What is the funniest thing you have heard a coach yell at an athlete or a team?

Not xc or t&f but during a baseball game a teammate hit a line-drive to deep left-center field. As he rounded 1st base going to 2nd base coach yells out “damn Robert unhitch the wagon”. We rolled in the dugout laughing for an hour.

High school coach gives detailed instructions to his team about warming up properly. Spends 5 minutes talking about slow jog, stretching, strides. starts, etc. At the end he says "Then you should be ready, you should be smoking!"

Kid on team raises his hand and asks "Coach, What should we be smoking?"

High school football. During a tackling drill, before the days in which they taught players to lead with the shoulder and we were taught to put our head between the numbers. Coach yells "I want you to put your head between the numbers and wrap em up, like you're making love to 'em".

I have two

First one I heard when I was running,

"Don't let this scrawny white boy beat you"

"RUN FASTER, YOU'RE LOSING TO A BUNCH OF SLOW JOGGERS"

RossiCheated wrote:

Joe Piane Fan Club wrote:

Most memorable to me are those quotes uttered in times of adversity. Some that come directly to mind…

“Take off your jersey. You’re an embarrassment “

“I’m running right with you. This should piss you off. “

“You haven’t earned $5 of your scholarship.”

The 90s were a different time.

Was that Jack Shaw, Western Michigan University? (May he rest in peace).

No, but a couple of those quotes were from a xc race at western Michigan. Guys from the other teams came up after the race and apologized.

A freshman kid who was probably a 22 min 5k runner, started with an elite varsity invite xc race, he was supposed to be in the frosh JV race after it. He got left in the dust from the start. About 1k in, the coach sprints up and yells at him “Get off the course! You’re in the wrong race!” The kid then turns around and starts running the wrong way on the course. The coach yells again “Get off the course!” and the kid finally listened. He was so confused.

I had a coach tell me “It is what it is” no matter what happened in a race, she would say this at the end of the race to me. It actually made me appreciate my races more

Not necessarily funny, but good stuff nonetheless. John McDonnell, may he rest in peace: 'Check the instruments' was code for shake it out, loosen up, etc. John was known for saying in the middle of a race 'you're looking great' well, I was having a very bad day and he said 'you're looking.......good.' Finally, after a bad race by the team he would say many things including 'my grandmother can run faster than you' and 'you look like a bunch of yard dogs.' Took me years to understand the 'yard dog' comment.

John, you still are the most competitive man I've met in my 62 years. Good on ya!

Steiner Math wrote:

At a boys indoor meet, a girl was entered in the two mile. She was running near the back of the pack and a boy from another team was running just behind her and had been there for a few laps. His coach yelled, "if your gonna run with her this long, you better get her phone number"

This is funny!

I had one yell at me "Why are you running so slow? Are you pregnant?"

"get the girl in the stripy top. You can do it. She's dying" as I kicked past her and caught two other runners in the finishing straight.

Vig running alongside a kid on our team at NCAA cross saying how pitiful his race was for his last race of senior year.

Vig was not the coach of our team.

Running a indoor mile my freshman year in college with a field of about 30. Think I ran a pr and remember coach yelling”you guys are running for time not last place” during the race.

I've had my high school coach yell at me, "Stop running like a girl" during a 1600m race. During a 400m workout in practice he once yelled, "Find your manhood!"

"You f'ing a$$hole"

My high school coach to me, after I placed 5th in the Massachusetts Indoor State Meet in the 1000 yard run (a scoring position in those days.)

I guess he wanted me to win.

I gave it my all, and was happy with my performance.

Ok, I hope nobody takes this the wrong way….

I think it was the 2017 CA state xc meet. D5 girls’ race. A coach is exhorting a runner as she starts up the big hill towards the end of the 2nd mile at Woodward Park. He say’s “Jesus is going to help you up this hill….” to his runner. Just as he says this, the runner is passed by a pack of girls from the SF University High School. SF Uni’s mascot…..The RED DEVILS!!

For context, Coach was rather dry and not prone to cracking jokes....

During intervals on the track, he was calling out splits and unexpectedly said with a completely straight face:

"sixty seven...sixty eight...sixty nine, everybody wins...seventy"

I could hardly finish the rep.

89 steps wrote:

Way too many of these are just mean insults, which are not funny at all. Belittling people is horrible, not funny.

Here is a perfect example of the difference between runners in the past (70's, 80's) and the oh so sensitive, fragile P****s of today.. Hey buddy you still got your participation trophy right?

Please refer to the Harry Groves quotes thread. Any one of these would qualify.

Our XC coach told us he was going to stand at last quarter mile mark with a 5 gallon bucket ready to collect. . . because that’s where we were supposed to run our balls off