The Meanest Thing Coaches Have Said To You Volume IV

Welcome back to our collective memory blog where we share our stories of our crazy coaches and sometimes dads berating us all through our youth. We’re they right about us? Probably. Did they have to say it that way…yeah, we probably deserved that too. Here we go. First up, Ben..

As a freshman in high school, we were doing a mid-range shooting drill and after making a shot or two in a row and the varsity coach pulls me aside, and tells my 14 year old self “If I was allowed to fight my players, I’d beat your ass first, quit being a pussy and shoot the ball during games”. The following JV game, in front of our home crowd and with coach behind our bench in the stands, I take a contested shot and just miss, before I can even forget about the miss he calls for a sub and I’m back on the bench getting my ass hollered at for being selfish. In conclusion shooting a basketball has never been the same for me.

Ben M
Hey Ben, I am on your coach’s side here. You took a contested shot when you don’t even think you’re good enough to take open shots. Back to the bench, pussy.

So this was just out of college at my first real job.This was during the recession, I didn’t have much money, was basically just glad to be there. One of the things I did to save money was cut my own hair. Simple 1 buzz cut all the way around. Got good at it and it was sort of in style during the time period. I’ll preface this quote by saying I am a pretty thin guy, too. I walked into my Monday meeting at was greeted by my boss in front of all my coworkers with “Mike, how was your weekend? Looks like you made it out of Auschwitz alright”. Then told me to “grow some hair we cant have people looking like prisoners here”. Probably my favorite boss ever though. 

Mike
I forgot I asked for boss stories. We’ve all been in this situation too. Showing up for a our first big job with the 5 dress clothes we got at Jos A Bank because somehow if you bought 3 the next two were 90% off. You walk in and you’re still basically a moron like you’ve always been, but now people expect things of you. Things like being able to look like a functioning human who doens’t cut his own hair. VERY insensitive joke that might get that boss cancelled in 2020, but message received. You need to be an adult now, Mike. Everyone needs a boss like that.

hey chief saw your coaches quotes blog and loved it.  I also had Coach Malarney at Berkshire for a few years as our line coach 2003 and 2004.  He is the man, probably the greatest human in the whole place.  No less than three times a week he would start position drills by telling us about the hoagie he had for lunch in that unreal voice that came out of him. You need get him on a podcast so the world can hear it.  I don’t believe their is a more pure version ” that was shitty, take a lap”  than when John Malarney delivers it.  His piece de resistance came late in the 2003 season.  

    We were undefeated (not a big deal), destroying other teams, and stacked with talent so the practices were competitive and there was a ton of accountability. you had to be ready to roll everyday. We had a guy who was a good player but he would get rattled if you fucked with him and make dumbass mistakes.  long story short someone was buying real estate in this dudes brain that day as we broke to position drills and he proceeds to fuck up the coming out of his stance warm up drill, were talking day one stuff and its late season.   Coach Malarney looks at him and “that was so shitty you make me want to go home and beat my wife.”  everybody lost their shit  and the kid he said it to is in a full on brain blender situation.  Malarney then says ” im kidding, i love my wife….everybody take a lap”   Poor kid was never the same again. permanent rattle. 
    Keep up the good work with Barstool Chicago, legit funniest part of the pirate ship.  
Duncan
I am including this because I love Coach Malarney and hope he’s doing well. This guy had him a bit before I was at Berkshire. We went 0-9 my senior year. We took a lot of laps as Malarney told us how much he hated us.
Hi Chief,Long time listener, big time Chicago guy here. For the record, it goes Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls,…  …White Sox. You can disagree on the first three, that’s fine, but, if you rank the last two higher, you live on the South side and/or drive a Corolla.

Anyhoo, this story involves my old man. He was coaching my older brother’s Little League baseball team, and there was a kid named Ed on the team. Ed was a fantastic nerd. Probably owned and ran all the Windows programs and shit in the 90s. More likely to know how many marbles were in a jar than who Michael Jordan was. That kind of kid. Well he sucked at baseball. Naturally. But that smart mo fo figured out how to get on base. Get beaned! All the time. He used to crowd the plate and get beaned. Genius! So my dad put a stop to that, right? He has six sons of his own and loves them all to death. Couldn’t subject a kid to just constantly getting beaned. Right? Wrong. My dad batted him leadoff. Never spoke a word to him about stopping.

Best,
Anonymous

Your dad and that kid probably both read MoneyBall at the same time.
In high school playing JV hockey. General rule not to take high shots on your goalie during pre-game warmups. Coach being a former goalie took that rule very seriously, and me not being very accurate (hence JV squad) took a high shot. Coach stops warm ups, puts the entire team on the blue line and me in net. With the opposing team and families in the stands watching, coach tells the rest of my team to take shots at me as high and hard as possible so I knew how it felt. Most missed on purpose but was embarrassing to say the least. –Tyler

Eye for an eye. That’s a lesson you don’t forget. Although I am a firm believer and letting your goalie see all kinds of shots in warmups. Change his eye level. Let him feel it in his glove. That’s being a good teammate.
Sup Chief, this goes back to my 5th grade football team. We were pretty good, ended up going undefeated and winning the championship that year. 7 games in we had yet to allow a single point, our first touchdown allowed was on a freak turnover on offense that the other team returned. We still won that game by 35. I think our coach wanted to bagel them because the year before they beat us 46-0. Fast forward to practice the next week…we never even put on our pads, all we did was laps and sprints for two hours and the time between those was filled with as extreme language as he could use on 10 yr olds without the moms losing their shit. – Liam
I could see WhiteSoxDave doing this to his future son’s team.
That’s it for this volume. Someone said last time that the blog was too long so I am saving a couple for next time. If you’ve got a story email me at Chief@barstoolsports.com.