This weekend, thanks to BigP, I was able to observe High School football coaches in the wild and believe me there is a reason they are normally kept in cages. BigP invited me to attend the Nike "Coach of the Year" Clinic in Pittsburgh, PA. Among the many lessons I learned, the foremost is that high school football coaches are among the most degenerate, free-loading, drunken groups on earth when all together. God I've never felt like I belong somewhere so much in my life. I was invited for two reasons. The first reason was that last years guest was so out of control he couldn't be invited back. After seeing some of the coaches at this clinic I'm pretty sure the only thing he could have done was stab a man just to watch him die or take a dump on a vendor's table. Reason number 2, Coach Rich Rodriguez was a speaker on Friday evening. So I packed up the family tractor and headed to Pittsburgh.
Some random observations about coaches:
They really like to dress alike. Thank God my group did not do this, but almost every school had four guys in matching hats, jackets, t-shirts, and sweat pants running around looking for a game I guess.
They will stand in line for ever for a free handout. I admire this quality as so will I, even for just a Hershey's miniature.
Without women these guys devolved about 200 years in 2 days. By Sunday nothing but grunts and spitting was used to communicate. And finally, speaking of women there aren't any around when these guys meet. Friday night there where two Miller Lite Girls at the bar. Surrounded by 200 coaches it looked like Night at the Roxbury on HGH. One of the girls had to be rushed to the hospital for third degree burns due to old men rubbing on her.
Coach Rod spoke for about 1 and a half hours during prime drinking time, I made it through the first 45 minutes. As a speaker he does an amazing job of relating to the audience. Fowler and Herbstreit always praise him when doing a game here. I can see why. He can tell a story and uses self-depricating humor well to make the audience comfortable. Just a guy talking football with some great stories. Some of his best lines.
"I'm president of the Hispanic Coaches Association, though it's not a big deal since there are only three of us."
"Our first meeting it was just me and Barry Alvarez at a Taco Bell in Madison."
"My topic is passing, I'm not sure why the 115th ranked passing game coach is speaking about passing but here we go."
On the invention of the read option out of the spread, "So in practice one day our quarterback misses the handoff and runs the other way, he says 'I was reading the end' to cover for himself. I look at him and say, 'We were putting that in next week!' to cover for myself having not thought of it yet."
"So now you've got a guy who can't play dead in a Western, but you have to play him because his Dad just gave you $10,000."
One final word. I met a porn star. Didn't get her name, but she was at a club with a signing both and called me over. I wasn't going to buy anything, that would take money. She asked me if I was Jimmy. I told her no. She explained that Jimmy was a security guy that was supposed to be there and he was to wear an orange shirt (I was wearing an orange polo shirt). She then asked me why I was wearing an orange shirt. I explained that I am color-blind and thought it was green. She felt bad so I told her that was a joke, but that I had to wear it because my group wanted to be able to find me because I kept getting lost and refuse to wear the cowbell around my neck anymore. She told me that she didn't think I should have to wear a cowbell either. I then excused myself. It just goes to show you that not every porn star works in a genetics lab during the day.
