Because Don Draper wants to talk about scheduling. And we have pictures of Nike uniforms that can cure swine flu, world hunger, and the thunder cradle technique.

Mad Men obvi won for Best Drama but how Jon Hamm loses to Malcom in the Middle’s father for Best Lead Actor is beyond me.

Does that look like a guy who loses?

SCHEDULING PHILOSOPHY? FUN and GUN

When the final whistle sounded on the 2009, we knew we needed to make some changes to the schedule. I played more than 11 games in 3rd grade soccer so knew we needed to add more games against better competition.

When it comes to competition in the MCLA there are significant gaps in talent between the top 10 and the top 25 and the top 25 and everybody else, the haves and have nots explanation of the league applies here. If you are on the outside of  the top 25 looking in and are playing a non top 25 caliber schedule, your world shatters like Taylor Swift’s on VMA night the moment you step onto the field with a legit MCLA team.

Exhibit A, Pitt was only down 3-2 to Virginia Tech after the first quarter, and 6-3 after the 1st half. The elephant in the room is that score represents only one half. In the second half we were blown out by an MCLA tournament team. They were able to make adjustments and/or their skill level eventually outpaced us.

While they were certainly a better team at one point the game was quite close. For us mentally the problem was Virginia Tech was the first team that really had us on the ropes all season. We weren’t prepared to play against a team better than us. We weren’t prepared to value each possession and be blood thirsty for ground balls. That’s an attitude adjustment that needs to be cultivated in practice but without a doubt culminates on gameday.

Its the notion of “there are no big games” because every game is a big game.

Fast forward to this fall. Our scheduling goals were as follows:

1. To increase the number of games.

Why?

A) The more games you play the more experience you gain, the more on field chemistry you develop the better your chances are of winning. The more you win the more buzz you generate for your program. The more buzz you have the more likely you are of earning an invite to the postseason.

B) The more games you play the more stats you generate the better chances you have of your kids earning post season accolades. It’s simple. Fourty points in 10 games doesn’t look as good as 60 in 18 games. The more accolades your team earns the buzz you generate for your program. The more buzz you have the more likely you are of earning an invite to the postseason.

2. To increase the number of big games.

Why?

A) You have to beat the best to be the best.

B) Playing better teams generates buzz even in a loss. If you play Michigan on a Saturday, you better believe by Monday the press release is up and everybody in the country knows about it.

C) Playing better teams motivates the team because it shows them how far they have to go to reach next level status. In 2007, CSU beat the stuffing out of Chapman 17-4. Who would have guessed two years later, Chapman would be playing in back to back title games and CSU would be watching?

In short, more games, better games.

Pitt is fortunate to have the Cost Center at our disposal. The Cost Center is an indoor football field, with old astro turf and terrible lighting. Its a wonderful home field advantage although the turf burn shows no allegiance, I still have a scar/discoloration from last spring on my knee.

Because it is an indoor quite obviously we are on affected by weather. Traditionally, our home games have been at the start of the season and we hit the road later in March and April when it is more agreeable to be outside. We haven’t altered that strategy much this season.

Our preseason practices will begin the first week in January when Christmas break ends and we intend to have a scrimmage against Seton Hill (NCAA D2) and one other team on January 23rd. Next weekend will have host our season opener likely against a CCLA Division 2 team or an NCLL team. The next day, likely Saturday will be our alumni scrimmage.

The whole weekend is very crucial in terms of putting on a good show for the alumni and getting off to a hot start this season.

Two weeks ago we intended to play home games from February to March. Best case scenario we would play Friday night and Saturday afternoon in hopes of getting in 10, 12, 16 home games in two months.

These best intentions were formed in late August. My fear was that all the brand name teams had their schedules completed already.When I got an email back from Coach Morris at Utah saying all their OOC games had be scheduled I got a little nervous. Sure, we might schedule 20 games this spring but if Utah has their schedule done already certainly teams ranked higher also have their schedules completed.

The knee reaction involved twitter. One month ago I said I never understood why people used twitter, we’ll discuss our feelings later (Follow us on twitter). Anyway, back to the reaction.

There are many MCLA teams using twitter. Most use them as ways of reporting play by play scores during the game. We used twitter to reach out to coaches and administrators regarding scheduling games. Is it the most direct way of contacting important people? No, like I said it was a knee jerk reaction but again we return to the idea of generating buzz for the program. Actual human beings for whatever reason look at twitter. If I can use twitter to start a dialogue between myself and the University of Alabama regarding the Tide coming to Pittsburgh in 2011, if I can use twitter to show off the mock ups Maverik sent me and I can get @PaulRabil to comment them, if I can get a free man up playbook from New York based LaxLessons.com then twitter has proved itself useful and valuable to me and Pitt.

After my twitter high subsided (I think I’m down to 5 a day), we returned a more traditional way of contacting coaches and presidents, email.

And here is where the term Fun and Gun Scheduling earns its moniker. Fun and Gun is obviously derived from the offensive scheme term, run and gun, which is used to describe an offensive that likes to run up and down the field shooting with no regard for human life specifically Coach Tierney’s.

Fun and Gun is the next level of Run and Gun. It’s 2 parts devil may care, 1 part unmitigated ego, 4 parts release the hounds. (A great example of the fun and gun offense can be found on Saturday’s in Gainsville and in Cleveland during the 2009 NBA Playoffs whenever Mo Williams or Delonte West would skip up the court, pre-Orlando).

Fun and Gun is like cluster bomb dating. If you throw enough of yourself out in a social event one girl is going to bait take. The same can be said of Fun and Gun offense, the more you shoot the better chance you have of the ball going in. Which leads us to Fun and Gun scheduling, the more teams we try to schedule the better chances we will have of actually playing teams.

Virginia Tech is a prime example. We lost 19-4 to them in 2009. I thought, hey they probably don’t want to come back to Pittsburgh this year but maybe if we travel to Blacksburg they will agree. We get an OOC game against a tournament team, they get a home game against the little engine that’s trying. What’s the worst that happens from my asking? Their coach calls me, laughs into the phone, and hangs up. Girls have done that before, I’m not going to be offended.

Well guess what. I got an email back an hour later saying we’d love to have you come down to Blacksburg.

Wonderful.

Interestingly enough, we did have a bunk bed breaking moment with the Virginia Tech game. We had scheduled them for April 2nd confident we could add a team in the region for April 3rd. Turns out that’s Easter Weekend most teams would be off. We were having great difficulty scheduling a second game.

Then this morning, Coach Nachlas sent me an email that looked something like this:

“…As I knew we were committed to South Carolina and Clemson that weekend, I could not add you to our schedule at that time.  I have just returned from the SELC meeting and both of those teams would like to play Pitt here.  Therefore, if you wish, we can schedule Pitt vs VT on 4/9, Pitt vs South Carolina on 4/10 and Pitt vs Clemson on 4/11.”

And that is how Fun and Gun scheduling takes one game and turns it into three. Special thanks to Coach Nachlas for hosting us and suggesting the idea to Clemson and South Carolina.

That gem fell into our lap this morning and its almost as shiny as the Chris Jenkins Memorial Tournament in Minnesota. Nothing like being invited to play in one of the bigger regular season MCLA events. Just like being invited to play in Ann Arbor, these are affirmations that we are doing the right things in moving forward.

(Team President and fellow attackman Rob Musgrave just walked by as I writing this. He tapped me on the shoulder and I almost jumped out of my seat. Talking about Fun and Gun Scheduling gets me going.)

Fun and Gun Scheduling’s only weakness is you  have to stay organized. Its very possible that you could schedule 17 games in one weekend. And Fun and Gun isn’t for everybody, some requirements include, an indoor field or a warm weather climate and lots of money to travel or host.

Our OOC schedule is essentially our away schedule as well because of how things worked out with realignment in the CCLA. We will play Ball State, Miami, and Buffalo at home, likely West Virginia as well. Rob Musgrave instructed me to avoid scheduling home games until the CCLA conference meeting as those teams would need first choice of games.

The CCLA Conference Meeting was this weekend so now we can move full bore ahead. We have a meeting tonight to discuss the coaches experiences at the conference, to finalize the fall scrimmage schedule, and to prepare for the November-December off season thats not really an off season.

In August we hoped to have 12+ home games. Now, we are now looking at possibly nine road games in nine days not including the CCLA tournament. We could be staring at a 20+ game season against very exciting competition.

Perhaps a month ago we worried we were too far behind to schedule the bigger teams to give us that “worldwide” MCLA exposure. Now we are problems have been downgraded to worrying about what hotels to stay in. We have been lucky, but as Billy Zane says in the film Titantic, a real man makes his own luck. Of course we are very grateful to the folks in Minnesota, Coach Nachlas, Coach Paul, Coach Brady in Boston, for giving us these opportunities.

Essentially we are a small market team trying to create a big market for us to compete in. No one cares about Chapman University around the country. But people in the lacrosse world know all about them thanks to their success on the field and Conor Martin’s videos. They played whoever, whenever, wherever and now they are a top 3 program.

One of the most exciting things about club sports, even virtual varsity club sports, is the amount of control we have over our own destiny.

No one in the athletic department is double checking our budget against the girl’s team to make sure we aren’t violating Title IX.

What’s the trade off? We have to share field times with intramural frisbee. But that doesn’t mean we can’t raise funds to go rent a high school field nearby and practice there.

The sky continues to be the limit for the MCLA. We are happy to be reaching higher.

Nike Sublimated Uniforms too? Sure why not. Post of the year nomination.

Uniforms can be found at Elevation Lacrosse

Interesting article by the boys over on the mainland about what NFL players they think would be great attackman.

Wait until you see our list.