A bored sports reporter slipped Chicago Pachyderms coach Terry Patterson a cup of Gatorade spiked with LSD, and the coach finally gave an interview worth reading.
INTERVIEWER: Coach Patterson, it was a tough first half for the Pachyderms…three turnovers, a blocked field goal, a stalled drive in the red zone and just two third down conversions. What does the team need to do turn this thing around in the second half?
COACH: (heavy Texas accent) Well, Bill, this ball club needs to step up to the plate and do a gut check. This ball club needs to move the ball, move the chains, put some points on the board because the point of this whole thing is…to, uh, you know…score more points than your, uh, your…
INTERVIEWER: Your opponent, Coach?
COACH: Right, your opponent. (staring intently at him) You have these strange patterns on your face…
INTERVIEWER: Coach, have you ever had the feeling that traumatic events in your childhood have psychologically damaged you and rendered you unable to experience a more emotionally satisfying sense of reality?
COACH: Well, like I said, Bill, this ball club needs to get back to the fundamentals of blocking and tackling because…you know, when I was nine years old, my mother called me a “yellow belly.” I was batting in a little league game and the pitcher beaned me. I charged the mound, but he caught me with a roundhouse right and knocked me out cold. I woke up in the hospital an hour later and…my mother was sitting there looking at me in disgust. She called me a “yellow belly.” I couldn’t understand why–
INTERVIEWER: Coach, what do the Pachyderms need to do to improve their third down conversion rate?
COACH: What?
INTERVIEWER: How do you improve your third down conversions?
COACH: Uh, well…it’s all about execution on third down. I mean, your O.C. can cook up all sorts of pyrotechnics, but if–
INTERVIEWER: So would you say your mother was withholding?
COACH: What?
INTERVIEWER: Your mother called you a “yellow belly” when the pitcher knocked you out?
COACH: He caught me offguard.
INTERVIEWER: And your mother made you feel inadequate?
COACH: Why are we talking about this?
INTERVIEWER: You were stressing the importance of execution.
COACH: That’s right, Bill. This is not just a game of “x’s” and “o’s,” it’s all about–
INTERVIEWER: Coach, is this your first time taking psychoactive drugs?
COACH: What?
INTERVIEWER: Psychoactive drugs? Psychedelics? Hallucinogens? Is this your first time?
COACH: What…what do you mean?
INTERVIEWER: How do you improve your turnover rate?
COACH: Uh, well, we need to–
INTERVIEWER: What about the patterns on my face, Coach?
COACH: What?
INTERVIEWER: When your mother called you a “yellow belly,” how did it make you feel?
COACH: How did it make me feel?
INTERVIEWER: Coach Patterson, are you now or have you ever been an advocate of Sharia Law?
COACH: What?
INTERVIEWER: It’s just that you have certain past associations which–
COACH: What the hell are you talking about?
INTERVIEWER: How did you feel when your mother called you a “yellow belly”?
COACH: She made me feel like a speck of dust…like a piece of shit!
INTERVIEWER: Your mother made you feel like a piece of shit?
COACH: Yes!
INTERVIEWER: So would you say your whole adult life has been one big “fuck you” to your mother?
COACH: Yes!
INTERVIEWER: Would you like to say it to her right now on national television?
COACH: What?
INTERVIEWER: Come on, Coach. Get it off your chest once and for all.
COACH: Fuck you, Mom!
INTERVIEWER: That’s it.
COACH: Fuck you!
INTERVIEWER: Anything else?
COACH; You made me feel so small! Like a tiny seed flung into a huge, charred crater. But guess what? I grew in that great, dark, barren hole without your help, and look at me now! I’m leading a multi-million dollar sports franchise, and you’re moldering away somewhere in a shoddy convalescent hospital!
INTERVIEWER: Must feel good to get that off your chest.
COACH: You have no idea.
INTERVIEWER: Psychoactive drugs can often be very helpful in retrieving these buried memories.
COACH: Wait a minute…that Gatorade you gave me. Did you put something–
INTERVIEWER: Coach, we brought your mother here to tell her side of the story.
COACH: What?
Somebody pushes MRS. PATTERSON onto the field in her wheelchair. She is an ancient, gnarled buzz saw of a woman. She is holding a Gatorade cup in her hand.
MRS. PATTERSON: I would have preferred you had just slit my throat like a chicken than leave me in that dump!
COACH: Mom!
MRS. PATTERSON: They keep me doped up all the time, I haven’t had a bath in a week, there was a corpse in the bed next to mine half the day yesterday, I have bedsores that could swallow a truck, and Papillion would choke on the putrid gruel they dish up.
COACH: I’m sorry, Mom.
MRS. PATTERSON: Oh, quit your blubbering. Life is a brutal power struggle–even between mothers and sons. You packed me off to that charnel house so you could get on with your career. I don’t hold it against you, but look at you now Mr. Multi-million Dollar Sports Franchise. 7 and 9 ain’t gonna get you into the playoffs.
INTERVIEWER: Mrs. Patterson, what do the Pachyderms need to do to to turn this thing around?
MRS. PATTERSON: First off, you need more production on first down. They’re stacking the box against Jackson, and you’re looking at a lot of third and nines. Run some play-action, put Ballard in the slot. Go deep to McDonald, stretch the field.
COACH: I was lying in the hospital with my face swollen up like a boulder, and you called me a “yellow belly.”
MRS. PATTERSON: You had ten pounds on that boy. If I hadn’t a kneed him in the groin, you’d a shamed the family for sure.
COACH: I was nine years old!
MRS. PATTERSON: You got any more of this vitamin water, young man?
INTERVIEWER: Coach, if you could express a successful second half strategy in terms of a naked, lesbian performance art piece, what would that look like?
MRS. PATTERSON: But he ain’t a lesbian.
INTERVIEWER: Perhaps you could illustrate your plan of attack with some interpretive dance, Coach?
COACH: Well, okay…
The COACH starts making free form, space dance moves that one might see during the encore at a Grateful Dead concert.
INTERVIEWER: Do you plan to–
COACH: We need to spread the ball around more in the second half, Bill…
MRS. PATTERSON: (watching his moves intently) That’s it. Put Ballard in the slot. Send 86 in motion. No more old school West Coast offense. That kid’s got an arm. Take it deep!
INTERVIEWER: What adjustments will you make on defense, Coach?
The COACH continues his dance with increased intensity.
MRS. PATTERSON: That’s it, get rid of that stale 4-3 package. Mix it up with some zone blitzes and amoeba sub-packages. Drop your DE back into coverage and send your corner in there on Rivera’s blind side.
Annoyed, the COACH stops his space dancing and turns on his mother suddenly.
COACH: Would you shut-up? I got where I am without your help!
MRS. PATTERSON: Where you are is the hot seat, boy. I read the sports papers. You think you’re walking in tall cotton, but if you don’t run the table the next three games and grab that last wild card spot, you’re gonna be coaching defensive backs for a Pop Warner team in Ass Scratch, Arkansas!
COACH: Okay, that’s it! I quit! I’m done with football, you hear me!
INTERVIEWER: Coach, do I understand you’re resigning as–
COACH: I only went into football to please you and the old man in the first place.
MRS. PATTERSON: (to INTERVIEWER) He always was a quitter.
COACH: I never had the guts to follow my real passion…I’m a poet!
MRS. PATTERSON: Oh, get out of here!
COACH: (pulling a slip of paper out of his back pocket) I had to channel my pain somehow.
INTERVIEWER: Coach, are you–
COACH: (grabbing INTERVIEWER’S microphone) Give me that mike! (turns directly to camera) You slobs think football is what it’s all about? Let me share something with you, brothers and sisters…
INTERVIEWER: (trying to grab his microphone) Coach, I think–
COACH: (moving away from INTERVIEWER) This is a poem entitled “My Shriveled Inner Child Hates You”…(reading dramatically) “A pale, languid cipher, he moves ghost-like through the mall…”
The INTERVIEWER and his CAMERA MAN follow the COACH as he begins to wander off.
MRS. PATTERSON: Oh, please.
COACH: …”brushing past waxy palm fronds and…”
INTERVIEWER: (pursuing him) Coach, I really need my microphone.
MRS. PATTERSON: “Waxy palm fronds”…That is so trite.
INTERVIEWER: Coach, can you give me back the–
COACH: (still reading, moving away from INTERVIEWER) …”imported soap shops redolent with”–
INTERVIEWER: Coach, give me the–
MRS. PATTERSON: (shouting after him as he disappears) You ain’t no better at poetry than you were at coaching!