We had our first meeting on Thursday and it was a throng; a packed house; standing room only. The room that had always been easily big enough now seemed so small. There were 70 plus eager faces there, more than I had seen before in early September upstairs in the Rec Center on the campus of CSU.

The seniors were oozing with not so quiet confidence. The rookies did not look like they were the least bit intimidated by them or the inevitable fall ball competition to come that will eventually simmer down into the "stew" (or should I say "brew"?) that will be us in 2002. These new guys all came here to CSU with playing lacrosse as a big part of the plan, it would seem. It will be interesting and exciting to "watch the drama unfold" as the nuclear family defines itself.

Most asked 5 questions in and around the meeting:

Coach, what are you going to do with all these players
(code for, "Coach, why don't you make cuts"). Fear not the winds of change. They push the team toward the future, after all.

Coach, can we have the same personnel on every EMO play?
Probably not. We will be auditioning all fall.

What time does practice start?
3:30. You can get this kind of valuable info on the web site, by calling the hot line, by reading the board, or most times by just paying attention to me when my lips move.

Who do I make the check out to?
CSU Lacrosse or Rock-it Pocket. It depends. I guess this is just part of it. Take it like a man. Plan for it. I do.

Bonus Question: Why can't we split like soccer into Green and Gold teams so WE can get funded twice?

Answer: Good question.

Coach, who is going to take Robi's place as captain?
No one. He'll be back in January. It isn't an issue.

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Apparently I didn't scare off too many at the meeting, because we had well over 60 at the first practice, including 4 goalies, and the number of attack stretched well into the teens.

The numbers (at practice) were huge, but I actually think most of them had a good time and not a bad workout. I spent the first 30 minutes on a defensive chalk talk. I can guarantee that as a coach I have never begun any kind of season with a chalk talk first. It was something I decided to do a month ago. I wanted to plant the seed of defense on day one. I don't care if it is "fall ball". We have many new faces who have been playing defense (and lacrosse in general) one way for years. Now, I am telling them to forget about some of those things they have been doing, and, in fact never do them again. It will take some time. The first scrimmage was a goal fest.

I'm thinking it might be tough to rotate 16-18 attackmen and have them all be happy. Maybe if we had the ball every second of every game............No, I guess that would be a lot to ask of any team. Besides, what would our defense do if they just took the ball away and gave it to the offense every time the other team had it? Hmmmm....Hey, maybe they (long sticks) could score goals, too. Yeah, and we'll have long sticks facing off, and who knows, one day maybe we can have an all long stick extra man unit.......

"Hello!!!... Defense!!"

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Every season I start pounding on them (team) right away to call for the ball by name. The fact that nobody knows anybody's name yet obviously makes it a little tough during the first few days of fall, but that doesn't stop me from being demanding. They have all taped names on their helmets, but I would pretty much need a telescope for that to help me. It does help them, however..

It (calling for the ball) seems simple enough (as in, "What's the big deal as long as he throws me the ball?"), but how we communicate is so important to how we execute in my way of thinking. When you call someone by name, they look at you. Also, if you want someone's undivided attention you tend to move toward them. There is a bond that comes from making eye contact by saying, "MIKE" when you want the ball from Mike that will never come from saying, "Here's your help, Dude" to someone who is not looking at you.

I started making teams do this (call each other by name) years ago when I had a totally new group of J.V.ers every year, so I could learn everyone's name more quickly (or just learn them at all), but it has evolved over the years as I saw what it can do for the team. Now it is practically a coaching mantra for me, right up there with "Move to the ball!" (the original), old standby "CATCH THE BALL! (comes complete, with the look of pain thrown in), and of course, everybody's favorite, "Like a dog!".

The key to "practice for 70" is pace, and I think Friday's (practice for 70) had it. We ran big drills that use both ends of the field at all times, and change personnel quickly. There will be many of this kind of practice in the fall it would seem. It will be hard for me to spend much time doing the usual 4 on 4 and 6 on 2 types of set ups that I like, and use a lot for teaching and learning. Too many people standing around with helmets on during practice is never a good thing.

However lofty or far in advance we set our goals, the most important question to answer in the affirmative right now is always, "Are we having fun yet?"

September 16, 2001

I haven't said much at practice about the events of last Tuesday (World Trade Center/Pentegon attacks). At home I watch on TV with the rest of the world as the depth and breadth of this American tragedy unfolds, and though I find myself crying tears that chill, and at times fill me with despair, I am also warmed by the glimmer of hope that I feel when I hear the stories from the past week that celebrate the human spirit.

When I go out to the field to coach, however, I don't even think of what has happened. Maybe this is a character flaw in me, but I become so consumed with and focused on our "little" family and our "bonding process" that often the rest of the world ceases to exist for a couple of hours.

The importance of a single lacrosse practice has been more than dwarfed by world events, yet in quiet moments I cannot stop obsessing about how to get the team playing better defense or whatever.

I want us to make some sort of a statement as a team. It can be in the form of decals for our helmets, as we wore in 1999 following the Columbine tragedy. We can send a letter, or start a fund. It doesn't matter what it is, only that we make a single unified gesture.

God bless America. We can do this.

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I was watching ESPN the other day as the head football coach at Arizona, John Makovich, was talking to his team about the terrorist attacks. What he was saying came from his heart and it was obvious that he is a skilled speaker and motivator, but it was like the "sermon from the mount". He was lecturing players on the gravity of the situation, and how it will change their lives and all that stuff about what his generation had experienced (Viet Nam, draft, etc.) and this new generation had not, and the more he talked, the more they fidgeted, even with the cameras rolling.

My thought was, "Why don't you just ask them how they feel instead of lecturing them?" But then, who am I to talk? I'm out there on the field running around (sort of) in my t-shirt with sleeves cut off, having a tantrum when we just drop a pass.

For the record, I make my share of speeches, but they tend to be way too short to fall into the lecture category.

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"Most of all, I want guys that don't need sermons". John Gugliardi.

John has been the head football coach at St. John's in Minnesota since 1953. St. John's is a small Benedictine college that has won three Division III national championships, and 23 conference titles in his almost 50 years at the helm. He is about 75.

Even though I know the importance of shall we say, "tasteful" hazing to enhance the bonding experience, I want the seniors to treat the new guys the way they wanted to be treated and not the way they were actually treated, but I guess that's what is called "tradition", and only limited changes can take place in this archaic form of behavior.

I want them to go out of their way to welcome the new ones. They are the future, and besides, like Gags says "You might walk into a job interview someday and one of 'em might be sitting at a desk in front of you."

September 22, 2001

We play the alumni game tomorrow, and the alumni team is looking pretty good on paper these days, so it should be interesting. This is a young, barely sprouted future CSU 2002 team. It is not firmly rooted and needs a little extra care..

We are accumulating so many injuries that it looks like we have an entourage at practice. Even that would be fine if everyone was beginning to bond, and if the injured players who are the veterans were helping the freshmen "learn the system", but right now that is not happening enough yet.

Practice resembles a bus station the way people come and go, which differs from other falls not at all, but somehow it is bothering me more this year. I think it is because I feel that this team has so far to go and many of the veterans on the team perhaps don't see how much work we will need to do to stay where we have been for the last few years. Maybe I am just worrying too much.

I suppose I do worry way too much about things, and it is certainly too early to panic, but we seem to take one step forward and 3 steps back these days in many ways. There are just too many "My bad's" and "It's all goods" out there right now. When you are on the field you need to take pride in everything you do. One of my infamous quotes is something like this: "When you say, 'My bad', you are saying that it is okay to suck."

I just need to find the ones who really have the passion (out of our 60), and then just allow them to grow and come together. I like having a big team for a lot of reasons, but 60 is just too many.

Someone (or a few) must stand up and lead us on the field. I know that must happen because what we need can not come from the sideline.

We have 4 captains, yet due to circumstances like injuries and jobs, I have to appoint one or two to get us going with stretching and stuff some days.

Somebody somewhere is wanting to bake us a humble pie this fall, and I'm sure the alums would like to feed just that to us in big bites this Sunday, the first full day of autumn.

Right now it is unity that I am most concerned with. I truly believe that team success cannot happen without a strong sense of family, and a strong understanding of what exactly that is. For each different team. there is a little different definition for family. Our journey begins tomorrow.

September 24, 2001

After evaluating and pronouncing us dysfunctional three days before the alumni game, our first game, I never thought it could turn out to be such a "perfect" day, but it was a great time. Now that I think about it, how could it not be? The "now" team of 60 or more was standing behind me and to my right were 20 - 25 of my favorite people on earth, many that played here as recently as 4 months ago.

I had to redefine a little what this fall was about for this particular team. I had been all over the place trying to make it all just a continuation of last year. It was not, it is not, and it cannot ever be that. I see that now, and I feel better. However far we have to go, then that's how far we go, but we must rebuild with a solid foundation. Those who think we simply "reload" and go (me, 10 days ago) are sadly mistaken.

There was some frustration, and I was not having fun. We were only 6 days into practice but we were already lost, driving down the wrong street, seemingly without a map.

Anyway, last week I talked to the team quite a bit about the "generation gap" in our team. I got mad at 2 seniors who were pissing me off. The Rookies were the silent majority, and God only knows what was going through their heads. They are used to the long hand of discipline in high school, and that is not our long suit because I am a rebel, not a general. Swamp Fox was "the man" for me 40 + years ago, taking little bites out of the British with his "motley crew" during the revolutionary war (Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights, and way before he started making "Naked Gun" movies).

I am not one of these guys that thinks that we are the champs until someone knocks us off. I expect and fear that they WILL knock us off if we don't always go someplace new.

We had dinner mostly together on Friday night, which was a start, and then I spent the day Saturday getting my own attitude together (mixed with some babysitting and yard work, etc.). I had to prepare myself for this new team to be challenged by an alumni team. Even if it was a very talented alumni team, the thought was a lot for me to bear.

The alums played well and we were the realization of my "dysfunctional nightmare" in the first quarter, which ended with the old guys leading 1-0. It actually was good in a way. The speech in between periods wrote itself. Everyone could clearly see what the problem was. We had to get our minds right. We were thinking about all the wrong stuff. That can't be in the plan when you want to have the "right stuff" sometime down the line.

Everything changed in the second quarter. We got some rhythm going, and the defense lived the first commanment (of our D). The goalie made a few saves and we were on a run that turned out to be a 9 goal spurt, and it was 9-1 in the third. The final was like 12-7 as the "gallant" alumni staged a comeback that they claim coincided with the rest of the alcohol being sweated out of their bodies on this lovely autumn afternoon.

I think only a handful of our 60 something players are upset with their playing time or lack of it. Everyone got some quality time, and very few got a lot. I saw glimmers of great potential, and more importantly, they did, too.

Logan, Utah has possibly never seen anything exactly like us. We leave for there and the "Fall Brawl" there by bus, van, and car Thursday at 4:00 (please let us travel safely). Saturday we have a late afternoon rendezvous with our old buds from BYU, before the long trek back to the Fort Saturday night.