The Lyndon Line: A Retrospective

Having never played the game, it is obvious why I am so interested in American Football and desire to coach it. My only criticism of the sport is its relative predictability. "Holy crap Antwaan Randal-El threw a forward pass" or "OMG The Bears kicked on a third down!" or "The Vick family: they fight dogs and try to injure other players after the play is over." Actually the ladder most statement is not that surprising, the introduction is finished and now I present my method of madness:

Training:
Traditional coaching practicum dictates that games are won in the off season. This is the ONE time I will not break with tradition. Every great team needs to train like a great team and my team will be no different in that very general aspect. The actual training, however, will be an entire Milena ahead of its time.

Each player will be fitted with an ankle bracelet similar to the ones worn by today's celebrities. Instead of detecting the presence of alcohol, these bracelets will detect a depletion of ATP (asenosine-5'-triphosphate). ATP is muscle fuel, any muscular exertion lasting less that thirty seconds utilizes this form of bodily energy. The bracelets will be set to beep at completely random intervals throughout a 24 hour day. After a beep, the player will have five minutes to get warm and perform a set of three one rep max power cleans. After the workout, the bracelet will detect the depletion of ATP and the athlete will not receive a near lethal shock.

To accommodate these workouts each athletes classroom, home, and place(s) of leisure will be outfitted with one Olympic bar loaded with no less that 135 lbs. The bracelets will be worn year round and exceptions will not be made for sleep, bathing, or during practices and games (plays included). Current lifting gurus are embracing muscle confusion as the next step in the evolution of physical fitness, I don't think this is enough. I call my method something along the lines of "Muscle Shock and Awe" combined with "Muscle Slash and Burn" combined with "Muscle Scorched Earth Strategy" so lets just shorten it to "Slash, Awe, Burn, Shock, Muscle, Earth, and Scorch," or Sabsmes for short.

As a brief aside: Sabsmes is the closest thing to Christmas we Lydon boys have ever known. During Sabsmes, our parents would intensify our daily calesthenics not letting us stop until we reached what modern kinesiology calls rhabomylosis. Our bloodstreams would be poisoned by muscle tissue and lactic acid. We would all enter semi lucid states and have a "Sabsmes Vision". We were then allowed a full eight hours of sleep to recover, a true Sabsmes miracle.

Strategy:
Offense will utilize the seldom used and highly controversial "Lyndon Line." The Lyndon Line has been passed down through the numerous and fertile generations of Lyndon men. It was born out of necessity during my great-great-grandfather's games of neighborhood football. My great-great-grandfather, Hans Lyndon, had been born to a relatively small family of ten, leaving the brothers one short of a full team. Necessity demanded innovation and the Lyndon boys did not shy away. They developed an offense that floored the other neighborhood kids. Later when Jyalmer Lyndon, who had reabsorbed his twin brother in the womb, underwent surgery to remove his brother; the team became a true powerhouse. Utilizing eleven players but staying true to the "Lyndon Line" the eleventh man, who was a mere two feet three inches tall and possessed the intellect of a 9 month old, served as "The Wildcard".

The "Lyndon Line" only puts four men on the offensive line, so one athlete will need to be essentially two linemen. To facilitate this, he will be put on a life threatening regimen of workouts, psychological manipulation, and anabolic steroids. This frees up one man to serve as the aforementioned "Wildcard". He is the real star of the offense. This player is to have no formal knowledge of the game and in order to preserve the wild instinct I expect him to play on; he will be excluded from the huddle. During plays, he will create magnificent chaos for both teams.

Defense will have no strategy except for a single incentive. Any player who makes an interception, makes a stop on a fourth down, blocks a kick, or seriously injures an opposing player earns himself an hour without their workout bracelet. I expect that my conditioning coupled with a VERY desirable incentive will build synergy between teammates and contribute to one of the state's best defense.

Coaching Style:
I believe that the job of a coach is to stay as removed from his players as possible. I will act as a puppeteer, quietly pulling the strings and encouraging physical aggression. In-game plays will not be decided by me, Fate will be my assistant coach. With the toss of a die, plays will be decided and the team will blindly oblige. Fate is also the de-facto conditioning coach as workouts are also scheduled via a random number generator.

Transportation:
Because my program may look expensive, I have included some cost cutting measures to make it more economical. The flagship measure is our transportation. We will NEVER use buses. The distance to any opposing school is slightly less that what the average man runs during the Boston Marathon. My football players are much more than average so they will run as a pack to each game. Fallen players will be left behind, and subsequently cut from the team.

This sums up my coaching methodology. Four sides of a square coming together to be something much more that the sum of their parts. Coach Probst is a fucking amateur.

-S.L.