Coach J’s Winning Season
WANTED: Motivational Coach for Inaugural Season. New Team Formed; No Experience Necessary. Great Potential….The Sky’s The Limit!
Send CV’s and References to King College.
Come Coach the Kingly Saints at Heavenly Valley!
ATHLETIC DIRECTOR AND ASSISTANT
“Well we got just one applicant; I guess we’ll go with him.”
“He’s smart enough all right, but have you looked at him...? Pretty rough, could have been born in a barn.”
“Well, have you checked out The-Not-Exactly-the-A-Team recently? They all look like rejects from a casting call for vagrants!”
“‘J’…he’s Jewish you know…”
“Yeh…but there are others… You know that guy at Virginia Tech?”
“The one they fired, you mean?”
“OK OK but this is the only guy we’ve got!”
“Right; Coach J it is.”
“Now Coach, this is an entry level position. We don’t really have too many perks, like you know, salary or benefits or uniforms or an arena or fans.”
“That’s just fine. There’s a whole playground out there.”
“Your first game is against the No Hope Texas Naysayers…they’re tough!”
“We’ll be all right, we’ll be just fine.”
COACH J SURVEYS HIS BENCH
“Now you, Simon Peter, you are going to play Point Guard.”
“What’s a Point Guard, coach?”
“OK we’ll forget about all that for now. Just remember our Motto; ‘All Hopes, No Harm’.
“I thought it was ‘Hoops’, sir.
“Hopes, son, Hopes.”
PUZZLED LOOKS ALL AROUND FROM THE TEAM
“John and James are you listening?”
“Oh….sure Coach”
“You may be the Sons of Thunder but that doesn’t mean we want to see flagrant fouls all over the court….right?”
“God gave us elbows Coach.”
“God gave you me, son.”
“Hello, Thomas are you with me? You can continue to sit down there at the end of the bench… or get yourself motivated and make a difference to this team - for everyone’s sake.”
“Well, I sort of doubt it, Coach.”
THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR
“Coach I have to tell you; you looked more than a little lost out there, kind of like you were wandering in the wilderness.”
“I was.”
“You lost 113-7.”
“We didn’t lose anything, not really.”
“OK, well toughen 'em up.”
Columbia Castigators 99, Kingly Saints 4
“Well, that was some outcome all right, Coach; I never thought anything good ever came out of Columbia. Your boys looked like they never played the game before.”
“No one has ever played this game before.”
“Coach I have to tell you there are some folks around here talking about hanging you in effigy, and worse.”
“I know.”
“So how are you preparing our guys for their last game? You know you are going against the best team in the world, the Royal Roman Revengers?”
“They’re the ones who should be worried.”
“Well you know Coach, Judas just left the team and you had a pretty thin bench to begin with. And by the way, has anyone seen the Petty Cash jar today? So, what are you going to do Coach, just tell me what you are going to do with our guys?”
“I am going to wash their feet.”
“Say again, what? You think you can win this game by washing their feet?”
“We are going to win; we are all going to win.”
“Well I just pray you got a Final Seconds trick play up your sleeve. You got something like that?”
“Yes I do. I call it The Sacrifice.”
This is an excerpt from Miles Tager's new book, The Accidental Episcopalian, due out in the fall.
