Friday, May 22, 2009

Spring Season Lacrosse Wrapup




I know, it’s been like 5 months since I’ve wrote anything. I can tell you it was for a good reason why I’ve been MIA. For the last couple months, I’ve been coaching a 11 and under lacrosse team in Cherokee County, GA. The season is now over and in summary, we had an extremely successful season.

For the season, we played 9 games. Their record was 8-1 and we participated in 2 end of season tournaments. The first tournament, The Roswell Invitational, was okay. We finished in our pool 2 – 2, but I felt much better considering no one in our pool went undefeated. By knowing that, it showed that the teams in the pool were evenly matched.

Our last tournament, the Bagataway Tournament, is a national qualifier for the U11 national lacrosse tournament. Because the tournament was held at our home field, we were given an opportunity to participate. My organization had two U11 teams, so we combined the two teams and took the 20 best players from both teams. We had two practices to develop some sense of chemistry and camaraderie. Needless to say, after our last practice, I had my fingers crossed to win just one game.

The day of the tournament started with an 11am game against a Forsyth county team. We didn’t play them during the season so I knew nothing about this team. And given my outlook on the tournament, I just told the boys to go out and have fun. Well, they had fun indeed! I’m not certain what was discussed among them between Thur and Sat, but they looked like a team that had been playing together all season! We won that game 16-1!

Our second game was against a team from Alpharetta. I gave them the same pregame speech, “Let’s have fun!”. And they did just that. In fact, we earned our first shut out of the season with a convincing 11-0 victory. Maybe, just maybe, I underestimated my team?

Sunday would be our test. We would play a team from Gwinnett county at 9am, and our last game would be against the Lake Norman All Stars from Charlotte, NC. From our first game until now, they were sizing us up, taking notes to determine how to defend us. ARE YOU SERIOUS??? You can’t line up your best 10 players and just play the game? We had 3 coaches, they had 8!!! I wonder if they were being paid to coach! LOL

We beat the Gwinnet team 12-2. Can you believe during the game, the Lake Norman coaches were taking notes about my boys and how they play? You can’t be serious! So in the spirit of gamesmanship, I had my boys take their jerseys off after our last game. And with about 5 mins remaining before we played the Charlotte team, I made them switch numbers!!

It was hard fought battle, probably one of the most exciting U11 lacrosse games I’ve seen ever! Even better, we won, 9-6!! Their coaches were definitely humbled as they expected to annihilate us! They even had this look of confusion as if to say “How did we lose that game?”. Actually, it was pretty simple. Any team I ever coach will be fundamentally sound. And quite simply, we played better as a team and won all the ground ball battles. Maybe next year coach J
Because we were the top seed in our pool, we got an automatic invite to the finals!! And in the semi-finals, were two North Carolina teams vying for the opportunity to play my team! The semi-final wasn’t even close and the Hurricanes won 10-1 over their arch rival The Cobras.

So here I am, trying to pinch myself to wake up from the dream. 1) I didn’t grow up playing competitive lacrosse, 2) This is my first year coaching lacrosse. What did I do to deserve this? These were my thoughts 5 minutes before the game. The team we were playing is a club team that travels throughout the country to participate in tournaments, their coach was a former lacrosse player and had been coaching the team for several years. How was I going to compete against that? Anyway, the game started and by halftime, we were only down one point.

When the game was over, we had lost by 2 points. The kids came off the field with a sense of dejection. But quickly, I reminded them of how far they had come and gave them some perspective as to what they did accomplish. As we’re shaking hands, the winning team was very positive to the boys and loaded them with compliments. I spoke with the other coach and commended him on the sportsmanship his boys exhibited and congratulated him on a hard fought win. He reciprocated by complimenting on the kids’ hustle and their athletic ability. When I explained to him that we were a rec team, he shook his head and blew a sigh of relief!

For all that trouble, we earned 2nd place in the Southeast championship. I was extremely proud of the boys as well as myself considering I didn’t back down from competing against significantly more experienced teams and coaches. I had a blast but am very happy the season is over so that I can focus on my golf game!

I’ll try to be better about writing about my escapades. Hope you enjoyed it!

Monday, January 26, 2009

No More Bush!!

One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White Housefrom across Pennsylvania Avenue , where he'd been sittingon a park bench.
He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, 'Iwould like to go in and meet with President Bush.'
The Marine looked at the man and said, 'Sir, Mr. Bush isno longer president and no longer resides here.'
The old man said, 'Okay' and walked away.
The following day, the same man approached the White Houseand said to the same Marine, 'I would like to go in andmeet with President Bush.'
The Marine again told the man, 'Sir, as I said yesterday,Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resideshere.'
The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.
The third day, the same man approached the White House andspoke to the very same Marine, saying 'I would like to goin and meet with President Bush.'
The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, lookedat the man and said, 'Sir, this is the third day in a rowyou have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I'vetold you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the presidentand no longer resides here. Don't you understand?'The old man looked at the Marine and said, 'Oh, Iunderstand. I just love hearing it.'
The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, 'See you tomorrow.'