August 26, 2006

Greetings from Kingston! Well, we've just completed double sessions and essentially our pre-season is over. We'll begin to taper down in preparation for our opening match of the season away at Providence College. It's a great game to begin with as even though we are away to start, the interstate rivalry will even the home field advantage for us. I don't think anyone will suffer from lack of motivation from what I hear.

We've been working hard together to teach and learn some new concepts, common soccer vocabulary and slight changes in the way the team has been playing tactically. The guy's have picked it up quickly and are really beginning to "get it". It's not easy to change your mentality and habits but I give the guy's a lot of credit in keeping an open mind. Our scrimmage versus the University of New Hampshire was a good chance to test out what we had been learning and although the result was not indicative of how we played (a 0-4 loss), it was a litmus test to where we were at this point. I must say that training through the pre-season was very, very good and the focus excellent considering we had 18 days to fill. I love the fact that we get all this time together as it gives us the opportunity to do some things off the field as a group as well as time off to rest and recover. Over the almost three weeks of training we were able to take the team over to the Alumni Golf Outing to "meet and greet" before tee off, then trained right there in Portsmouth, returning for the post golfing dinner and awards ceremony. On another day we went up to the top of campus to the ropes course to have a little fun, find out some things about ourselves while also accomplishing some often under appreciated team building. A couple of post session trips to the beach, off campus meals as well as the boy's driving themselves up to the New England Revolution vs Chicago Fire game were nice ways to break up the monotony that can occur during pre-season. I felt the guy's were fresh at every session and this of course directly related to their execution.

Although we are nursing a couple of injuries I am confident we are on the right track and are going to be ready for PC next Monday. Hope to see you all there...