It’s fall semester of my son’s eighth grade year. I coach his youth football team’s offensive line. Several other player’s dads comprise the remainder of the coaching staff. My son and I joined this team a season ago. Since 7 years of age, I coached his football teams in some capacity. This will be the final football season coaching my son. Next year he and his teammates will progress to the high school level and get instructed by their coaching staffs. For a middle aged man, this is quite a milestone.
We fellow coaches invested significant time and effort into coaching our boys these last several years. Because of this, our head coach suggests participating in an end of season youth football tournament in Las Vegas, NV. He billed it as the final blowout before turning over the football coaching reins to the high schools and taking our places in the stadium seats. We unanimously agree that this is a good idea. What could go wrong?
We roll into the first tournament venue comfortably seated on our private, chartered bus. Our opponent came from Bakersfield, CA, where they most likely carjacked their way to Nevada. However, this conclusion only became evident by the end of game. At this point I know nothing about Bakersfield other than it’s a desert town way east of L.A. As we drive past our opponent warming up, I feel unsettled.
Immediately, I reference the football tournament rules. Nothing in the literature suggests that this is a father-son tournament. The Bakersfield team looks enormous. And that’s without pads on. How could these behemoths all be eight-graders? I’m certain some of them are shaving on a daily basis. I think a couple of them have small children, too. We coaches take notice. So do our boys.
Naturally, we played teams that out-sized us before. We were never the biggest squad, but we emphasized game preparation and positional technique execution. In football size looms large, but it does not independently determine gridiron success. I remind myself of this personal postulate while staring at Goliath. Unfortunately, we couldn’t scout Bakersfield before the contest and nobody on our roster is named David. But we still have technique, right?
On the first snap of the game our offensive backfield has more Bakersfield players in it than we do. Instead of tackling our running back, a Bakersfield player lifts him off his feet, drives him backwards, and plants him in the turf. The situation does not improve. Not only does Bakersfield play with great speed and physicality, but they possess just a plain mean and nasty edge. They land punches in the piles, throw elbows after the play, and literally kick our boys when they are down.
As our team exits the field, they gaze at us with a “deer in the headlights” look. Fear emanates and spills out from their helmets. Their bodies appear unstable. They look like they just saw combat for the first time and held no desire to see it again. As the game progresses, the referees seem oblivious to the Southern Cal late hits and Bakersfield sucker punches. Murmurs of forfeiting the game out of safety arises amongst our parents. If something doesn’t change, one of our kids will get seriously injured they say.
We manage to make it to halftime without a single death, dismemberment, puncture wound, or any other game ending injury. But the boys still look shell shocked. If they are to survive this contest, we coaches need to find the right words and motivation to snap them back into the team we believe they can be.
The first thought that runs through my brain is our guys are in a street fight and the only logical response is to fight back with the mindset to fuck up the other team. Hell yeah, fuck ‘em up! However, these are eighth grade boys. Saying that would be inappropriate. I change gears and shift my paradigm to our guys are in a street fight and just got punched in the mouth. The only logical response is to pick themselves up and punch those Bakersfield boys right back in the mouth. Yes, right in the mouth. This is much better.
When it comes my time to speak, I provide my simple, succinct halftime message. It is brief, but I believe it delivers what they need to hear. The boys quietly head back to sidelines, ready to face the third quarter. As I watch them, the offensive coordinator leans in close to my face. He is burley man with a thick, full beard. He speaks quietly through the corner of his mouth, as if imitating a ventriloquist.
“That was best fucking halftime speech I’ve ever heard,” he softly shares.
My head jerks back, attempting to peer into his eyes, but instead catch my reflection in his mirrored sunglasses. Is he busting my chops for my somewhat cliched speech? Did he find it so lame and uninspiring that he needs to give me crap about it, right now?
I give him a quizzical look and ask, “What do you mean?”
In exactly the same manner, he repeats, “That was the best fucking halftime speech I’ve ever heard.”
I now understand he is serious and not pulling my leg. I felt I relayed a useful point to the team and hoped to instill some fight back in the boys, but I don’t think my words would make anybody forget about Knute Rockne. It was just something I thew together about 30 seconds before the words crossed my lips.
Hesitantly, I ask, “What do you think I said?” He lowers his sunglasses so I can now see his eyes while he also points to the football field.
“You told them to go out there and fuck them in the mouth.”
Horrified, I stammer, “I, I did, I did not say that! There’s no way I said that!”
His expression never changes. It feels surreal. It is as if I no longer hold a grasp on reality. Could I have said that and not realized it? Maybe he misheard me, imagining something far more provocative than what I said. As I process the scene, this appears like the most plausible of explanations. Except for one damn, irrefutable reason. Witnesses.
I gave a short, albeit profane, speech in front of players and other football coaches. My words were heard by everybody except me. On the upside, we played far better in the second half.
Fortunately I never saw a member of our team attempt to perform oral fornication on the Bakersfield bad boys. I wonder whether those words shocked our team into playing better or was so off the hook that they completely forgot about the ass kicking they were receiving.
“Did you guys hear what coach said?”
“I know, right. Fuck ‘em in the mouth. Who thinks up shit like that?”
“Coach is whack. Hey, we’re lining up kick return. I guess it’s time to go fuck them in the mouth.”
“Yeah, let’s go bang some braces!”
It’s difficult to feel pride or shame for something in which I draw no recollection. I never consulted with my son to see if that was his memory as well. It would likely have been an awkward and confusing moment, as I never included that topic in the “facts of life” speech to him. Well, at least not that I recall.