Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Monday, November 29, 2004

TO DO LIST:

I feel like I have a pretty important bunch of stuff to do right now, and it isn't even any kind of actual lacrosse season.  This week needs my attention, so much so that I feel the need for a rare "To Do" list to add these items to my usual duties.  Must be the season of the list.

SCHEDULE DESIGN

First on the list is to nail down the final details of the CSU spring schedule.  This 2005 version has been a fairly major pain in the derriere. Each year I try to carefully plan the "perfect" schedule, one designed for that particular year's team and hopefully for success of same.  I went a little overboard last year, and, as for this year, well, I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but at some point the schedule became a bit of a monster and started to direct itself. I lost control, but that's okay, because I see many surprises happening all around the MDIA this coming season.  I have been trying to NOT project how good other teams are.  As time passed I became less concerned about where or when we SHOULD play games.  I just wanted games. At any rate it all turned into a scrambling for a schedule process pretty early on.

Why do I need to spend extra energy on how we might match up with "Them" when "We" have so many shall we say loose ends?  I have no idea how good we are, just hope about what we can be.  Other than the fact that the Gauchos of UCSB have everyone back and likely some more new ones too, things don't look quite the same as I scan the current MDIA power structure.  It may not be the usual suspects contending for the title in Blaine, MN that were annually fighting it out in St. Louis.  There will be some newcomers who leap onto the scene, and perhaps one or two regulars that will be nowhere to found. It's a "que sera sera" kind of year in my mind. What will be, will be. I will attempt to scale back my usual trying to control everything all the time.

The spring break trip is the one part of the slate upcoming that I like a lot, but even it sort of created itself somehow.  I couldn't have thought of this plan.  We will fly out Thursday to Los Angeles to play the UCSB game on a Saturday.  There might be some TV coverage. Then we will play a league game vs. Utah University at a neutral site in L.A. on Sunday, which is March 13.  The Utes will be out in Southern California on their Spring break as well.  Then, on Monday we will fly part way home, to Salt Lake City to play BYU the following night, Tuesday, in Provo.  That game may or may not be on BYU TV.  I suspect that it will, but won't be surprised if it is not.

After that BYU game we will leave immediately via CSU bus to motor back to the Fort, and the players will then have a little spring break for themselves, a luxury I did not afford them last year and I wish in many ways that I had.

The CSU Lax Rams will do Dallas in February.  This is our other big 2005 prescheduled trip.  We will play 4 games in three days at the University of Texas at Arlington.  The opponents will be Auburn (we have never played them), Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and Texas.

THE FINAL FOUR

Next on my list is to make sure that we use the final four practices of 2004 before Christmas Break begins to put a few more specifics into place, ones that will help us to continue in a forward fashion on our quiet quest to define who we will be in 2005.  For one thing we are going to build a sort of "killer" zone if it kills me.  In some ways I am treating this as our current "missing link".  I want a new and different way to attack on defense to add to what we already do.  I'm big on muscle memory, so I am always careful about what it is that we do last in practice. When it is six weeks between practices the last thing they feel becomes even more important.

My hope is that during these last two weeks many players will approach me about their personal, off-season, goal setting to do list. Maybe I should write my report card thing, something I usually do once during a year, something often inspired by coaching frustration of one sort or another.  I sit down and write something about every one of them, good, bad, or indifferent. When finished I post it at practice for all to see.  I am not feeling frustrated now.  Rather, I feel hopeful that the hunger that I think I see is real. If hungry is there then special is always possible.  I must refrain from putting certain pre-expectations on this team the way I did the last. Just work, baby.

A TANGLED WEB

Another important to do list member is our CSU web site. I want to update and revamp.  The web page is a bit tired, or maybe I am just tired of the old and ready for some new stuff all the way around. Now is the time to do this, as in later is too late and I won't have time.  I want the internet edition of us to be more interactive with alumni, parents, campers, etc.  I would like to put up a new wrapper ('tis the season to be wrapping, falalalala) for the presentation of CSU Lacrosse.

THE NEXT TURF

There is a chance that someday, hopefully in my lifetime, CSU lacrosse will have its own off campus field with an artificial surface to use as we see fit instead of when we are told we can.  There is a meeting taking place this week that might have a major affect on this eventuality.  It's a long shot, but what isn't?

ROCK HER POCKET

Last but certainly not least, and speaking of long shots, I am preparing to go to Detroit next week, where I will run my women's lax stick ideas up the old flagpole in hopes that someone at Warrior Lacrosse salutes.  All I have are some crude prototypes and a dream that what I am thinking of is not illegal or whatever.  I pored over the Women's rules a hundred times, but I know they also tend to change them anytime someone comes up with an idea to make the women's stick perform better.  This is in spite of the obvious fact that the ladies are waiting, even dieing for a stick that can do more than what they have available now.  I think I have enough precedence and logic to take to Michigan, so here goes.

Why am I going to Warrior?  I feel like I owe them for having the courage of their craziness when they found me in 1993.

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