About a year ago I was listening to Howard Stern on Sirius XM. He was playing a clip of a football coach yelling at his team's players. One of the players on the team secretly recorded the screams, curses, insults, and threats of his football coach. I think the player had enough of being demeaned game after game and recorded the coach to show people what was going on.
Once the tape hit the media listeners/viewers were aghast. Many women were shocked that someone would use that kind of language at high school players. A lot of men responded, "That's exactly the kind of things my coach said to me." Howard asked his employees that had played high school football their thoughts. Every one of them said, "Yeah, that's exactly what my coaches said to me. Exactly."
I played 5A high school football in Tampa, Fl. during the early 90's. Here's a list of things that were said to me by coaches when I played.
1. (Wide Receiver's coach) (Note: I was an Offensive "Strong Side" Guard.) "I don't give a fuck about your parents, the school, or any of that shit! I will fucking MURDER you if you don't move!"
He didn't so much say or yell it at us, but just kind of snarled with spit coming out of his mouth. And get this. That day was a rainout! We were in the gym practicing basic skills. You know, running, jumping, squats, stretches, and walking through plays.
I honestly, in my heart of hearts, thought the coach was going to take a swing at one of us. To this day I have no clue as to why he was so pissed off. It was complete overkill for nothing.
2. (Defensive Coordinator.) As you can see my last name is "Long." He liked to call me, "Shlong." He was also a former Navy S.E.A.L. He could be a cruel man.
3. That same D.C. just lambasted the entire defense at halftime during spring season football. He used every curse word I knew at the time, and a few I didn't. I have never heard someone yell so loudly in my life. Like I said earlier, I was on offense. He was yelling at the entire defense in the next room, and it felt like he was yelling directly in my ear.
4. (Linebacker's Coach) I had the LB's Coach grab my facemask, and twist it. As in, he was intentionally trying to hurt my neck. He was mad because I was going after the defensive tackle's knees. I was told to block a certain way by the Offensive Coaches, and instructed to tell the D Linemen to, "Watch your knees."
I did this before every play where I was supposed to block like that. I knew it. The D-Linemen knew it. Everyone knew it except for this LB's Coach.
Still the LB's Coach really tried to hurt me. He actually stopped practice to come over, grab my facemask, and yell at me. Yeah, this happened in front of the entire team. And when I say "team," I mean the players, coaches, and trainers.
This coach had played for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1950's and at one time was the highest paid defensive player in the league. He admitted he had the, "Old School" attitude when it came to
coaching and playing football.
I told the LB's Coach, as he was twisting my helmet, "Coach Tolley (the Offensive Line Coach) told me to block like that! If you don't like it, you need to talk to him!" He didn't like that, or didn't believe me.
Once play continued, the coaches met up, and informed the LB Coach why I was blocking the way I was. After about five plays he came up and apologized to me. Somehow he didn't know about the blocking scheme. I was still pretty angry about how no other coach stepped in when he was twisting my facemask.
5. I was huffing and puffing since we were running so many plays in row during practice. I was just sucking wind when the head coach yelled, "God damnit Tolley (the O-Line coach) is he going to fucking die on me?!!!" Coach Tolley was the most level headed coach by far. He just stepped in and calmed the situation down.
So that brings me to my title. There was one week when Team Chaplin Lane was not able to make it that Friday (game day.) So our Head Coach took over the inspirational words of the week. How did it go? Exactly like you think it would.
He said, "Now you may not believe in Jesus, but you have to admit, it took BALLS to do what he did! He rode into that city KNOWING that they were going to fucking kill him! He KNEW they were going to painfully crucify him to death, yet he walked into that battlefield despite the odds being against him! But you know what? Despite the odds, three days later he emerged from that cave VICTORIOUS!"
At seventeen years old I had never heard the story of the resurrection put that way. Actually, I'm sure no one else had either. The good news, was that regular Team Chaplin Lane was back the next week with a more levelheaded inspirational talk. He didn't miss a game after that. He was a real good guy. However, when it came to that week's game, we lost badly. But hey. You win some, you lose some.
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