Worst… Coach… Ever
This is a story about the worst football coach ever. That’s ever, as in worst coach of all time, worst who ever lived, worst in the history of mankind. The coach’s name will remain anonymous to protect the guilty, as slings and arrows will be cast upon him mercilessly. The name of this coach is not what’s important here, it’s what the coach did during his lifetime that is being examined. So he will henceforth be called WFCE, the Worst Football Coach Ever.
The WFCE is not the worst just because he once came up with a play where he had both guards and the center pull to the left to try to fake out the nose tackle, only to have the nose tackle NOT get faked, and to have the quarterback accidentally hand the ball to the nose tackle (instead of his running back) and to allow him to ramble 66 yards the other way for a defensive touchdown.
WFCE is not the worst because he once designed a defensive scheme on the opposing team’s two yard line where he had all the defensive players slant to the left (except for one, who slanted to the right) which caused a gaping hole in the defense that allowed the opposing running back to take a handoff up the middle (that should have gone for two yards) and end up racing 98 yards untouched for a touchdown.
Nor is he the worst for practically writing the book on utilizing the soft zone prevent defense at the end of close games, virtually guaranteeing that his opponents would march down the field on his teams and score the winning touchdown or field goal nearly every time they had a chance to, a strategy that he would never change throughout his whole career. Which caused his teams to lose games. Which turned into a culture of losing and the winless or near winless seasons his teams always seemed to manage to string together. His teams lost many, many close games due to this and other lousy coaching strategies. (Funny how the players always thought it was their fault. But they came and went, while the one constant that was present during all of the losing seasons was the WFCE.)
In fact, the WFCE is not the worst for yelling and screaming at his players and calling them pussies for not being tough enough (to do the impossible things that he thought they should be able to do) either. The WFCE never could understand that the player who was outweighed by 80 lbs. could not physically compete with that larger, more gifted physical opponent mano-a-mano. He thought that all mismatches could just be overcome with superhuman toughness and effort, never realizing that his team would have had a better chance of winning by outthinking and outcoaching his opponents, rather than trying to get the impossible out of everybody and then always falling short.
But the WFCE is not the Worst Football Coach Ever for losing games and bad coaching maneuvers.
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There was a player who tried out for the WFCE’s team once that was born without a right hand. He had a stump where his hand should have been and he jokingly told people to call him Hands. Hands wanted to be a linebacker, because, as he’d try to explain, it was just something he was good at. Hands was not the type of guy that you would think would go out for football, because he was a tough guy, a greaser, a biker – and his friends told him what a waste of time it would be playing football instead of hanging out with them and their smoking/drinking/biking ways. But Hands was REALLY good in football. He’d use his missing right hand like a club and would hit harder than anyone on the team. His teammates were scared of getting hit by that stump. He was fearless as a player and feared by everyone he played against. Hands had even started applying himself better in his subjects at school, as he wanted to make sure he’d get good enough grades to keep him eligible to play on the team. Hands was sure this idea of playing football was going to be the best decision he ever made. He was good at this. And he was going to make something of himself.
By the time all of the practices leading up to the first game were in the books, Hands had proven to his teammates that, not only had he been an admirable player for playing “with a handicap,” he had outplayed everyone on the team to the point where damn near every one of the players concluded, “Geez, Hands is the best player on this team.” Hell, EVERYONE thought it. Except for the WFCE. He had made up his mind quite early in fall practice that he wasn’t too crazy about this biker guy everyone called Hands. He didn’t like the guy’s attitude. He thought he was too temperamental. He didn’t think the guy fit in. He didn’t look like a football player. He just didn’t like the guy.
And so, when all of the players went up to the list on the door outside the coaches’ office to see what players were going to be assigned to what jersey number for the first game of the season that was going to be played that weekend, everyone was shocked to see that Hands’ name was not on the list. Not going to play. Not even going to suit up. An obviously lesser player had the jersey number that everyone thought Hands had earned. As the others ahead of him exited the line, they just veered away and avoided looking at Hands.
Hands was not focusing on what was going on ahead of him. He was thinking, of course, that he was not only going to suit up, but that he would play a considerable amount of time in the game and maybe even be a star in football. He had told all of his buddies to buy tickets and see him play in this, his first ever football game. Then he got to the front of the line and scoured the list. He looked and looked, and could not believe what he was not seeing. His name was not on the list anywhere. He had EARNED that spot on the team. Perhaps there was a mistake.
No one knows exactly what was said when Hands went into the WFCE’s office and asked why he was denied his rightful spot on the team. They only know that, after a heated conversation, he cussed out the coach, raked his right arm across the coach’s desk and sent everything flying and quit the team right there on the spot. This was a life changing event. Whatever he had planned on doing was out the window and he was so pissed off at his coach that he swore he’d make somebody pay for this. His biker buddies told him, “see, we told you this wouldn’t work out.”
(The WFCE quietly told himself, “I knew the idea of this guy playing football wasn’t going to work out.”)
Hands and his biker buddies began going out, cruising the streets and looking for other tough guys out there that they could beat the shit out of, for no other reason than to vent their hostilities. They got into a lot of fights. Hands even saw some similarities of the feelings of hitting people and making tackles in football to the man vs. man aggressions of getting in fights. But, he never picked any fights with any of his football teammates. They had always been cool to him. Just as he had won them over with his playing ability, they had won him over by treating him fairly.
The team went out and played horribly all season. The WFCE had tenure at his position, so he was in no danger of getting fired. It was his team and they would do what he wanted them to do. The players pretty much thought about what a joke they were, though many of them wondered if maybe, they’d have been a better team if a hard hitting madman like Hands on defense could have helped prevent some of those losses.
Then, one night, after the team had lost the last game of the year and everyone had gone to the coffee shop hangout they all liked to frequent after games, the word came down that something terrible had happened that night. Hands had picked a fight with still another tough guy. But it didn’t go down right. Instead of two tough guys fairly fighting for the sake of fighting, the guy opposite Hands instead decided to pull a knife out of his pants. He stabbed Hands in his gut. But something had gone wrong. Everyone around the gang fight immediately knew it. Blood poured out everywhere. The knife had unluckily plunged directly into his heart. Hands was dead before they could even get to the hospital.
Many of the guys on the football team attended the funeral, as well as Hands’ greaser friends, a curious mix of jocks and bikers, a couple of groups that ordinarily could not stand each others’ guts. They were all there because they all either liked or respected the hell out of the guy that was born without a hand. One person who was not at the funeral was the WFCE, who apparently told someone he didn’t really consider Hands to be a legitimate member of his team, since he had never actually ever suited up or played in a game.
The next year, there was a 40 per cent drop in people trying out for the football team. The WFCE never had another winning season. To this day, the WFCE doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
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When all is said and done, the real definition of a man’s legacy is — it is what people say or write about him after he is gone that people will remember. The WFCE’s legacy is that he is being written about as the WORST FOOTBALL COACH EVER. Not because of the number of wins vs. losses, or the bungled plays. It is because, in his vain attempt to attain coaching glory for himself, he ruined other peoples’ lives.
