The coach of a local football team was left red-faced as his team, fresh off completing a suspension following a doping scandal, fell to a 6-0 defeat to their rivals. This came despite not one, but two motivational speeches over the course of the match.
The first came before kick-off, as he passionately screamed his players’ names one by one and noted their strengths, even those of Billy ‘Weak-Link’ O’Hare. He went so far as to admire O’Hare’s ignorance regarding the nickname that many in the football world had given him.
But, even with slammed lockers, vigorous hand gestures, hyperbole about how every moment, however insignificant – like the buying of a packet of crisps – has led them to this moment, his team fell 2 goals down by half-time.
Enter the half-time team talk. The coach was reported to have sat his players down on the floor of the locker room. Appearing stoic, he spoke slowly; a far cry from his rapturous self from 45 minutes ago. Invoking greater world terms like destiny, fate and faith, he ended the talk with a quote about overcoming adversity. It’s perfectly normal to misinterpret a quote of course, and his team went on to concede 4 more goals – possibly stemming from a series of inept moments from O’Hare.
At the end of 90 minutes, the coach expressed surprise that such a rousing speech was not quite as effective as the super-serum he had his team inject into themselves. “Well, naturally when you win 11 games on the trot, you think to yourself that it might be the drugs that we’re systematically pumping into our players,” said a confused coach. “But when you watch Coach Carter, Friday Night Lights, other sports movies, you get this idea that maybe all you’re missing is motivation. You start to think, ‘who needs drugs?’ Well, turns out, we do.”
It appears that no amount of training, dedication, speech-writing and acting classes, can compete with the combined power of science-juice and the opposition taking advantage of the failings of your weakest player (Billy O’ Goddamn Hare).
The Ipe Collection 