Monday, January 19, 2009

I’VE GOT A FEELING Beatles

Maybe the song goes something more like, “What a long, strange trip it’s been”.  Somehow the Grateful Dead would seem to fit the last few months better as friend of the devil lately seems to always be a friend of mine. Even though I never was an actual Dead Head I did like the music, but anyway and with any mode of musical metaphor the next whistle stop comes Tuesday when we work as a team for the first time. We circle the wagons as a group at the Edge and I will get one more chance to make a ‘first impression’ on a new and (hopefully) wild bunch. 

I know exactly how I plan to approach this season.  My main concern is that all the cooks and contributors be working on concocting the exact same kind of Ram soup, because, as we all now know (me), we are not “baking cookies” out there on the lacrosse field.  This fact was pointed out to us by one of the opposing coaches this fall in Las Vegas (Not a Mormon) who thought perhaps the Rams (US) weren't so tough and I thought it was so brilliant (and pompous) that I simply can’t still get it out of my mind, especially considering the coattails that particular coach is riding at this particular time in his coaching career.  I am not particular about where I get my lessons from at this point in my life by the way, and I definitely got a few this past fall that I have had the winter to digest fully along with the turkey dinners and even if that might have taken a few extra Pepcid AC’s to cool the burn

FAST (F-un A-nd S-imple T-eam).

Anyway, the idea is to make things fun and simple this spring, and that is no joke.  I do not want this team to get complicated.  I want them to get totally motivated for sure, both individually and as a group, and I think they already are, but my aim is to have them save much or most of their actual thinking for the classroom activities more than the on-field thing. 

WE TALKIN’ BOUT PRACTICE  Alan Iverson

I’d love for us to be a smart team.   Don’t get me wrong on that part of the evolutionary team building process, but one way or the other I prefer determined from the beginning.  We most likely will not have playbooks but we will have a ‘book’ on how to play that does not for the most part change when the other team changes its field formation or tactic. Actually that is a lie.  I forbid a written playbook just now.  That is the last thing we need in my humble opinion.

PARDON ME, NO PARDON ME.

I don’t want to put IT on things like what defense we might be in.  I want to put it UPON US to first and always play defense with a certain style, a special intensity and commitment.  When we attack the other goal I want to use many very fundamental principles of the game to get people on the same page. I want to keep it simple stupid, as in it doesn’t matter how hard you shoot if you aren’t ever in a place where you can score very often in a REAL game.  You must drill fundamental ways to get good shots to come your team’s way, and even if a team is very talented to begin with.  

LET ME TAKE CHARGE OF MY OWN LIFE

Good ‘plays’ and positive patterns of play come from fundamental building blocks.  There is plenty of time later for tactics and chalkboard brilliance, but lately my teams have gotten off track early by me assuming that they knew things that they did not really know or to execute things that ultimately they could not execute in game situations.  

Basically for me there will be no OVERCOACHING by me in 2009, and there will also be no question that is too insignificant to ask.

AGRO

I am spending all the extra ‘family’ dollars on things like playing fields both indoors and out in January.  The weather makes reserving the outdoor one a crapshoot but I’m laying my bets anyway because I want to practice more on big fields early.  Even in February I will be spending money we probably don’t have to get us what and where we need to be to have practices of value.  I guess we will be like the hockey team and never practice on campus.

Nothing (fields) is open on campus until February 1st anyway, and that simply won’t do anyway or anymore.  The teams in California have been practicing for three weeks or whatever, but for once I don’t really give a damn.  I have my own plan and timetable this time.

WRITE ON

I admit that my motivation to write the journal has been on the wane.  My plan is to try and write more and quicker updates so that they can be useful to some at most times during the season.

THE TIME BUDGET MUST BE BALANCED BARAK

Rumor has it that we have fallen just short of a crater on our "TEAM GPA" scale. My aim is to fix that this spring as well. It is fortunate that students are held accountable to the 2.0 tune. It makes my job easier in terms of drawing lines, but it's a shame that so manny college students flirt with that "Mendoza Line" when college should be the best and in many ways most productive time of life.

I must confess that I am quite sure my GPA is not the culprit for our team's less-than-greatness in the classroom, but I can still try harder to make better grades for the team. Maybe we'll do some real studyhalls.

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