The Carlton High School Prairie Dogs’ Cinderella football season came to an ignominious end Friday night when the team forfeited the championship game to the heavily favored Beaumont High Bison after Prairie Dog coach Hugh Jamison delivered a grim and disheartening pregame speech that starkly delineated the likelihood of a brutal and demoralizing annihilation at the hands of the defending champion Bison. It was all the more shocking to Prairie Dog fans since the plucky band of offbeat but lovable players had overcome so much during the season to turn a perennially losing team into a potential champion.
But Coach Jamison, unnerved while watching the Bison go through their pregame warmups, decided to confront his team with the bleak reality of their certain humiliation and he delivered a frightful stem-winder that led to his team’s immediate capitulation to the Bison before the game even started. One of the Prairie Dogs recorded the speech and the text follows below.
COACH JAMISON: Well, this is it, guys, the state championship. To be honest, I think we’re lucky to be here. Let’s face it, we’re a poor school with a long history of losing, crappy facilities and equipment, and kids from lower middle class families with low expectations and lower motivation. Your parents are factory workers, grocery clerks, mechanics, crossing guards, ignorant chicken farmers and truck-stop prostitutes. That team we’re facing…those kids all grew up playing in the elite Pee Wee and Pop Warner football leagues, attended the premier summer football camps staffed by ex-pros, and they’ve got the best facilities, equipment and coaching money can buy as well as a seamless pipeline to the latest designer steroids. Last night they stayed at the Hilton, were serviced by high end call girls and they’re favored by 27 points. We stayed at the Comfort Inn with bed bugs, and the gunfire outside kept many of us awake all night. In short, we haven’t got a fucking prayer. The only thing we have is our pluckiness. We’ve come through a lot together this season. Dilford, losing your leg in that tractor accident really put a crimp in our running game. Wallis, losing your sister to leprosy was a blow. Dimarco’s arrest on sexual assault charges left us weak on the defensive line. Kramer’s descent into madness really threw our kicking game off, although he’s doing a fine job as the team mascot. We overcame a series of racial and socioeconomic conflicts on the team by lip syncing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” together in the locker room. We persevered, and here we are, damnit!…But for what?…a soul-searing humiliation marathon in front of thousands of mocking fans? (he starts handing out cards) I want you all to take these cards with the suicide hotline number on it just in case it’s worse than we can imagine–in case? Let’s face it, it’s going to be a fucking slaughter. By the way, if any of you do decide to cash out early, I won’t think any less of you. I mean, obviously, don’t do anything foolish, but I’m just saying…I want you all to know that I’m proud of each and every one of you even though you are totally inadequate to rise to this moment. Okay, let’s get out there and try to keep them from running the score up too high, all right?