For an unwary Coach Toledo, torture liesin the wings

Friday, October 17, 1997

For an unwary Coach Toledo, torture lies

in the wings

COLUMN: Over time, teams have found the perfect revenge

It’s nearly time for UCLA football coach Bob Toledo to start
watching his back.

Now, for all of you reflexively irate people who think I am
about to start bashing our football coach, relax, because on the
contrary, what he has done with our football team and the numbers
that his squad have posted deserve only the highest of praise.

It is because of this excellence that Toledo must be wary, for
looming over him is the promise of a Gatorade bath, that symbol of
triumph and celebration, not to mention wet clothes and a coronary
from the shock of it.

The drenching that Toledo is due to receive, however, would be
one of the last of its kind, one borne of pure, unmitigated joy.
For make no mistake: The Gatorade bath is subjected to the same
rules of evolution as the rest of the world, and the times, they
are a-changin’.

Once players had merely been satisfied to hoist their coach onto
their shoulders upon the attainment of a great victory and bear him
forth until he became either nauseated or got a groin pull from
squatting on his offensive linemen.

Some 11 years ago, the New York Giants, on their way to a Super
Bowl championship, took to drenching then-head coach Bill Parcells,
thus changing the face of celebration forever.

Now, not only does the coach get lifted up on high, he gets to
be soaking wet while doing it. Not only is he bounced around until
he becomes nauseated or gets a groin pull, he risks sterility from
the ice cubes sliding around in his crotch.

While those drenchings spawned from pure exhilaration still
exist, a more dangerous being has manifested itself, as the
Gatorade bath has become a means for players to lash back at their
coach for previous abuses of authority.

Consider the symptoms in today’s celebrations. Coaches don’t
just get doused after winning a championship, their players come at
them with the bucket of chilly death after playoff games, the end
of a losing streak, a good postgame buffet, whatever.

If that wasn’t enough, the players have resorted to trickery to
be sure they catch their fearless leader totally unaware and at his
most vulnerable. While some players will ask their coach questions
on the sideline or otherwise attract his attention (nudity is
rarely employed here), others will sneak up behind him and, via the
use of protractor and graphing calculator, hammer him at the most
devastating angle of attack, all the while thinking, "I told you
I’d get you for making me take those drug tests."

As if duping the coach wasn’t enough, the players offer no
regard for the weather, soaking the coach in weather so cold the
liquid freezes before it hits the frozen tundra. The logic here is:
Coach runs two-a-day practice in the summer, coach gets hypothermia
in the winter.

At the rate things are going, soon the players will not only
pour the frigid juice over their coach, they will slam the whole
cooler over his head, pinning his arms down. Having rendered their
coach helpless, the players will all take turns kicking and
slapping the entombing cooler, screaming, "Revenge is best served
cold, Coach … really, really cold!"

Or maybe they’ll dump the coach on the ground, still inside of
said cooler, and logroll him to midfield, where his cylindrical
posture will be employed to trip over the opposing coach, thus
rendering him the same humiliation.

So be wary, Coach Toledo, and if your players begin asking you
to describe the intricacies of some piece of football minutiae,
you’d better duck.

Mark Shapiro is a fourth-year student and Daily Bruin staff
writer. E-mail responses to mshapiro@media.

ucla.edu.