A time to kill: motivating your teammates.
Motivation can be difficult for the professional athlete. After all, you’re at a better point in your life now. Back in your college days, you were hungry, eager to prove you had what it took to make the pros. You were desperate. Urgent. You had a dream, and a single-minded drive to see that dream through. And now, you’ve realized it. You made the big-time and now have an incredible salary and lifestyle to show for it. What, exactly, is there to get up for anymore? It’s funny how, when your dreams come true, they stop being dreams. I’m pretty sure that last sentence was lifted from a Hilary Duff film, but I can’t confirm it.
It’s up to you and your teammates to motivate yourselves. This won’t be easy. It’s not like back in high school, when you had a veritable surplus of late-puberty testosterone coursing through your system that could spike instantly at the sight of a bare midriff. And there’s no token teammate with cerebral palsy to play for. That kid wasn’t good enough to make the pros.
Fortunately, I, a fully untrained life coach, am here to help. Now, I was a terrible athlete. I was third string, and even when the backup was injured, the coaches would move another player out of position so that I would not be able to get onto the field to fuck things up. But what I lacked in agility, and looks, and talent, and speed, and coordination, and reflexes, and general usefulness, I made up for in my astonishing ability to get fired up for games I had absolutely no chance of playing in. How? By devising a killer motivational speech. I’ve never shared this speech with anyone. After all, it’s not exactly stirring coming from a human traffic cone. But coming from you? Magic.
Be sure to recite this speech while listening to Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” or watching the first forty-five minutes of Full Metal Jacket:
Men.
(Always start off your speech by saying, “Men.” It reinforces the gender status of everyone in the room. Also, start softly. And seated. You want to build to a crescendo here.)
Men, this is a special day today. This is the day we find out how we’ll be remembered. How do you want to be remembered?
(Leave a pause here so everyone can reflect on that point.)
Do you want to be remembered as strong?
Do you want to be remembered as a hero?
Do you want to be remembered as someone who rose to the occasion?
How do you want to be remembered?
(See what I did right there? I repeated the initial question over again! This is known as a “refrain.” I’m totally gonna do it again. Watch.)
How do you want to be remembered, men?
Do you want to be remembered at all?
Maybe you’d like to be forgotten.
Maybe you’d like to fade into history, to fade into the shadow of those assholes across the field.
Maybe you’d like everything we’ve gone through together up to this point to go to waste.
All the early morning lifting.
All the tape sessions.
All the things Coach (your coach’s last name here) taught us.
Is that what you want?
(Classic reverse psychology. Everyone in the locker room will get crazy pissed off. Now rise. Rise!)
Do you want to be forgotten like that?!
To shuffle off this earth without leaving an indelible mark?!
Is that what you want?! IS THAT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT?!
(Start crying.)
I FUCKING DON’T!
How do you want to be remembered?!
Do you want to be remembered as men?!
Remembered as winners?!
(Start throwing around shit. If there’s a chair nearby, stand on it.)
Remembered as the kickass motherfuckers who went out onto that field, took the game to those fucking worthless pieces of shit, AND FUCKING RIPPED OUT THEIR GODDAMN THROATS?! I ASK YOU: HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
(Everyone will now proceed to go apeshit.)
I SAID: DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED AS CHAMPIONS?!
(Everyone will respond in the affirmative.)
DO YOU WANT TO FUCK SOME SHIT UP?!
(Everyone will again respond in the affirmative. Cue up “Shut ’Em Down” by Public Enemy on the locker room stereo, provided the captain gave you permission.)
THEN LET’S GO! LET’S FUCKING FIRE IT UP, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!! FUCKING BRING IT IN!
(Everyone brings it in.)
FUCKING WIN ON THREE! ONE . . . TWO . . . THREE!!!!!!!
WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, man, I am ready to run through a brick wall right now. Granted, this speech may be more effective before, say, a championship game as opposed to the last game of a nine-game West Coast road swing. But hey, that’s what snorting Dexatrim is for.