"GO FLAGPOLE!!! YOU ARE BEATING SCOTT FRY!! AND YOU STILL HAVE HAIR!!!"
"GO FLAGPOLE!!! YOU ARE BEATING SCOTT FRY!! AND YOU STILL HAVE HAIR!!!"
Morton Phalange wrote:
"GO FLAGPOLE!!! YOU ARE BEATING SCOTT FRY!! AND YOU STILL HAVE HAIR!!!"
1) My parents didn't know Scott Fry from a hole in the ground.
2) Man I DID have great hair back then...parted in the middle and long enough to do the "'sup" head movement thing. Damn I was cool even way back then.
Flagpole, you were born cool. popped out of the womb wearing mirrored aviators ala the 60's. The coolness quotient of Perrysburg plummeted when you left for OWU.
My grandmother would usually make 1-2 appearances a year at home track meets, for which I was highly appreciative because I don't think she ever attended my dad's meets back when he ran in school (he was a triple jumper, I ran distance).
But the things she used to say were among the strangest, including:
"Slow down! You look tired!"
This wasn't psych-up/pump-up speech. She would often turn to one of my parents and remark how terrible I looked and that it probably wasn't healthy [for me to be running/running that fast, etc.].
This cheer was consistent when I was a freshman and didn't win races and when I was a senior and won loads of them. Most of my teammates had a parent in the stands no more than once a season, so I always appreciated it when the entire extended family would show up for rinky-dink meets (parents, grandma, cousins, aunts, some of my dad's cousins, etc.). But my appreciation doesn't change the fact that some of the cheers were weird.
"WHAT IF GOD WERE ONE OF US?!"
I usually remind runners of proper form and race strategy. However, I know one coach who is yelling "Go now!" the entire race.
How about the parent that said something was wrong when her superstar daughter was getting killed by my daughter. She was running around saying what's wrong, my daughter can't be that far back. I told her the nothing was wrong, my daughter was pretty good. I have heard so many parents asking their daughters what's wrong when they see them losing.
One of my favorite things to yell is "Get contact with the group ahead" or something of that nature. Training my athletes, we discuss how loosing contact with a person is how you fall off the pace. But if you can regain that contact, you can restore the mental edge. Also, "Go and get with (teammate right ahead of you) and work together." So often you see members of the same team within two seconds of each other on opposite sides of a pack. Teammates should work together more in races.
Hrm...Hrm... wrote:
My grandmother would usually make 1-2 appearances a year at home track meets, for which I was highly appreciative because I don't think she ever attended my dad's meets back when he ran in school (he was a triple jumper, I ran distance).
But the things she used to say were among the strangest, including:
"Slow down! You look tired!"
This wasn't psych-up/pump-up speech. She would often turn to one of my parents and remark how terrible I looked and that it probably wasn't healthy [for me to be running/running that fast, etc.].
My grandma came to exactly one high school cross country meet. She stood at the 2.5 mile mark. I was in the lead pack and things were getting pretty painful for us all when we passed her.
She was there screaming at the top her lungs:
"STOP NOW!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS???"
She didn't talk to me for a whole week after the race.
Seven years ago at our conference championships (D3) at home we thought we had a shot to win if the team all ran well. Our #2 guy was running terrible. He was like our 7th man that day and I yelled to him, "Come on _____, is that the best you can do!" It certainly didn't encourage him, but I don't think he hurt him any either. It was pretty funny afterwards and to this day makes me laugh.
But aside from that, I always felt good things to say were, cues that we talked about in practice or things they should focus on that I knew worked for that individual. One girl wanted me to yell that she sucked and that she was embarrassing herself out there. I felt really strange doing that, and often had to justify why I was to others around me, but it worked for her.
I love all the great Grandma quotes. My grandmother was a teacher, so she knew better than to yell silly things at meets. Just having her there to watch once in a while was great though.
Once or twice a season I take some video of my daughter racing. It always cracks me up when we watch it after the meet. The parents are crazy. The audio around the finish line usually requires some editing.
There was a miler on a team that we used to see often and he was pretty good. Whenever he was leading by a sizeable amount his coach would yell "shut 'er down" at around the last 100m. So my friends and I thought it would be funny to yell "shut 'er down" to other guys we were friends with that were in the back of the pack. Always got a good laugh.
Morton Phalange wrote:
Flagpole, you were born cool. popped out of the womb wearing mirrored aviators ala the 60's. The coolness quotient of Perrysburg plummeted when you left for OWU.
A truer statement has never been uttered here at Letsrun.com...or probably anywhere.
My coach's favorite words of encouragement were "Balls Out!"
Don't know what the girls' coach said.
My dad, as I go up a steep hill midway into a 3-mile cross country race:
"You're slowing down!"
Coach, to a runner in front of me at an invitational:
"If you take 2nd, I'll buy you Jamba Juice!"
One of the funniest threads ever! How about the dad of one of my h.s. teammates who loved to cheer from the bridge as we ran up the steep hill below him. He would be up there in his vintage 1970's golf attire (this was 1982) yelling "pick up the pace" at the top of his lungs!
As I pull even with a kid in a cross race I hear his grandpa yell, "Come on Matt, you're better than him." Great motivation for me. I dont know about for "Matt". I won.
As a H.S. XC coach, since you are not racing yourself, sometimes you pick up on even more odd things... So we have a junior out for the first time, and he is running near a teammate (named Jon) who is about a 16:10 guy (3 miles). The new kid's dad starts SCREAMING "Beat Jon! Beat Jon!" with about 1.5 miles to go. This scene repeated itself 2 more times before the race ended. (Dude! That is your kid's teammate!)
When we ran in high school - we had the "minor sports" cheerleaders assigned by the administration to come out and cheer for us a few times. Really. At least that meant we had 8 fans who were not blood relatives to any of us! They came out and actually had a couple of organized football-type cheers. My favorite: R-U-N... run! run! run!
I like to yell to my guy that the other guy is starting to fade. Sometimes, I like to yell it when he is farther away than the guy I am talking about. Is this in poor taste?