Beijing 2008 - Being Prepared

I was a Boy Scout and I learned about “being prepared” as a teenager. There is certainly no better lesson than to be prepared as a coach. So that is what we have been doing over the past day and a half. We have been preparing for the Italy game. This is certainly the biggest game of our “Olympic life” right now. Of course, each and every game will become that “biggest game” from this point forward.

Last night we watched our game against China to review the areas of the game that we played well (defense, and 6 on 5, 5 on 6) and the areas that we need to improve on (getting more players involved in the offense, attacking the zone more effectively and our center game). We made notes and began preparing for Italy. We have some good footage of our game with Italy at the World League Super Finals (which we lost in a shootout) and yesterday’s game between Italy and Croatia. We also have some good footage of our scrimmages with them when we were there this past March. We watched a little last night and saved the rest for today.

In our training this morning we spent a good amount of time on beating a zone defense. We know the Italians will be running some type of zone against us and we want to be ready. At lunch, I spent a little time with our big center, Ryan Bailey who struggled last night in the game. He shared with me that he was very emotional before the game and even became teary eyed. He said that he was thinking about his dad who past away suddenly this last year. He was missing him and wishing that he was here. I reminded Ryan that his dad would be very proud of him. As I walked away I could only think about how much I missed my dad. I know how proud he would be of this team team.

After training today the staff went back to watching video and putting together a scout film (a sequence of clips from our games with Italy) to show the guys. We spent 5 hours today on film and then met with the team to go over the clips.

I took a few hours off after our team meeting to visit with my family and have a little down time. It was nice to get away from the village for a couple of hours and just relax. It was a healthy break and helped remind me to keep all of this in perspective. There is nothing like a 7 year old to bring you back to earth. Sheridan reminded me to smile and have fun at the game.

All we can do tomorrow is to go out there and do the best that we can do. I have seen enough video to know that we are the better team and if we play well tomorrow we will win. It will certainly be another battle and we have to be ready.

Here is our schedule for the morning.
6:30 am - wake up
7 – 7:45 am – team swim a the village pool
8:00 am - breakfast
9:45 am - team meeting to share the game plan
10:30 am – bus to venue
12:10 pm – beat Italy

Sounds like a good day to me. Time for some shut eye. We are prepared!
See you at the pool!
Coach