Oh, I also meant to say that when I played football, the drill described above was called ‘The Meat Grinder’. I imagine that the names for such drills are as varied as there are football teams. Two of the other drill names I remember were, “Beefeaters,” and “Do-dads.”

I think coaches revel in coming up with stupid, cutesy, little names for drills. It’s kind of like their pet sayings, such as: “We didn’t come to win today!”, “I expect the team to give one-hundred and TEN percent!”, and, my personal favorite, “There’s no ‘I’ in team!”

One day, while our coach was giving one of his puffed-up, overly-animated ‘pep talks’ he trotted out the ol’ “’I’ in team” saying. My tolerance for these song and dance routines had gotten extremely thin, and before I could stop myself, I asked: “Is there an ‘I’ in ‘win’, coach?” The room was dead quite, which was not quite what I had hoped for. Nevertheless, I had committed myself, so, while the coach was trying to come up with a retort, I followed up with: “How about, ‘lose’, coach? Is there an ‘I’ in ‘lose’?” This time, the brighter of the bunch began guffawing. Slowly, the rest of the team chimed in with their laughter, even though they obviously didn’t get my point. Fuming, the coach still couldn’t come up with a retort, and finally decided to fall back on his ‘authority’. “Go give me 20 laps – full pads!” he shouted.

He never did answer my questions.