The Best of Coach Bench’isms

South Florida is officially 7-2 after defeating Navy last week. It’s the bye week, and I hope my boys enjoy the weekend off. But let’s take a live look at the rest of Bull Nation:

My dad, a.k.a Coach Bench, was an incredible high school football coach in South Georgia (where the best high school football in the country is played, don’t @ me) for 37 years. With that comes some amazing quotes, one liners, etc. Since there’s no USF football to talk about this week, here go some of my farger’s word vomit, along with needed translations for several. Enjoy!

• “Hold on, help’s coming”- how defense is played

• “Now you’re cooking with gas”- doing well

• “It’s like yodeling, you can’t just yodel, you have to build up to it”- some things need practice

Coach Bench is an offensive line coach, so these next three will be related to the big boys up front:

• “You don’t have to win, you just have to lose slowly”

• “You gotta sit in the chair, eat your face, and when you can smell their breath, you stab!”- how to pass block

• “When you stab, you reach into their chest, through their heart, grab their spine, and rip it out”- how to stab while pass blocking (yes he has explained it this way to children as young as 8).

Pops was also an awesome strength and conditioning coach, and equally as good as a speed/agility/quickness coach. He kept it pretty simple...

• “If you wanna run fast, you gotta run fast. If you wanna jump high, you gotta jump high”

Don’t worry, it only gets better...

• “We look like Ned and the first reader- it looks bad and is bad.”

• “Go as fast as you can, not as fast as you can’t.”

• “Somebody hit him!”- Coach made sure to say this when someone messed up during a play. He wanted their punishment to be getting crushed by the entire defense. Only problem is, if someone goes the wrong way and the QB has to run the ball, everyone tries to destroy the quarterback (even when it’s his own son).

• “We’re going to play better if it hair-lips the pope.”

• “P-Jink”- a.k.a someone that’s not very good

• *points to sky* “Make friends with it! It’s not going anywhere!”- this was in reference to the sun.

• “If he’s a linebacker, I’m a damn jet pilot.”

• Nothing good ever came from a 3-man rush.”

• “That’s why they call you safety”- This one has a story behind it. I was playing safety for my 10-year-old football team. My dad was the coach and we were tied at the end of a game. The other team had the best player in the league who had just run me over on a long run, but I managed to trip him up before he scored. I laid on the ground until he came over and helped me up and said, “we only have 11. You’re going to have to play the last play.” So the very next play, essentially the same exact thing happens.

The best player in the league runs me over like I wasn’t even there, and basically tripped on my facemask as he stomped on my face. The game ended and we didn’t lose. I’m laying in the grass, staring up at the sky with a pounding headache, when I see my dad’s face appear over mine. He’s grinning from ear to ear, slaps the fire out of my already aching head, and says, “That’s why they call you safety,” and then immediately walks off. Thanks for the concern, Coach.

Last but not least, my all time favorite and his best one ever:

“Rule number 1: have fun. Rule number 2: always refer back to rule number 1.”