I used to play basketball.

My least favorite part of any basketball team was listening to speeches that were supposed to pump me up or get me ready to go play. I could listen to the X’s and O’s and strategy and scouting reports quite well. I found that interesting and a natural part of the game. However, the pump up speeches have always sounded forced to me. They sound forced in person, on tv or through any other medium you may perceive them. I generally find myself laughing at an accidental innuendo, a poor choice of words, or at some day dream I am having while the coach is breaking a sweat, spittle falling from his lower lip, as you watch the remnant of a lifesaver mint ebb and flow from tongue, to lip, to tongue, to lip … until it is released in a high arc towards an unsuspecting teammate’s face.

But I digress, that is another coach and another story.

So I was sitting in a locker room ready for some basketball related activity. As Allen Iverson would say “Not … not .. not a game…. but practice?” Yet, here we were huddled up for some inspiring words to get us ready for practice and eventually for a game.

The topic of this speech was: we are better than this team coming up, our record is better, we have better wins, and yet everyone talks up this team and the other teams we play against a lot more than us. We should, therefore, go out and be angry, and defeat the hated other team. However, a turn of phrase can make any mundane (they are all mundane) or normal (they all blur together) speech turn into a remarkable event.

At this moment I would also like to acknowledge that the scene in the Borat movie, where Borat learns comedy and the art of the pause was actually a good lesson in comedy and timing. One my coach was evidently (unknowingly or not) a master.

The phrase went as this: “They give respect to ………. everybody but fucking us!”

Let that one sink in. Roll it over your tongue. Savor it on the taste buds of your eardrum.

The long ellipses was a pause of about two seconds. Long enough to make you entirely forget the beginning of the sentence if you were not tuned in. And then he hit you with “everybody but fucking us!” And he was excited.

My thoughts flowed thusly: Holy shit did he say that? Did anyone else hear that? Is there a part of this sport and team that I, thankfully, have not experienced?

The answers were, hell yes, yes, and (I still believe) no.

I looked around frantically to catch an eye. 11 others stared at the coach as if nothing had happened. One teammate’s head was down, eyes at the ground. His shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back the laughter. He glanced up, we caught eyes, turned away, and both faked a cough to hide our laughter. Truly the best pump up speech I have ever heard in my life. In fact, the only one I remember.