Posts Tagged ‘coach’

Peptalk Al Pacino

Friday, September 17th, 2010

“Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives. All comes down to today, and either, we heal as a team, or we’re gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play. Until we’re finished. We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell… one inch at a time.”

Van Al Pacino kun je talloze monologen eindeloos terugkijken. Godfather, Donnie Brasco, Scarface, Town Hall, Glengarry Glen Ross… maar toch zeker ook zijn rol als footballcoach Tony d’Amato in Any Given Sunday (1999). Hockeycoach Marc Lammers haalde gisteren die befaamde motivatiespeech terug op het Deloitte Innovation Community Event. Lammers had zelf een gedreven verhaal gehouden over hoe hij de Nederlandse hockeydames klaarstoomde tot het team dat twee jaar geleden Olympisch goud won. Zijn peptalk duurde een uur, maar verveelde nergens. Lammers sloot af met Pacino, die het concept peptalk nog even in de overdrive gooide.

“The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing. Between living and dying! I’ll tell you this: in any fight it’s the guy whose willing to die who’s gonna win that inch.”