Saturday, July 26, 2008

ROOKIE AGAIN

I haven’t been writing to the point of I feel like I am starting all over again.  This entry is all over the map.

CUSTER’S LAST STAND

I am on what you might call one of them family vacations.  We are staying in a cabin right near Mt. Rushmore.  I have never been to South Dakota before.  I never realized I lived so close to it either.  It is very small where we are staying, not too well equipped (does have one TV with Direct TV, however), and the place suits us just fine. It is in actuality pretty far from sleeping under the stars, and yes, we have beds and stuff, but this place is pretty much the definition of ‘camping’ in our little family dictionary.

CAN YOU SAY LAND OF ATTRACTIONS

They had a gold rush here in the 1880’s and Wild Bill was gunned dead nearby in Deadwood, too, but all that stuff takes a back seat to what this area has become and that is what I might call 'the Land of Attractions'.  Come to think of it, I'm sure they have a re-enactment of Wild Bill getting shot dead seven times daily or whatever. There are so many (attractions to visit) around here that they are practically falling over one another.  The “Bear Country” station wagon safari (bears, wolves, mountain lions, etc.) is right next to “Reptile Gardens”, it's live Gator Show, and its 127 year-old tortoise, too. My grandpa would only be 132. “Sitting Bull Caverns” with stalagtites and such isn’t that far from the TRushmore Alpine Slide and its Vail ski pass prices.  There are tons of things like these to go to and experience, and Ada ran us through many or most of them over the last 48 hours.  I held up pretty well considering the fact that shopping at the mall can put me into a catatonic or even comatose state of mind within minutes.  Ada reminds me to smile and that we are on family time.  Both of those things are good reminders or even solid mantras for me to use to keep some part of my sunny side up.

IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL

In this part of South Dakota it’s sort of like everybody that wandered through here during and after the Great Depression of the 1930’s had a money-making idea that would go along with what that nut who carved presidential heads into the side of one fairly modest sized mountain was doing. By the way each head is resplendent with at least a 20-foot long nose.  Then I surmise that all the local fun just exploded from there.  Once they used up all the nifty natural local phenomena they began building the water slides and re-creations of the prehistoric community of Bedrock where you can hang out with the Flintstones for an hour or whatever (didn't go there).  The variety available is more than even Walt Disney might even have imagined.  The one common thread is that all the exits from these places funnel you through extensive and well-stocked ‘gift shops’ on your way out.

PRESIDENT WHO?

My kids absolutely hated the actual Mt. Rushmore.  To them I think it’s too many people not enough action.  The monument was like a picture on a distant wall to them.  In other words boring. 

I AM MR. MAGOO

With cataract surgery coming Tuesday I could barely tell Abe Lincoln from Teddy Roosevelt so it (Rushmore) was cool but not as cool as it might have been for me if I could have seen it better.  By the way I never thought I would say that I am eager to have someone poke a hole in my eye, but I can't wait for Tuesday's surgery in hopes of better seeing days ahead.

It wasn’t the most positive and auspicious beginning for our tourist fling to this land full of motorcycles and RV's, but then we quickly went to plan B and happily spent the next several hours playing on the tiny man-made beach at the secluded local lake near our cabin. Go figure. 

HAPPILY IN SOUTH DAKOTA

So, we outlined the plan for this multi-day trip to Mount Rushmore for quite some time.  The part I didn’t have in mind was My George (5) spilling cherry slushy on My Imac laptop the day before we left, rendering it pretty much useless until I can find someone who does not kick me out the door because it is an Apple machine.  I was going to write and work some on the trip. That is not going to happen exactly.   So instead I sit here pecking away at the old, previously retired to Vail duty only Imac, the one almost but not quite capable of this modern wireless action.  I have no possibility of Internet activity while here.  Then, of course, my cell phone will not even ‘roam’ here either.  It simply refuses to have any kind of network coverage and I can’t use it to call or get called.  Meanwhile it somehow manages to torment me by telling me that I am getting messages regularly, but then it will not allow me to retrieve them.  Bottom line is that I am technologically stranded, but the truth is that I am in no hurry to get back to all the personal trials that await me in Fort Collins.  I guess I could go to a pay phone and call someone, but as far as I am concerned and based on the last week I can’t imagine news that might be good, so whatever it is I will find out about it much later when I get home.  We already decided to stay an extra day right after we got here, so I am clearly in no hurry to get back and face my nation.

VAIL

I haven’t written in here since Vail I don’t think.  That’s about three weeks.  Ram Camp at CSU was squeezed into that writing time lapse as well.  I had thoughts on Vail, but there have been many ‘senior moments’ for me since that went down. Besides, this Vail was better documented than any have been in quite some time, and anyway it’s all neatly placed on line and for all to see.

I brought a Rock-it Pocket Team back to Vail after a one-year hiatus.  We lost in consolation final after crawling our way back up what one might call the “loser’s bracket”.  We had pool play the first day, and we didn’t do too well in our first two games.  We had five guys currently playing for Hopkins on the team, and once Mike the Hopkins probably going to be All-American goalie showed up for the third game our fortunes took an upturn that eventually took us very close to the consolation championship trophy (9th out of 18).  We did okay, but I much prefer to compete in the upper division of the event and to play games in Vail rather than down the valley in Edwards where the first day ‘losers’ play.  We did make it back in town and to Ford Field for that last game, so that was good.  As usual we ended up needing a little more firepower on offense.  I do think our defense is competitive with most anyone’s up there.

Cornell’s 'Team 21' finally won their championship for the Elite event, a team we had beaten to take third back in ’05.  That was Team 21’s first year.  It takes time to win Vail, no matter how loaded you come in.  The only first-time winner I can recall was that Lax World team about ten years ago that had Josh Simms and a few of his Tiger buddies just after he had graduated from Princeton. That team was pretty much an All-American Division I squad from that time and I remember being dazzled by the speed at which they played the game.  

Everyone at the final game of the Elite this year was pretty much pulling for the 21’s to beat the Star studded defending champions now called Team Reebok with its Donegars and Doc Schneider between the pipes. The crowd for the finals was weak. It is a game anymore where the participants come together to see the final and that's what makes the crowd, and it comes without the huge bunch of miscellaneous fans like we used to get.

CAMP

CSU Ram Camp was better than ever, even though we got off to a bit of a slow start in my mind, the one seeking perfection.  This was I think our seventh overnighter camp. We had over 150 campers, our best number to date.  The staff of counselors made a huge impression on the ‘public’ and everyone worked their butts off, including the kid campers.

We had some Denver Outlaw players there one morning, too, which added some glamour as well as some playing and teaching expertise to the proceedings. 

The MLL All-Star game in Denver on the last night of camp was an interesting, fun, full on excursion (4 busses full of pumped up players), although the 31-16 game or whatever it turned out to be at the end had no drama and not that much great lacrosse either.  The game was a great deal of WEST players running down the middle and slamming it past a shell-shocked EASTERN goalie.  There were a few players making plays with passes, but not too much.  The total lack of defense at times is a bit of a travesty to me sometimes, and not just in the all-star game. They need to let another longish pole on the field in the MLL in my opinion.

SCHEDULE

I have been working on our 2009 CSU Ram lacrosse schedule. I wrote the following email to my 'new' team the other day.

Dear Team:

It looks like we will have the awesome schedule this coming Spring.  The details are almost done. A really good post-season team could get 22-23 games with this schedule all told.

IN THE BEGINNING

We will play Poly and UCSB on our first trip to San Luis Obispo in later February.

THE ODYSSEY.

On spring break we will play games in Los Angeles at LMU, at Claremont and at Chapman.

Then we go to Utah for BYU on national TV.  We will play Utah U., too, in the second of two important league games to finish the week. In all 5 games in 8 days in two states and with using multiple means of travel. 

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

By the way there is a chance that ASU and Arizona are going to come into our league this year.  I think that would be cool. I'm not sure if we will play them in '09 either way.

BACK TO BACK BIG ONES/ROAD WARRIORS

I have also just planned a trip in early April to play Michigan and UMDuluth in Ann Arbor.  HOWEVER, if they (MCLA) decide NOT to hold the National finals here in Denver I might cancel that one based on financial thoughts on the subject of travel. That answer won't be known until late August.

HOME SWEET HOME

Our home games for '09 include Sonoma State, Boston College, Florida in March, and possibly/tentatively Montana, Texas A&M, and Lindenwood.  We will play C.U. At Invesco again and we will play CC as well.

That is all for now,

Love, Coach

SOUTH DAKOTA LACROSSE

I really think South Dakota is ready for lacrosse.  Based on our lack of Rock-it Pocket orders coming in from South Dakota I don’t think there is currently much lacrosse happening there.  I know it’s a short ‘growing’ season in the Dakotas, but other than that the demographics seem to be there.  They are not ‘hicks’.  There are likely more Obama supporters per capita around here than Fort Collins.  I guess I base that assumption on the Bergenstock's and tatoos sported by the locals. It does not have a red neck feel to it at all, but then I was only in the part of S.D. that is close to Wyoming………………

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