffering angle has always been a great way to motivate the troops.  To see people out there playing hard in this kind of cold surely makes for the ties that bind, the actions that help to solidify and bring together a core group, a band of brothers seeking a higher common ground.  Personally I love this stuff, and I always have, even back when my teams were doing 50 push-ups and 50-sit-ups after practicing for two hours in a driving California winter rainstorm.  No one wants to be there doing that, but everyone gets why we are.  Those are great and rewarding coaching moments, especially if we come away from the experience pneumonia free and just a little ‘harder’ than we were when we started.

Next Entry | Previous Entry