Football Secrets

Sometimes the power of a small phrase is astonishing. Case in point:

Our high school football team is struggling. They have had a bad couple of years, and they have fought hard to win the 2 games this year. Our homecoming game was this past Friday, and it was against a team that we can beat. The records on the season very similar; similar talents; should be a close game.

Several of my students play on the varsity team. I have tried to be encouraging, and as we were joking around and talking about the upcoming game, I had a stroke of silly genius.

In my 3rd year class, I have one our team's offensive linemen. He is a big kid, somewhere around 6'6", and I think he told me once about 280 lbs.(sorry if that's off). He is a very respectful student, good hard worker, and just generally an all-around nice young man. He is very likeable, and very competitive. We had talked in times past of the ability of the German language to sound harsh and angry, even if something pleasant was being said, just by speaking in a rough voice.

I had an idea. I told him I had a phrase, that if said just right, would give him a momentary advantage over his opponent. I gave him, in the harshest, yet quietest voice I could: " Du hast schöne Haare. Ich werde dir Blumen schenken". I promised him if he would say this with a growl, his opponent would lose his mental edge just long enough to get knocked on his keester. Well this student looked at me and said with raised eyebrows, " Herr Wahlquist, I can't say that. What if the kid speaks German, or he's an exchange student or something?" I told him that would give him an EXTRA edge. The phrase means "You have nice hair, i'm going to send you flowers". :)

Well, game night came and went. I heard on the news that weekend that we had lost by a score of 28-10. ( I should justify my absence from such an important event. I live 1hr 20 minutes from the school where I teach. This is due to running a family chicken farm, which needed my attention that night.) Not a fun homecoming! I decided to jokingly hound this lineman about not using my "secret weapon". When he finally came to class late in the day, I asked him why he hadn't used the phrase. To my astonishment, he responded, "I did Herr Wahlquist." I was amazed. He continued to tell me that he had only used the "hair" bit, and the other guy had hesitated and just as the ball was snapped said "Was that German?" He got knocked on his can! :)

Slightly taken aback, our big lineman helped him up (he's a good sport), and said yes. As they lined up again, the other guy indicated that he had lived for a few years in Germany. He still wasn't on his mental game. While he was talking to my guy, the ball was snapped, and one more time on his backside. :)

Well, this had not gone completely unnoticed by the other team. As they lined up one more time, somehow one questioned what the phrase meant. Well, my friend spoke english and said "you have nice hair." The other team's defensive line couldn't help laughing just a little bit, but their timing was off. The ball had just been snapped, and our offensive line blew the defense off the ball, and scored a touchdown!!

Too bad it was the only touchdown. Too bad I didn't give them a sheet of "useful" German phrases. Maybe we could have had a happy homecoming.