A few years back I was at a small, rural paper covering Local High, a relatively podunk school that had a great football program. They won two state titles in a row and I covered the **** out of them, but they graduated something like 17 starters from the second championship team. In the football preview the next fall I pointed out that while the program would still be feared by its competitors because of its tradition, the team would be hard-pressed to make it three state titles in a row.
As expected, the kids on the team gave me **** about it all year, but it wasn't good-natured ribbing -- they were genuinely angry. At one point, in the fourth or fifth game of the season, I'm on the sideline taking photos and covering the game. Local High scores a touchdown and as they come off the field, a player approaches me and -- I swear to God -- starts taunting me. Saying **** like "Scoreboard" and a bunch of other idiotic stuff. It was surreal. I honestly had no response and have never experienced anything like it.
The best part was after the game when I told the coach what happened and said I was sorry if what I wrote pissed off the team. He said: "Aw, I don't care about that ****." Guess that makes one of us, coach.
As predicted, Local High did not repeat as state champs that year, but I resisted the urge to go in the locker room after their last game and tell them all to go **** themselves.
