Filed Under » overheard

Ever hear something horrible and/or hilarious at the gym? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about games.

This sounds like it's from a slapstick comedy, but it's 100-percent true and that's why it's so funny.

There is an older guy, maybe early 50s, at my gym who is a total creep. He tries to act young and hit on women much younger than him, but just comes across as pathetic and desperate. The best example of this is the jet black toupee that he wears. Picture Bill Self's "hair," and then dye it black and cut the quality of the piece by half because the guy at my gym isn't a millionaire.

Tuesday night this guy is working on a lat machine, pulling the bar down behind his neck, sees an attractive young girl walking by, gives her a nod and then starts really going hard on the machine — to impress her, I guess. Just as she is passing by, his toupee gets caught by the hook on the lat bar and up off his head it goes, stuck to the bar, with his bald-ass head now beaming out for the whole world to see.

He didn't even notice for five or six more reps. He then stopped and hurriedly unhooked his hair and put his toupee back on without looking up. I didn't see him hit on anyone else that night.

- Sean

There is a douchebag at my gym who everyone hates. He is in pretty good shape, but not anything you don't see at any other gym. One night I heard him asking one of the gym workers if he could schedule some time to bring in a camera crew because he was planning to put up a video on YouTube of himself working out to "open some eyes."

This was three weeks ago and I haven't seen him since. So this week I asked the gym worker, who I'm friendly with, if the guy ever did his film. She said that he tried to, but there was an accident. Apparently he tried to jump on top of an exercise ball holding two 45-pound plates and the ball immediately slipped out from under him and he fell backwards into a mirror, cutting the top of his head pretty bad.

I have looked, but unfortunately can't find this on YouTube anywhere. It probably wasn't the kind of video he was hoping to make.

- Michelle

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

My first week of the freshmen lacrosse camp for my high school team, we had three kids who stood out for different reasons. One was very loud on the field and got made fun of; one was really soft and weak when it came to hitting; and one cradled a solid five times between each pass.

Keep in mind this is our first day over the summer at a new school with varsity coaches breathing down our necks. To the kid who made fun of the first boy the coach said, and I quote: "If you think talking on the field isn't cool I will put weed in your locker and get you suspended!" To the second boy he said: "You are playing to soft, I am going to give you a puppy, let you raise it for a year, and kill it!" To the third kid he simply said: "Hitler cradled, cradling is evil," and walked away.

- Jason

I played hockey growing up and often at the end of practice we would play duck hunt. (This is a game where all the players start at one end of the ice and skate as fast as they can to the other end. The coaches are positioned along the boards at center ice and shoot pucks at the players as they pass between the blue lines. If you're hit, you're out and become a shooter.)

My coach was a little imbalanced and you could always tell what kind of day he was having based on how hard he was shooting. On this particular day, he was really ripping the puck and one hit my friend in the helmet, knocking him out cold on the ice for about 20 seconds. When he came to, he asked my coach what had happened and coach said: "You didn't skate fast enough." I should add that we were 11 years-old at the time.

- Tyler

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

My high school lacrosse coach was well known among his players and students for saying stupid things from time to time. During my Junior year, we won the first state playoff game in the history of the program, which was an accomplishment that had eluded us each of the previous few years. While being interviewed after the game, coach intended to use the cliche about "Getting the monkey off our backs." Instead he said, "We finally beat the monkey" and that gem of a quote was included in the newspaper article about the game.

He also once said that FDR stood for Franklin Delaware Roosevelt.

- Shawn

I was a water boy for the high school varsity football team when I was a little kid because my dad was an assistant coach. We were on offense and it was 3rd and long and the head coach yelled, "Get me a receiver!" The next receiver in line stepped up to get the play from the coach. The coach looked at him and yelled, "Get me a real receiver!"

- Brent

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

One day during junior high football practice, our team was going through positional drills. In our defensive line drills, two defensive lineman lined up against five offensive linemen. Our coach stood behind the defensive linemen and signaled to the offensive players to direct them where to block. The defensive players then had to read the blocks and fight through them.

After going through the drill for a while, our coach asked if all the defensive tackles had gone. No one spoke up, so he proceeded to have the defensive ends go through the drill. Once he thought we were done, he asked if anyone had not gone. A defensive tackle raised his hand, and our coach said, "Kramer? Aren't you a defensive tackle?" Kramer nodded yes, and coach had him take his place at defensive tackle. Coach proceeded to direct all five offensive linemen directly at Kramer, and they leveled him. With him flat on his back, coach walked over and said, "Welcome to the real world, Kramer."

- Kyle

I have multiple stories about this coach because I quite simply could not pick my favorite.

For the first three years of my high school years my baseball team was not very good. We went through a complete change of coaching my senior year, leaving zero of our old coaches. Our new catchers coach, Coach Nolan, was possibly the most badass man in the world. Standing in at around 5'5" and rather chubby, Nolan didn't strike you as intimidating. Coach Nolan had coached at a different school prior to mine for almost 40 years and knows a lot about the game. Before ever greeting us with even a hello, Coach Nolan gave us some words that I will never forget. The very first thing I ever heard him say was: "I know talent when I see it. I also know that you don't have to have talent to hustle. I also know that you mother f—-ers have zero talent so you sure as hell better hustle."

- Danny

Ever hear something horrible and/or hilarious at the gym? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about games.

There is an older guy at my gym, I would guess early 50s or so, who is often using the treadmill at the same time I am. Lots of people hold a bottle of water or Gatorade or their cell phone or iPod when they're running, but this guy holds — and eats — a candy bar. Usually Snickers.

I'm not the kind of person to normally butt into someone else's business, but he was running one machine over from me yesterday and I couldn't help myself: "Having a snack?" I said. "My doctor said I needed to exercise and improve my diet," he said huffing along between bites. "I figured I could only realistically do one."

- Karen

My gym is in part of town with a great, diverse mix of people. I don't really know the exact term for this person at my gym — transgender, transexual, or transvestite — but it's a person who was born with male genitals and now dresses as a woman. He uses the women's locker room to get changed. The few times I've seen him in there, he always wears a sort of tight, wrapped underwear to conceal his bulge. It almost looks like Ace bandage underwear. Recently an older woman saw him in there and, not realizing he was actually a man, pointed at his crotch and said: "Ouch. Groin pull, huh?" He responded: "Something like that." I love my gym.

- Gina

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

No thanks to me, but my high school's cross country team was really good. The main reason was because of our coach — he would really push us hard to the point of sometimes getting in yelling matches with some of the runners on the team.

One day he got into it with our team captain, Anthony, who yelled out that he was going to quit if coach didn't back off. Eventually tensions calmed down and practice started. We headed out on a long run that was in a very different route. Eventually we realized were we were … in Anthony's neighborhood, then Anthony's street, and then in front of Anthony's house, where my coach stopped running and went up to the front door and knocked. "Mrs. Rhoads," he said when Anthony's mom opened the door. "Anthony told me today that he is going to quit. What do you think about that?"

No one challenged coach the rest of the season.

- Mike

My high school baseball coach was a dirty old man. He had a bunch of hilariously inappropriate sayings, but the one I remember the best was when he told us that he wanted us to be aggressive on the basepaths.

"If you get a single, I want you looking to extend it into a double. If you're on first, I want you trying to steal. Why? I don't need to tell you boys. Second base is the titties."

- Darren

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

My high school baseball coach was known for winning seasons, not his intelligence. He famously told the players that school doesn't matter, and constantly bragged that he scored a 12 on his ACT. One year, he was asked to give a clinic for Little League coaches in the area. When he opened up the floor for questions, one Little League coach asked if he could demonstrate a left-handed pick off move to teach one of his kids. With complete seriousness, he replied "No, I'm right-handed." Everyone in the room was dumbfounded.

As the "clinic" ended, he left the coaches with one last piece of advice. He said "I don't want to ever hear one of you yell 'rock and fire.' I don't even know what that means."

- D

My high school basketball coach was overly intense. We were down at the half one game by double digits and he was questioning our intensity and toughness in the locker room. He went up to the wipeboard and drew up a play they were running over and over with success. The other team was Xs and for us he drew these sort of ()s marks instead of Os.

"Do you see what these are?!" he yelled. "They're vaginas! You're a bunch of vaginas!"

Before he became the boys basketball head coach, he had coached our school's girls team. I doubt he ever used that speech with them.

- Frank

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

I was a freshman in high school, but it was a small high school so everyone was practically on the varsity team. My freshman year I was standing next to a coach, who was also a gym teacher, and a senior on the team and overheard them talking. Coach says to the senior, "Yeah, it was so big he must pass out anytime he gets hard."

That coach later had a incident in the school where an angry daughter of his caught him cheating and dumped a bag of his sex toys on the gym floor in the middle of a class.

- Steve

At the end of every basketball season, my basketball coach met with all of the players individually to debrief and talk about off-season workouts and the next season. I was a three-sport athlete, but quit football and baseball before my junior year to completely focus on basketball. I had a good junior year, but as a senior we went a disappointing 14-12, I hurt my ankle and I even lost my starting job for a few games in the middle of the season. Fast-forward to my debriefing meeting with coach and he leads off with: "You know, you probably have to wonder if basketball was the right sport for you." He really knew how to cheer a guy up.

- Ben

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

My high school basketball coach was a well-meaning guy, but kind of a dummy. Our junior year after tryouts he was reading off the names of players who made the team. After 14 names he got to the last one: "And last but not least, it's Kevin – who can be very proud in knowing that he is the first Asian to play for this program." It was an odd thing to say. This was 2004 and who cares if he was the first Asian. But the oddest part was that Kevin wasn't Asian. He has black hair, but he was Italian. Coach was a weird guy.

- Adam

We had a girl on our high school wrestling team. She wrestled in the 110-pound weight class and won more than she lost. She was also fairly attractive. A few times in matches her opponent got a little "excited." After one such incident, the opposing coach came over to apologize to our coach for his wrestler getting a chub. My coach responded: "Hey, I understand. As long as you don't get one, we don't have a problem."

- Dennis

Ever hear a coach say something horrible and/or hilarious? Send your submissions to OverheardSP at gmail. Or submit for future editions about things overheard at a game, at the gym or terrible sports gifts you've received.

In my junior year of high school hockey, we were going through a little losing streak so our head coach had the idea of taking us out to a pond to practice. The idea was that he was going to take us to the roots of hockey to help us remember our fundamentals. It was actually a pretty good idea.

All went well until he took about 5 steps onto the ice and then fell through. I guess we sort of got a team-building exercise out of it as we helped fish him out.

- Max

In high school, my basketball coach got angry really fast and caused some things he said to not make sense. One practice a kid committed a hard foul and smacked the kid in the face. My coach then proceeded to yell "I swear Devon, if you slap another kid I'm going to smack your ass. I'm": going to smack your ass so hard." We all died laughing and he made us run the rest of practice.

- Jacob