Shea Serrano[Editor's Note: Shea Serrano sometimes writes about Why This Song Sucks, and sometimes about his hilarious and poignant life and times. Better put your shoes on because your socks are about to be blown off.]
This is my fourth year coaching middle school football.
The first year was an incredible amount of fun. We had a quarterback then that was, in my estimation, the greatest middle school football thrower ever. Because of him (and a defensive lineman named T-Bone) we won all of the games that year except for the one that we tied (7-7 against School M, less a school and more a football complex that sometimes happens to have a few math books in a cabinet somewhere on campus). Oh, and one that was called on account of the daylight mysteriously disappearing quicker than norma. The joke then was that a great quarterback could throw the lights out, but our quarterback could throw the sun out. It was the first time in the school's existence it won a football championship.
The second year was equally unbelievable….
We defended our belt in even more impressive fashion. Mostly, our kids aren't that great. But that season, we received our first ever core of true athletes, and they obliterated any team silly enough to stand opposite. Standouts included a quarterback who literally jumped over humans during games (“Stop jumping over people!” is a thing one of our coaches actually had to say to him), a wide receiver who accelerated like a cheetah standing on the nose of a fighter jet and a linebacker born of a nearly unholy menace. In the six games that we played, we scored 6,000 touchdowns and gave up only two (to School M, of course, though we bested them by two points when our quarterback scored in the last 30 seconds of the game).
Last year though, dudes, last year was cataclysmic. The best player on the eighth grade team was a seventh grader who we had to move up to play quarterback because the eighth graders seemed to think the football was covered in glass. All of the schools we'd spent the two years prior destroying were merciless. We lost one game by 900 points. A separate game was called off by the President. It was not that great of an eight weeks.
But practice started this week, and oh my word: We are back. Our 12-year-old seventh grade quarterback from last year is now our eighth grade quarterback with a capital Q. He was a specimen eleven months ago. He is an Adonis now. He grew two full inches (6'1″) and gained an unreasonable amount of muscle mass (he's up to 170 pounds). We were gifted a set of monster football twins (they actually showed up to our school at the end of last season, but one broke his arm in practice and so the other was sapped of his powers). And we have a military tank of a running back who is very much looking forward to murdering linebackers and hanging their limbs in his gym locker. Our first day of practice looked like the New England Patriots in November.
Thus, a playlist of victory songs we'll listen to after the six games we'll play this season:
Eminem, “Berzerk”
These kids might not even know who Eminem is anymore. He hasn't put out an album in 42 years. Still, “Berserk,” the first single from his upcoming project, is a firestorm. We will play this after we crush School D, our division's football version of a welcome mat. We actually lost to School D last season. It was the first time in school's history that we lost to them IN ANYTHING. Their coach is the single most unlikeable human I have ever met. I hope we beat them by a thousand points and I hope he understands we mean for this to cause his heart to explode.
Run The Jewels, “36” Chain”
We will play this after we play School R and we will rip the beams from the walls. Whereas School D's coach is deplorable on account of his stupid bird nose and his perpetual misunderstanding of the mechanics of football, School R's coach is deplorable because he's slimy. For a few years, our league outlawed blitzing. School M's coach would still do so at crucial points in the game, then feign ignorance.
Young Jeezy, “R.I.P.,” featuring 2 Chainz
We will play this after we play School M, as one of our team's chances of winning the title will have been smushed into the turf by the end of the game. (Also because this song is the tits. It came on when my wife and I were at a birthday party and I got so excited that I headbutted her in the nose. True.)
Western Tink, “Short Texas”
BECAUSE WELCOME TO TEXAS, HOES.
Louie V Mob, “Dope Case”
We will play this before we play School K, because School K is good at football and even better at cheating. I will just never for the life of me understand how it is that you willingly (and willfully, for that matter) play kids a full 18 months too old to be fielded. What's more, I don't understand how you do that and still manage to lose games. Is there anything worse?
Lee Bannon – “Y.G.&.A (FEAT. ROKAMOUT)” (Official Music Video) from Sidney on Vimeo.
Lee Bannon, “YG&A”
We will play this after we play School Y. They are our last game of the season. They are a historically unimpressive school. Playing them is like MMA fighting your younger sister. We played them for our homecoming game two years ago and we actually had to tell our players to stop scoring touchdowns. They are nice, just football slow. We will beat them soundly but there will be little joy in it. There will be a grand amount of joy in us winning the championship though, which is a different thing altogether.
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