Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, November 4, 2005

THE DEFENSE NEVER RESTS

The goalie position in lacrosse has always fascinated me. It is a position on the field which takes much courage (no ducking + OUCH!), acute knowledge (much of the position is about the geometry of getting the ball to hit your goaltending body), and constant leadership (all goalies direct the defense. Great ones conduct the entire game). There is only one goalie in the game at a time for each team. That fact alone makes it a special position. He is the last line of defense, the last chance for greatness on a given play.

I’M NOT A GOALIE, BUT I PLAY ONE ON TV

I have never played very much in the goal in any sport. At times in my athletic career when the goalie or the catcher (baseball) went down to injury or was MIA I have been asked to play each of those very important and somewhat similar positions, but I was by no means born to play goalie. I am/was a dog, and goalies are many things, but they are not dawgs.

I have played lacrosse goalie, but only a very few times. I do know the empty yet scary feeling of seeing many other colored shirts and few or none of your own as the thundering herd approaches your cage, and they are carrying the "rock" with a vengeance. That part of it was not that much fun for me and generally it is no wonder that most goalies are some combination of multiple psychiatric diagnosis’. It is also no wonder so many of them so often scream at their defenders far too much after a goal against is scored. That reaction is part of the old kick-the-dog syndrome.

They say it is harder than ever to get kids to play goalie nowadays. That was one of the motivating thoughts when we came up with the three on three game of Chumash lacrosse 10 years ago.

ONE ON ONE

As stated, I am not a goalie. Just the same I have always considered myself a good, or at least an adequate goalie coach. I am sure there are many out there that would say that a non-goalie is not able to be a good goalie teacher. They might be right. Whatever, I remain very protective about what is said to "my" goalies by people other than me, no matter how much pedigree they might have.

I treat the relationship with goalie and coach as a sacred one, and I think it is a key to great goalie play. I believe the team works best when the goalie is in fact an extension of his coach (me) on the field.

ABC’s

I have studied up on goalie play, I have tried to get tutorials for our goalies from other more famous goalies (while in Vail, etc.), and I always try to build them a good defense to play behind. I want the goalies to know where the shots will be coming from, and that is a big part of our team defense.

THE GOALDEN AGE

I always thought that a coach could never have enough goalies for a variety of reasons, most of those reasons having to do with practice and the quality thereof. At times throughout my coaching career, and for the most part really, we have had but one goalie on the team to work with, period.

EIGHT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH

The last year and a half, however, I have time warped into some sort of freak goalie glut place. We had as many as eight goalies out last spring. I assume that they all thought they were good enough to play, and it was amazing how often we had 7 or eight goalies at practice. Unless you have enough for 4 full field scrimmages and the fields to go with it, and we don’t, there was way too much standing around for most of them. I really hate the standing around thing, too.

FOUR ON THE FLOOR

With a "quit" here, a hit-by-car-while-riding-a-bike there, and a Boulder "defection" we are now down to "just" four goalies at this point. This seems like a much more comfortable number. The story of how we got from "there" with eight goalies to "here" where we have but four is an interesting one. It also has parts yet to happen, and there is at least one Buffalo tale yet to be told.

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