Tuesday, October 28, 1997
Football lingo may never be the same
COLUMN Renaming plays, signals would simplify life, rid
embarrassment for beleaguered coaches
From the school that brought you an enormous orange ear in front
of the Molecular Biology Institute and engineering students who
test their mettle by dropping eggs from a roof, UCLA now brings to
the pigskin-loving world a revolutionary new finding.
Our football team took one of the strangest plays ever devised
and gave it the moniker, "Swinging Gate," before using it to
humiliate the Golden Bears Saturday. Because of this new naming
technique, football will never be the same.
Before this discovery, the names given to football plays were
generally more complicated than the biochemical pathway for the
metabolism of alcohol, and trust me, that thing is a pain.
In the past, you’d have your quarterback in the huddle saying
something like "Y 177 X-Wing Razor Break Shimmy Shimmy."
This mangled verbiage tells the offense either what kind of play
they are going to run, the name of a new Star Wars toy or the
quarterback’s favorite dance.
From this World War II-vintage code, the offense must derive how
best to make a defense look silly on national television lest it
suffer the unending pain of being overanalyzed by Joe Theismann on
ESPN.
But now, this earth-shattering idea from the hills of Westwood
will certainly turn the football world on its ear (or Molecular
Biology Institute).
The genesis of this new terminology is quite apparent, actually,
because considering the football vernacular of today, and the
intricacies of that trick play, you’ve got what would be the most
ridiculously complicated play call ever.
I can actually visualize some beleaguered coach trying to assign
the right name to a play such as this, finally waking head coach
Bob Toledo at three in the morning, shrieking, "the hell with this,
coach, we’re calling it "Swinging Gate," or I quit!"
And if the play is a flop, we call it "Broken Trojan" and e-mail
it to USC, with our fondest regards.
Anyway, this newfound simplicity begs a new question, why not
give all plays a simple name, instead of just the most silly ones?
This step forward in the name of progress would make it so much
easier for the offense to remember what they have to do.
Couldn’t you imagine the huddles of tomorrow:
"Okay boys, we’re going to run "Flushing Toilet" on one. On one,
ready, break."
It would also make those NFL films shows where they mike the
quarterback so much more entertaining. Instead of hearing "Q Red
Slot 976-Love Mmm-Bop," we would hear something like "fellas, we’re
going to run "Clogged Drain" this time. Oh, and Jerry, if you can,
try a spin cycle on them."
But you could just as easily get away from the more domesticated
angle and use, say, medical terms to call the plays.
How perfect would a code word like "colonoscopy" be when the
running back is supposed to try and hit a hole.
Or how about shouting "myocardial infarction!" (if this has been
spelled "infraction", it’s an editor’s fault. I know my
heart-attack lingo) as an audible to scare the bejesus out of the
defense.
Teams could also do away with all of the complicated signals
employed to tell the quarterback what the play is. This would save
UCLA offensive coordinator Al "Gorgeous" Borges from a routine that
leaves him gesticulating so violently that the team trainer has to
figure out what sort of disorder could cause such intense spasming
of the arms and legs.
Let’s see, to tell the offense to throw the ball instead of run
it, we must touch our ear (but not the Molecular Biology
Institute), then our nose, our head and our groin, but only if I
say, "Simon says."
Now, the coordinator could simply mimic washing a window or
blow-drying his hair, making it much easier for the offense to
figure out what’s going on and leaving more time for the coaching
staff to tell dirty jokes through their headsets.
Shapiro is a Daily Bruin staff writer and beat writer for men’s
basketball. E-mail responses to [email protected].