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

I was on an official visit recently and the team is doing a 5k hard effort. Guy falls off the pack on the tenth lap and the coach yells "CAN YOU NOT F*CKING COUNT TO TEN!?" a couple times. I thought it was pretty funny, but the kid spent the rest of the day with his headphones in and not talking to anyone.

What? Ray Charles could've seen that!

You look like you're trying to poke something with your wiener!!

Not so funny moment- it was either my sophomore or junior year when we lost our section championship in cross with arguably our most stacked team in a long time. We were considered the favorites and literally everyone ran pretty badly at the meet. I got cursed out subtlety bc i was the 4th man and i was about 5 places back where i should’ve been. Our head coach was upset and was near crying and our usual fun loving assistant was just grilling us. They both are great coaches and heavily distance oriented but both ended up leaving. One is a women’s college coach and the assistant is at our rival school. The program hasn’t been the same since.

Funny moment- freshman year i was at a track meet and i led basically the first 1100 of the 1600 before fading but in the last lap, a bunch of coaches that are older, some overweight, potentially italian white guys were saying some weird things like “catch him, he’s flailing his arms like a girl” even tho i watched the race after and i wasn’t doing that and “i know you want that hot dog” bc the hot dogs at the concessions were very good and i guess the runner behind me wanted one post race.

The best sledging is in cricket... When Zimbabwean fast-bowler Eddo Brandes faced Glenn McGrath in a game, the Australian seamer asked him, “Why are you so fat?”

Brandes retorted, “Because every time I sleep with your wife she gives me a biscuit."

89 steps wrote:

oldandoldfastguy wrote:

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?

Cruelty is wrong no matter when you did it.

The successful coaches who were hard-nosed debasers could have had the same success with a positive style, they were just sadists who wanted to abuse their power and harm others.

The people you call sensitive and fragile are breaking all the records of the heartless masochists you celebrate, because in the long run positive reinforcement works much better than degradation.

And our kids who got participation trophies when they were young are now bringing home state championships. The more positive motivation, the better.

Yeah, and what about those runners from the 60s?

HS XC coach to me: "You run like a pregnant elephant with a hernia." It's 60 years later and I guess I still do.

As was pointed out to me by a non-runner while watching a XC race, a coach was wildly shouting at one of his athletes maybe 200m from the finish "use your arms!" "use your arms!" to which she said, "why would he do that? Legs are much stronger than arms".

I think if you step back from our sport and take a look at it from a non-runners view. We have a lot of weird sh!t going on.

My brother had shirts made for my marathon that said, "don't embarrass the family." That worked well. I made it my mantra in the race and went through variations like, "don't heap shame and abuse upon the family," and so on.

All or nothing much? wrote:

Mikeh33 wrote:

Maybe a better time? Coaches were in charge, not kids?

My swim coach from the 90s ended up exposing himself to young women in the locker room, so you tell me.

Surely that was not the norm.

89 steps wrote:

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

Nah they’re hilarious

Retro rob wrote:

Unfortunately coaches and teachers used to get away with a lot of abusive behaviors which they probably couldn’t get away with today. In some ways the world is a much better place.

No it isn’t

89 steps wrote:

The successful coaches who were hard-nosed debasers could have had the same success with a positive style, they were just sadists who wanted to abuse their power and harm others.

No they couldn’t

We screened shirts with this minor gem on the back: "Nobody's great until they're great!" from the late former Cal distance coach Brad Duffy.

" don't let them panic you into trying "

Foxy FTW !

missilesilo wrote:

"I don't know your time, a cloud came over my sundial. "

+1

mikehammer wrote:

" don't let them panic you into trying "

Okay, this one is hilarious IMO.

Cole Field house, College Park, Maryland, early 80's .. legendary coach Lefty Dreisel was running basketball practice. We were in the stands watching and as lefty walked by, my buddy asked him "How's the team coach?"

Lefty, looked directly at us and without any hesitation, said "You ain't on the team and I ain't your coach" basically devastated my buddy for a long time.