I don’t know if former Chicago Sun-Times freelancer Clyde Travis (above, left) has any basketball coach experience, but he’s very well versed in delivered REAL TALK to underachieving players. According to this item from last Thursday’s Romensko.com, Travis was so disillusioned with the effort put forth by top ranked Curie (IL) in a 58-56 win over Hyde Park High, hee delivered a postgame lecture in the former’s locker room, one that mysteriously wasn’t mentioned in his Sun-Times account of the game.
I hope you all gave yourselves a good round of applause. You know why? Because you all stunk that shit up worse than anything I’ve seen. That was the worst exhibition of basketball that I’ve seen in about 30 years. And not that they weren’t trying, it’s that you guys did not come out focused. You are the number one team in the state, and they played like they were the number one team in the state. …
The word that I would use in terms of looking at how you all played was it was a very unintelligent game. ….”
Travis has since been deemed surplus to requirements by his paper, though there might be some slim consolation in knowing news of his exploits have reached all the way to South Africa, where IOL’s Kevin McCallum attempts an analogy almost 5% of you will understand :
How our media cousins from Cape Town would have loved to have been allowed into the Ellis Park change rooms to have a natter with the Stormers after they were belted by the Lions. Tears streaming down their little faces, they would have told them that was the worst exhibition of rugby seen by them in the last 30 years, glossing over the 1999 Super Rugby semi-final and the odd Currie Cup final.
It starts with the slow use of “we” instead of “South Africa”, progresses to wearing a team’s jersey in the press box, then to screaming for your team from your media seat. Before long, you find yourself in a changeroom giving motivational speeches. The horror of doing a Travis.