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Post by carookie on Apr 1, 2019 14:05:51 GMT -6
They are corny, they rarely have any impact, but they are kind of fun. Am wondering if anyone wants to share the best pre-game (or half time) motivational speech they ever dropped or were witness to?
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Post by bignose on Apr 1, 2019 14:41:46 GMT -6
Best all time pregame speech, ever:
The Old HC was getting the boys revved up to play a team with a cocky new HC in the league who said that he was going to beat everybody.
Picture this: We are in the girls locker room as the visiting team. He is on roll, really laying it on heavy with gestures to boot. Finally he says: "We're gonna $hit thunder and rain lightning". As he said it his clip board caught a row of overhead 8' fluorescent bulbs, and they exploded, showering him and the front row with sparks and glass! The kids eyes looked like dinner plates!
Early on, we went down 14-0 only to score 44 unanswered. The game got so physical that the attending paramedic wanted to stop it. The head official had to have him escorted off of the field!
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Post by cwaltsmith on Apr 2, 2019 8:33:09 GMT -6
I have had 2 I am really proud of... Former players have since commented on both... 1st we had lost 2 in row... I had a marine friend... borrowed his marine sword... Talked to the kids about how heat and being under pressure was tough... but if you pushed thru it it could make you better... just like it could take ugly cold iron and make into into beautiful sword and unsheathed the sword... we won and turned season around...
Other was for 3rd round playoff game... terrible traffic made us 45 min later than I like getting to stadium... We rushed to get dressed cut warm ups down... I had decent speech prepared... asst coach came back in and told us it was time... I said ..."Thats fine I don't need to tell you anything... you know what to do ... Lets go whip their a##... Kids went nuts and we went out and put it on a really good team
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Post by mnike23 on Apr 2, 2019 8:51:15 GMT -6
Best all time pregame speech, ever: The Old HC was getting the boys revved up to play a team with a cocky new HC in the league who said that he was going to beat everybody. Picture this: We are in the girls locker room as the visiting team. He is on roll, really laying it on heavy with gestures to boot. Finally he says: "We're gonna $hit thunder and rain lightning". As he said it his clip board caught a row of overhead 8' fluorescent bulbs, and they exploded, showering him and the front row with sparks and glass! The kids eyes looked like dinner plates!Early on, we went down 14-0 only to score 44 unanswered. The game got so physical that the attending paramedic wanted to stop it. The head official had to have him escorted off of the field! that is fantastic!!!!!!!
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Post by coachcb on Apr 2, 2019 8:54:16 GMT -6
I won't toss out what I consider my best speech but I'll elaborate on my most effective one. It wasn't a pregame speech; it was a butt chewing at half time.
We tied with an absolute chitbird team, 14-14 and we should've been crushing them. The kids were playing slow, lazy football and it set me off. I wanted to scream and yell but that wouldn't have done any good with this group so I took a couple deep breathes, went into the locker room and said this:
"You guys know that there was talk of scrapping our program and co-oping with ____ High at the beginning of this season. There are people in this school and this community that don't feel that we deserve our own football program. I thought we had come a long way towards proving those people wrong over the last few months. But, IF WE DON'T BEAT THIS TEAM BY AT LEAST FOUR SCORES, THEN WE'RE GOING A LONG WAY TOWARDS PROVING THEM RIGHT!!!! IF WE DON'T HAMMER THIS TEAM BY THIRTY FIVE POINTS, THEN WE DON'T HAVE ANY PLACE UNDER THOSE LIGHTS!! NOW GET OUT THERE, DO YOUR JOBS AND START PROVING TO PEOPLE THAT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE YOUR OWN PROGRAM!!"
We won, 63-14.
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Post by mnike23 on Apr 2, 2019 9:03:29 GMT -6
couple real good ones, but the one that stands out most
2nd year school, 1st varsity year. won 5 games and qualified for playoffs as a 16 seed. we go to a perinnial powerhouse and lose 28-7. after we walking off the field, devestated because of the great year we had, i scooped up a good handfull of wet grass/turf and put it in my pocket. knowing in a year, it would be a reminder to not feel that way ever again. so the next year, we played a lot of close games and really played well. won 7 games and made playoffs. the team that won th conference (beat us 24-21 on late FG) we have in the first round at their place.
so the pregame speech the HC gave(i was an OC at the time) wasnt enough. the kids didnt feel very motivated, lets just say that. so,,, I had that old grass/dirt from the year before in a zip lock bag in my pocket. more of a reminder for myself to call a better game and think about how bad I felt for only putting 7 on the board, etc....self motivation. so were gathered up behind the banner the cheerleaders were holding, kids are getting each other pumped up and talking about revenge, etc... so i came up and told my guys to gather round and pulled out the grass/dirt zip lock. asked em yall know what this is? someone knew right away, they saw me take it the year before. after some choice words about our opponent and dreams we all have, etc..... dumped the ziplock in my hand and told em we were about to eat this teams dreams and $hit out the prior years heartbreak. kids went absolute bonkers nuts, broke the banner and beat the 3rd seed by 2 tds in a huge upset.
11 years later i talk to several of those kids still and they talk about it all the time....
i, personally, didnt take a good dump for about 4 days after.
it worked, lol so it was worth it
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Post by fkaboneyard on Apr 2, 2019 9:43:43 GMT -6
It wasn't really a speech but the best I ever experienced we went to play our hated rival at their field. We were great, they were awful and everybody knew it was going to be a bloodbath. Their HC even came over before the game and asked if we could go running clock from the start (which he declined). We kicked off and they took it to the house for 6. Our guys were super lazy, acting like they didn't care. Coaches hollering at kids on the sideline, screaming in their faces and they all had the expression like they were in line at the post office, just total apathy. At halftime we were down 21-0 and it was only going to get worse.
We went into the visitor locker room (their girls locker room). The home/visitor locker rooms were separated by one wall. It was totally silent in our locker room but you could hear them on the other side absolutely losing their minds. The insults were flying about how terrible we were, our guys were p*ssies, they were gonna nail our girlfriends that night, just anything & everything you can imagine. Our coaching staff didn't say a word the entire time, just stood there and you could see the energy building in their eyes. Just before it was time to go back out the HC said, "You're gonna let those sonsabitches talk about you like that?" We went out and destroyed them, I think we scored 63 in the second half, it was one of the most dominant performances I've ever seen. The coach's words became the team's motto and a bunch of them got t-shirts made that said, "You sonsabitches ain't talkin' about us like that."
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Post by Defcord on Apr 2, 2019 10:32:21 GMT -6
Mine was when I was a head baseball coach. It was my first year. We sucked. They sucked the few years before I got there too.
We were playing a top team in the league at their place. When we got there, I met with their coach to get the game ball and exchange line ups. We chatted for a bit. Normal stuff. All of our woes and what not.
When I went back over to our kids, I called them up and gave them the speech. I said "Guys let me tell you something. I went over there to get the game ball. Their coach and I were chatting and he was telling me how good his kids were and all their returning all conference guys. He just kept telling me how good they were. But you know what else he said? (Pause) He said he felt sorry for me...But I looked him in the eye and said 'you feel sorry for me? Why, we are about to kick your asss!"
I just walked away without saying anything else. We played lights out and did kick their assses. But that guy never said one word about that. He was too busy telling me about how bad his team was. That was 14 years ago and just a couple years ago I ran into an old player and he told me he never forgot that. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was all BS.
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Post by mnike23 on Apr 2, 2019 10:36:54 GMT -6
Mine was when I was a head baseball coach. It was my first year. We sucked. They sucked the few years before I got there too. We were playing a top team in the league at their place. When we got there, I met with their coach to get the game ball and exchange line ups. We chatted for a bit. Normal stuff. All of our woes and what not. When I went back over to our kids, I called them up and gave them the speech. I said "Guys let me tell you something. I went over there to get the game ball. Their coach and I were chatting and he was telling me how good his kids were and all their returning all conference guys. He just kept telling me how good they were. But you know what else he said? (Pause) He said he felt sorry for me...But I looked him in the eye and said 'you feel sorry for me? Why, we are about to kick your asss!" I just walked away without saying anything else. We played lights out and did kick their assses. But that guy never said one word about that. He was too busy telling me about how bad his team was. That was 14 years ago and just a couple years ago I ran into an old player and he told me he never forgot that. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was all BS. sometimes a little fabrication goes a long way!!! love it, keep these coming. i think about some of the stuff I have said and it seems everyone has a few good ones!
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Post by fshamrock on Apr 2, 2019 10:56:23 GMT -6
had an old coach in high school we are playing a team who has some military theme going on so their coaching staff is all wearing camo t shirts instead of polo shirts or whatever so the old coach gathers us up before the game and says something along these lines: "these bastards wearing that cammo, pretending this is war, they don't know war, they don't know about seeing your own brother shot through the f________ eyes!!!!, but we're gonna show em war (instert more cussing and war referenced)"
seems lame written out but at the time well assumed that the crazy old coach was definitely a Vietnam veteran and we got all jacked up (can't remember if we won or not)
anyway....I ended up coaching with him and found out that not only had he never been in the military and didn't have a brother...he also got a low lottery number in the draft so was sent to in processing to take the physical in order to be drafted into Vietnam, the rumor then was that if you drank enough orange crush soda then held it in when you went to take the physical you peed orange and they would fail you....so he drank a 12 pack of the stuff that morning and dang sure did pee orange....never got called up
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Post by dubber on Apr 2, 2019 12:54:35 GMT -6
Best ones I’ve ever heard of:
Pregame: “Talk is cheap, let’s play ball” -Johnny Unitas
Halftime, UCLA is down to an inferior team.....wooden walks in and the team shuts up......he says nothing for 10 minutes, he then stands and as he is turning toward the door says “well ladies, let’s go finish our waltz@
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Post by kcbazooka on Apr 4, 2019 14:43:43 GMT -6
I let the kids know I was going retire after 39 years as a head coach. we won. don't know if it had anything to do with it. they either won one for the gipper or were excited to get rid of me.
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Post by badtotheflexbone on Apr 4, 2019 21:26:10 GMT -6
Prior to a playoff game, I gave them the good ol "Play EVERY.....PLAY..... LIKE ITS YOUR LAST PLAY. LIKE ITS THE LAST DOWN YOU WILL EVER PLAY FOOTBALL AGAIN"... and it was their last play
..as we got pummeled 40-20 by a Jr. High WR that could already dunk and a QB that easily juked our two force players (who were blitzing being outside hip conscious) to break contain.
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Post by s73 on Apr 5, 2019 13:24:56 GMT -6
I've had some decent ones. mostly rah-rah crap like using the other teams nutsack as speed bag type of stuff.
But......one I think is worth noting and a high school tribute to Jackie Sherill (oldtimers know who I'm talking about) dude faked his own death during lunch on game day by staging a student from the school carrying out a fake shooting of himself in the school cafeteria. He used blood packets, the whole 9 yards.
His whole idea was to motivate the kids to win the game in their "dead coaches honor" and then he was going to show up right as the game started.
This was before school shootings were a common thing but.........
it gets better, the coaches kid was on the team as well & was present when the "shooting" went down.He really thought somebody murdered his father. Kids were sent home, counselors were brought in, the game was canceled and obviously he was fired.
So yeah, there's that.
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Post by blb on Apr 5, 2019 13:35:52 GMT -6
I've had some decent ones. mostly rah-rah crap like using the other teams nutsack as speed bag type of stuff. But......one I think is worth noting and a high school tribute to Jackie Sherill (oldtimers know who I'm talking about) dude faked his own death during lunch on game day by staging a student from the school carrying out a fake shooting of himself in the school cafeteria. He used blood packets, the whole 9 yards. His whole idea was to motivate the kids to win the game in their "dead coaches honor" and then he was going to show up right as the game started. This was before school shootings were a common thing but......... it gets better, the coaches kid was on the team as well & was present when the "shooting" went down.He really thought somebody murdered his father. Kids were sent home, counselors were brought in, the game was canceled and obviously he was fired. So yeah, there's that.
Sherrill once tried to fire up his Mississippi State Bulldogs for a game against Texas by having them witness a bull being castrated during the week leading up to the contest.
A steer, like the Texas Longhorn mascot, is a castrated member of the cattle family.
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Post by Defcord on Apr 5, 2019 14:52:48 GMT -6
Gary Barnett’s book Taking The Purple to Pasedena is loadedwith motivational stuff. Its probably the first “culture” book I read as a coach.
It’s worth a read if you are looking for motivational stuff.
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Post by bignose on Apr 5, 2019 15:18:37 GMT -6
Sherrill once tried to motivate his Mississippi State players by having them witnessing the castration of a bull............ Yeah, I get that they were playing Texas, the Longhorns, steers-castrated bulls........Did he want his kids to bite the Texas kids balls off? I'm not sure of what, why, or how this would motivate players! I would be looking back over my shoulder after that. Lol There is an old coaching joke along that line: The old Coach is trying to show his kids how to be tough. He brings in an 8 foot alligator, provokes it to open it's mouth, and lays his tallywhacker across the gator's jaws. The gator clamps down and he just stands there, grunting. Finally, he grabs a player's helmet and knocks the gator out cold to get him to let go. "Do any of you think you're tough enough to try that?" he challenged the team. After a long pause one of the players timidly say: "Yeah, I'll try it, but don't have to hit me in the head with a helmet when you're done."
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Post by Defcord on Apr 5, 2019 18:34:42 GMT -6
Sherrill once tried to motivate his Mississippi State players by having them witnessing the castration of a bull............ Yeah, I get that they were playing Texas, the Longhorns, steers-castrated bulls........Did he want his kids to bite the Texas kids balls off? I'm not sure of what, why, or how this would motivate players! I would be looking back over my shoulder after that. Lol There is an old coaching joke along that line: The old Coach is trying to show his kids how to be tough. He brings in an 8 foot alligator, provokes it to open it's mouth, and lays his tallywhacker across the gator's jaws. The gator clamps down and he just stands there, grunting. Finally, he grabs a player's helmet and knocks the gator out cold to get him to let go. "Do any of you think you're tough enough to try that?" he challenged the team. After a long pause one of the players timidly say: "Yeah, I'll try it, but don't have to hit me in the head with a helmet when you're done." If I read wiki correctly, they beat the #13 ranked Texas after the event. Weird very weird.
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Post by chi5hi on Apr 5, 2019 22:42:37 GMT -6
My first time as a HC and we got into the playoffs. No loud voice, no swear words...rather mellow speech.
"Real athletes show up for the first team meeting because they want to play in THIS game. Well, here it is. No one gave it to you...you earned it. So, what are you going to do?" How are you going to end the year?"
"Coach, open the doors and I suggest you get out of the way 'cause I think these guys are coming through!"
The kids almost tore off the locker room doors to get on the field.
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Post by coachstephen13 on Apr 11, 2019 12:13:04 GMT -6
This was from the year we went to the state championship game. I had a good friend that was the trainer for the team we were playing in the semi's. She was actually my trainer during my high school days. She was texting me different things during the week just a little friendly banter. However, what she didn't know was that I was reading these texts to our players saying look see how cocky they are, they think they have already won,which wasn't the case at all. Our kids ate this up and we ended up winning by 4 touchdowns. However the next week we were as lucky.
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Post by bleefb on Apr 11, 2019 12:26:29 GMT -6
This one was our JV Head Coach trying to fire up his team by telling them how the other team didn't respect them. However, the way he phrased it was "These guys think you ain't sh*t, but you are!!" The rest of us cracked up.
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Post by joelee on Apr 11, 2019 12:45:19 GMT -6
I once paraphrased the quote from Moby Dick in a pre-game speech. Low voice early talking about preparation and grit, slowly rising to a finale where I yelled "and if my heart was a cannon I'd shoot it at them!" I don't think more that 2 of the kids knew what I was talking about.
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Post by fantom on Apr 11, 2019 12:52:59 GMT -6
As an assistant I don't give many pregame speeches and that's good because I'm a pretty businesslike guy and fiery speeches aren't my thing. One time I think that worked in our favor.
We were in a playoff game. I don't think that any of our kids had ever been there before and it showed. We were down 21-7 at halftime and just playing like chit.
After the coaches's meeting I went in to take my turn talking defense. You could see that the players were just getting ready to get ripped. Instead I calmly said that I had bad news and good news. The bad news was that we'd played as badly as we could possibly play. The good news was that we were only behind by two scores. 14 points sounds like a lot but it's just two scores. Two plays. Then I went over a couple of "adjustments" (really just reminded them of the game plan).
We won 22-21.
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Post by mariner42 on Apr 11, 2019 13:56:43 GMT -6
One of my assistants tells me I gave him goosebumps with my talk before we won our biggest game this year. For the life of me I don’t remember anything, kinda like the debate scene in Old School. Just kinda blacked out and then we kicked some butt.
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Post by bleefb on Apr 11, 2019 19:17:22 GMT -6
One of my assistants tells me I gave him goosebumps with my talk before we won our biggest game this year. For the life of me I don’t remember anything, kinda like the debate scene in Old School. Just kinda blacked out and then we kicked some butt. Was it this one?
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Post by 3rdandlong on Apr 11, 2019 22:04:11 GMT -6
My pre game speech takes place after our walk through. We go back to the locker room before kickoff so guys can take a piss or what not but then we go right out onto the field and play. No pre game speeches. I tell them if I have to to give a speech to fire you up, then I’ve been doing my job all wrong. Friday night is their time.
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Post by Defcord on Apr 12, 2019 5:44:13 GMT -6
Our head coach does his pregame speech each week with the lights out in our locker room. I love it. There's no eyes wondering around, not way to be distracted. He always goes over the week's keys to victory from the game plan and usually adds a little flare but it's the coolest way I have seen yet to deliver a pregame speech.
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SconnieOC
Junior Member
Just here to learn the facemelter
Posts: 408
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Post by SconnieOC on Apr 12, 2019 7:46:36 GMT -6
When I was a GA we we're playing a JV game vs a bad program and that was my week for the HC title as it rotated between GAs. The day before the varsity beat our big rival, coming from 17 down in the 2nd half, plus it was homecoming, so obviously there was a lot of partying. So Sunday morning we climb on the bus to make the 2 hour drive and everyone looks like absolute garbage, half the guys are still wearing their stuff from the night before... 5 or 6 puke on the bus ride (thank god it was a coach bus), several more do it again at the stadium. We go through warmups and I'm not kidding, we didn't complete a single ball in pat and go and I was pissed because I figured we'd get pounded by the awful team.
So we finish up pregame, I bring them together and tell em "I don't care how hungover you are, I don't care if you got laid last night, I don't care if you have to throw up on the guy lined up across from you.. if you go out and play like $hit and lose to this team, you won't have a locker when we get home because the HC will cut everyone of you mother frickers" Ended up winning by about 35, but boy was it ugly
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Post by kcbazooka on Apr 12, 2019 10:11:58 GMT -6
I know this will come off as “old man - get off my lawn - rant” but is anybody else disappointed in the number of comments of coaches that used lying, vulgarities and profanity in recalling their best pregame speeches. I, unfortunately, am not innocent of using profanities but it is usually in the heat of battle and directed at a striped shirt ( not that that is a good excuse) not in a planned pregame speech.
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Post by coachwoodall on Apr 12, 2019 20:20:52 GMT -6
Not a HC, but
Non-region game versus a big local rival; it had been one sided in the past in their favor, but had swung our way at the time. Both programs had a history of success, but at different levels.... it was a geographic rivalry. Also there was a lot of soap opera drama from the HCs of the time. By the time I got there, the rivalry had well swung our way. It was one of those games that usually all the local papers and local TV stations would be at. Any hooooo.....
On the game field for pregame warm ups, our end of the field was the only way onto the field for both teams.... the visitor's side for pregame was the opposite end. The visitors have a small locker room near the endzone, plus they have a soccer field behind that locker room. Some teams never would enter the game field before the game and just warm up on the soccer field to avoid the blasting music (speakers on their end) and the taunts of the student section, etc... This team was one that didn't want to be seen as intimidated.
We're in the middle of warming by positions..... each O/D had a spot on the field. My spot for DBs was 20 to goal line, to the hash. We're working BP drills, route breaks, etc... from sideline to hash. LBs are on the opposite side 20 to GL, DL/OL in the endzone.... typical setup for pregame.
HC for the opposition comes in to the stadium after doing a pregame TV interview.... his team was already out warming up.... and he comes through the endzone gate and walks straight through the middle of our end of the field and our warm ups to his half of the field. Didn't really get in the way of anything, but blatantly didn't try to avoid/go around our pregame warm up.
I'm pretty laid back b/c that is how I coach. I don't do any John Wayne speeches or pregame heroics b/c I think that is a distraction..... We always finish our position group warm up with a quick huddle as we wait for the LB group to hook up with the DL group, that then swings by to pick up the DB group to break down and then go to do a quick team warm up before leaving the field.
As the DB kids are huddling up waiting for the other DEF guys to swing by, I'm seething...... The opposition HC is a local legend, former college OL and considered an OL guru, and had won a bunch of games. IDGAS, I'm po'ed.
As I come to the DB huddle, I usually give the kids a quick reminder of the game plan and say something along the lines of go out and do what you've done all week, and play hard.... nothing extra-ordinary.
This game and circumstance, I walk straight to the huddle and yell, "Did you see that fat arse 12 sandwich eating Mo fo'er walk right through the middle of our warm up?!?!?!?!", "You better go out there and beat the effing breaks off these soms of beeches and don't even let it be close!!!" and walked to midfield for the team run through.
We won handily, doubt my speech made a difference, we were really good and they were good too, but just couldn't match up.
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