Recently I came across a story concerning something called The Butt Grape Ritual. I looked it up on Slate and found the following blurb: "The single best coach story I heard concerned a college football coach who purportedly made his players run wind sprints while each one held a single grape between the cheeks of his buttocks. The unfortunate soul who came in last had to eat the grapes. Haunting though this story is, I can't verify it." In my youth I lived in an athletic continuum of baseball, football, and basketball. I've had plenty of nutjob coaches. First guy I think of was a baseball coach who talked into a tape recorder during games and didn't have legs past the thigh. Still, he paced and recorded himself; first time I saw him was at a distance, and I thought he was pacing in a ditch. Then there was the ex-marine football coach who liked to make us crab and then fire tight spirals into anyone lagging. But my favorite was the lard-ass football coach with the lazy eye, who was always sweating, smelled of booze and lead us to a one-victory season. Not only was he kickass at failing to coach football, but he used to get sauced and call the house asking for my mother. I used to lie about her being in the bathroom and keep him on the line. Eventually his speech would become more diffuse and he'd hang up after prolonged silence. FOCUS: Tell us about your standout (best/worst) coaches.
BUMP, set, spike. Since our Quantum Leap thread revealed that everybody loves sports so much, let's try this.
One of our football (soccer) coaches was a bit of a nutjob. He was the standard swearing like a sailor type everyone gets, and never missed an opportunity for humuliating anyone in front of the whole team. Two specific moments especially stand out. The first one was when he absolutely belted an opposition coach on the sideline during one of our games. The other coach was known for being a bit of a dickhead, and definitely had it coming. Nevertheless it was pretty crazy, and I was fortunate enough to have a front row seat of the action as I was on the bench (because I'm shit). This saw him get a year's ban, and was not allowed to attend our games as coach for the rest of the season. The other time was when he made us spend a whole 2 hour training session running laps, simply because somebody laughed while he was talking. I think we gave up after 20. In the end though he was a good coach for us. Now that we're older and play against older tougher dudes, what he taught us really helped. He's sometimes still comes to our games with SoccerDog too.
My worst coach was a baseball coach. This guy was borderline crazy. He was hispanic, and (in retrospect) he spoke a lot like Ozzie Guillen. He might have been as crazy as Ozzie, too. I missed the first practice, and when I showed up for the second practice, he asked me what position I play. I informed him I was a second baseman, and he promptly moved me to left field. I was pissed (I had never played outfield before this), but I went, and I played a pretty decent outfield. This guy would argue calls on a consistent basis. He would scream at umps, and sometimes he'd get so angry he'd lapse into screaming in Spanish, that no one could understand. The worst offense that year, though, was against me and another friend of mine. At the end of the year, my buddy and I were voted to the all star team by our peers (the other guys in the league). I was having my best season ever, as was he. This would've been the first time I'd ever made an all star team. My coach, however, decided that since we missed a practice, he would go into the league and veto us being placed on the all-star team, on the grounds that he didn't feel we were 'committed enough' to be on the team, and other players who were 'more committed' should be on the team in our place. We were fucking pissed, but the season was over by then and we wouldn't see him again. That, however, wasn't the worst thing he'd ever done. That came a few years later, when another friend of mine who I played with for years eventually became a little league umpire. He came across this same crazy-ass coach again. This time, the coach argued a close call my friend made at home plate. It was a bang-bang play, but my friend called the runner out. This coach charged out of the dugout and started screaming at my friend, the ump. Naturally, my friend just told him the call stands, and that his screaming wasn't going to do anything. The coach, then, yelled at his players and took them off the field, and forfeited the game. Let me state that again: in a little league game (these kids were between the ages of 10 and 12) he took his team off the field and forfeited the game over a close call at home plate. From what I hear, parents of the kids involved were outraged at this coach and he wasn't allowed to coach boys little league ever again after that incident. A close second, however, was a coach who really knew his stuff, but was still a shitty coach. He played minor league baseball for a while. He knew the game, but he just was a shit teacher of baseball. His idea of 'teaching' was 'scream at the kid until they do it right' rather than 'tell the kid what he is doing wrong.' The result was that, more often than not, he'd scream at a kid until his face turned red, then get frustrated and just make the kid run. One of our guys was a hitter who was consistently pulling balls foul. He was swinging early, and opening up too much when he was swinging, so when he did make contact, 9 times out of 10, it was going foul, just off the 3rd base line (he was a righty). Instead of simply telling the kid this, and how to correct it, he just told the kid that every time he hit a foul ball down the 3B line, he'd have to sprint to the center field fence and back. Eventually, we (his teammates) had to tell him what he was doing wrong and help him fix it, because it became clear the coach had no intention of doing so. In retrospect, I've had some shitty coaches.
I've had two awful coaches that come to mind. One was our tennis(shut the fuck up) coach in high school. He had to be in his 80's and could barely walk much less teach us how to play tennis. The best seniors generally ran the team. Since the coach was worthless, he spent each practice sitting in his car, listening to the radio, and drinking....heavily. It was fine with me because he couldn't hassle us. Game days were another story. He couldn't drink because the other school's coaches would be there so he would just be a cranky asshole. At away games, the ride back home would be particularly miserable since no one was allowed to make a sound or else he would flip out. This doesn't seem so bad...just keep quiet right? He was also hard of hearing though so we could get away with a little bit of chatter. Inevitably though, someone would go over the decibel threshold making him lose his shit. I honestly don't know why he didn't just quit so he could sit home and drink. The other one was a basketball coach who was also a drunk. Unfortunately he was also middle aged and able bodied. His son was on the team and it was clear he was an abusive prick. Many practices would end with him getting pissed at his son for whatever reason and then chasing after him throwing basketballs. This would head into the parking lot where eventually he'd declare practice to be over and we'd all have to go back home.
My favourite coaches for football (soccer) over the years have definitely been those old-school types who decry the slighest wince from an ankle-breaking tackle as an example of how the game has been ruined by the likes of Ronaldo. I had a broken wrist this year and so for about five weeks I was reduced to watching my team from the sidelines. By far the highlight of that time was seeing the opposition's right back (defender) head the ball with his eyes closed in the first five minutes, and sentence himself for the next 85 to be called a "fag" and "woman" from 2 feet away by my assistant manager.