Highly comical high school athlete cliches

Beat me to it ... damn you.

 

Suburban school coach talking about inner-city school: "They're so athletic."

 

Every championship has to have the captain spilling the obligatory: "We worked so hard this season."

Well, you should have won if the other team didn't work hard.

 

Or the flip of that: "My teammates were there for me," which is usually said by the star player who is head and shoulders above his/her teammates because they're aware the teammates will be pissed if they say the truth ("I gotta score 49 points a game because we don't have anyone else who can hit the broad side of a barn").

 

Inner-city coach talking about suburban school, "They work very hard and think out there."

 

But they all work just as hard as the pros.

 

We knew we'd have our hands full. Yes, we won, but you gotta give credit to the other team. They made things difficult on us, and we made things difficult on ourselves. This game comes down to free throws, that and defense. We defended better than we have all season, but if we are going to win at the end of the game, we have to make our free throws. We have to. So yeah, we have a lot of things we can work on. But we aren't going to look ahead. We have to stay within ourselves and take it one game at a time, well -- no, NO! -- I take that back. We have to take it one practice at a time, one possession at a time, one quarter at a time, one half at a time, one game at a time. That's our motto. That's how we stay focused. We aren't the most skilled team in the world. We aren't going to beat teams because we are more athletic. We have to beat teams with preparation and hard work and by playing as a team.

 

"We wanted it more."



HOW DO YOU KNOW?????????????????????????

 

Coach always tells us to just go out there and have some fun.

That goal in the second period was huge. We were able to build some momentum off that.

My hat goes off to (losing coach), his players are so well-disciplined, they really give us a battle every time out.

 

"This season has been really great, because we're all such good friends!"

Really . . . how so?

"Um . . .what do you mean?"

Well, what type of activities do you do away from the field? Do you have classes together?

"Um, yeah. . . . We're all just really close, and that makes it fun!"

Is there a way this closeness has been shown in an event on or off the field?

"Um . . . I'm not sure what you mean?"

Who is your best friend on the team?

"Oh! It's, um . . . probably such-and-such. She's so funny."

 

Was she sure it wasn't <a href="http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs15.html">So-and-So?</a>

 

Some of the best coaches are the ones that go in the complete opposite direction. The ones that are so negative and critical that you can only print 20-percent of what they say because you'll get complaints. Or you'll just feel like a terrible person.

We had a coach who just retired that would do this all the time. The problem was, his team was always winning. It was a cross country team that won state championships and kids went off to the Ivy Leagues. Not really much to complain about.

Finally they stopped being the best and were just one of the best (I know, tragic). In the district title race, the No. 2 girl on the team just ran herself out. Just didn't have it in her to run another inch. She was dehydrated, collapsed and literally tried to crawl across the finish line. So finally after about a minute of her screaming in pain some of the team parents pull her off the trail. She stars screaming even louder because she's done. Once someone touches her, she's out.

This is probably one of the most awful things I've ever watched. I mean, horrific injuries were easier. But the truth is if she would've just crossed the finish line her team would've won the title and had a decent shot at coming in top three at states.
I ask the coach about it, figuring he'd try to protect her a little bit and I'd have to ask him some tough questions.

Nope, he goes on and on about how he has no idea what possibly could've happend. How his No. 2 runner could've possible become dehydrated on a cool sunny day, doesn't understand what his runners are doing nowadays, how the other girls did what they needed to do. See bus, thrown under. Repeatedly.

Ummm, okay. Soooooooo, how do you think your runners that did qualify for states will do next week?

We have another winning coach who has great teams that will always find a buch of negatives. Somehow, they'll win by 30 and I'll always end up writing a negative-sounding article. Everyone is happy that they won though.
This year he switched to a bigger school in our area in a rebuilding year. He told me it was okay we weren't there a lot. His team didn't deserve to be covered because they weren't winning. I think he actually asked me why I was there.