Saturday, January 6, 2007

SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS

I need to coach soon or I will explode.  I have been spending a great deal of 'quality' time with my smaller children, though.  I have found something they like to watch that I also approve of them watching on that device we used to call a television.  I hate the Power Rangers and the whole Hot Wheels thing is way too macho/macha for me, but this Sponge Bob guy has many redeeming features, although it is not exactly Father Knows Best either.   The Bob is amusing, at times, HAHA funny amusing even.  He has quality friends all over the intelligence scale who look after him, and the shows even have good messages for kids and adults alike, like be wary of anyone who tries to sell you a Time Share Condo near Karate Island.

CASTLES MADE OF SAND FALL INTO THE SEA......…EVENTUALLY

Lacrosse-wise I find myself drawing up little old (and new) plays, thoughts and personnel ideas for situations more or less in the sand these days.  I daydream coach. Right now any piece of paper or writing implement will do because I am not really getting specific and clean in my approach just yet.  I am just making piles of my coaching junk as it were.  When I try to get organized in the closet or the office I always start with piles.  Then I subdivide the heaps or stacks into similar kinds of things and then I approach logic with the "creative" and try to break it all up or down into the perfect cube or whatever.  Well, right now I am making messes that are masquerading as paper piles that contain many of my off season thoughts. Very few of them will remain relevant for very long but that doesn't keep me from having them.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Now begins the round hole being fit with the square peg process, and for this I do need a few preconceived notions or I have nothing to put down on my practice plan sheet.  I know they like it when I act like I know what I am doing.  Come to think of it, as much as I like to coach on the fly, I feel stronger with a plan, too. This year I am thinking an extra lot about what order I want to teach things in, as in I must be efficient.   What things do I absolutely want to at least touch on when we have that first two-hour 'full' practice, the one where I can do a whole coaching practice, soup to nuts, philosophy to full field scrimmage?  By the way, that could happen early on or it might not happen for a month because of weather, etc.

CATCH 22 – THE ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF DIM LIGHTS

Where and when do I work on special teams?  How much should I emphasize Extra Man play?  How much do I push?  When do I back off? Well, never actually.......

What are those one or two things I want to touch on every day, inside and warm, or outside in the cold.  Last year, for example, one thing I emphasized was the (some might say smallish) concept of "winning the whistle", and I did it constantly. This of course means that I want them to be ready to play before that whistle to start play is sounded by the official.  I made it a big thing.  Not many days went by in 2006 that I didn't make a point of that point at some point during practice.  I also believe it paid off for us, especially in Dallas, but really all season long.  I like for us to have those kinds of 'anchors' all the time, and with new ones added to or displacing old ones as we go and grow, to help us focus as a group and a team.

WELL BLOW ME DOWN (Popeye, who is in fact, MY heeero)

I like to use the whistle to coach.  I only regret I cannot still whistle free form with my lips and that I must always use a whistling device (Lyme Disease, 1998, fallout).  I like to intonate different moods or intentions with how I blow the whistle on the field.  I chew through several plastic whistles each year by the way.  I use the whistle to help me coach in different ways.  I really like to do things like wait until they are all way out of position on offense, for example, and then I blow hard and yell FREEZE at the top of my lungs.  In these situations I must talk as fast as possible while they all try to sneak and slither their way back to where they know they should be.  This is very effective because it shows clearly that they do know what is right and or expected, and if they are not doing it, then it is because they have chosen to not do it rather than not understanding where they are supposed to be.  This, in my mind, makes my chances of fixing higher and better.

MAKE MINE MADRAS

I like patterns in and for a practice even knowing that I might change its direction faster than a Forest Gump feather in the wind.  The pace and rhythm of the rehearsals are such important elements to me.  The attitude that players bring is power to work with sometimes, too.  I don't want to waste that.  I want to make practice work for us efficiently, and this year I will once again have to do it in a new way because circumstances have changed and what we have available as facilities has, too. 

This logistical challenge does take careful planning because a coach can do different things when he has two hours and perfect weather conditions from what is possible to do on a winter night in a half-field, freeze-your-buns-off for less than an hour under not-so-bright lights kind of a deal. I am grateful for any useable practice time and I want to use it in a way that makes me glad to have the minutes that I have.

COLDER THAN A WITCH'S……..

Our upcoming practice schedule once again resembles a plot from "The Mole", moving us, testing us, and gambling with the possibilities of snafu.  Things are really tough early with the snow, the short days, and the lack of decent and recent routine, just to name a few heartburns for this old coach. 

DREAMS OF FIELDS

I know that everyone needs and wants fields and use thereof, not just us.  I am a broken record with this.  The thing is we have a ton of them (fields) at the university.  We just are not allowed to use them sometimes, I presume because they need to always look pretty or whatever.  They close the fields so much that I am not exactly sure what or who they (fields) are for.  Besides, would someone explain to me why grass is not a renewable resource.  What is the big deal?

Also, they have this not so new artificial surface stuff that almost every junior high school in America has now put in.  Why do they use it?  Well, it is not that expensive initially, and once in takes many fewer people to maintain.  It is safer than the old style turf, too.  There is no plan for such a field here at CSU, one that so many could use all day and all night with little wear and tear. 

There are currently blue prints for buildings that will take up more existing field spaces at CSU.  Do they ask the students what they think about all that?  I don't think I need to answer that.

FAMILY PLAN

When I got here there was a club sports Director who worked with many of the student sports organizations known as club sports on a daily basis and in kind of a family way.  I could work with him, ask him for stuff that I might or might not have gotten, and I could even yell at him from time to time without jeopardizing my club.  He was very understanding as bosses go.  Don't you have to be to work with me?  He loved the job and the school.  I liked to watch him show prospective students around the university.  That was one of his responsibilities.  It made even me want to come here.   I thought of him a CSU resource, and a valuable one at that.  This man had been here at the "U" forever, too, and in fact I still see him around campus quite often.  He was the consummate "company man".

Anyway, new leadership was brought in that changed things up quite a bit just a few years ago.  If I understand things correctly, the idea is not to have and aspire to more club growth, like with more fields and useable facilities for club sports, but rather to have smaller club organizations in general and to have more administrative capabilities along with more emphasis on intramural and purely recreational sports. 

The overall futuristic plan has been to have new Rec Sports buildings and things like that. Landscaped patios have been built and much office remodeling has already been done.  This is more than a little discouraging for me. This is not the university path I had in mind to get me placed into to my virtual varsity plan.

ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE – VERY COMMON NOWADAYS

This Club Sports guy to whom I refer 'retired' shortly after these changes began to take place.  He's now been gone three or four years.  The new administrative direction was more intent on moving toward red taped, bottom line efficiency and away from that 'family' informal feel that had been there for years and years.  Before he ever left, they had already hired two professional sports administrators anyway, and then gave them all kinds of new 'titles' and away we went.  Well, away they all went, too, 'moved on'.   Both have also now left the university for better opportunities or whatever.  One just left us this month, right in the middle of the school year.  I am disappointed that three important people have left the department we work with in much less than 5 years.

I WISH IT DIDN'T PHASE ME, but it does

I fear they are, in effect, phasing me out as well, and I guess they are doing a pretty good job because I am no longer sure what to tell CSU lacrosse recruits about the sunshine of our future, and it doesn't seem to matter how many things we do or accomplish as clubs at CSU, and it is far from just lacrosse that has a strong standing national tradition in club sports at CSU. Baseball has won the national championship for Club Baseball three years in a row, for example. 

As a lacrosse organization we have stretched way out.  We have accomplished so much that is not on the field, but does have to do with substance and character. We have an endowment, we have special events at Invesco Field, and a few lacrosse 'scholarships' and stuff like that are even in the works with our active alumni, but even with the huge university developmental office upside of lacrosse graduates, we still have to get in there and fight for the limited field usage and other things with Ultimate Frisbee and everyone else every single season.

So, I wonder if we will get a new 'boss' or what in Rec Sports.  Hey, I know of this guy.  He loves the school, worked there for a long time, and probably would do the job for free (almost) given the right chance.   Oh, never mind.

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