Thursday, August 15, 2019

Coach Sheldon Cooper Gives the Chess Team a Pep Talk - weekly column 8.15.19

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Coach Sheldon Cooper Gives the Chess Team a Pep Talk

“Now guys, today’s the big game against M.I.T., and before we thunder out to the table I want to review with you the new rules of the league.

“Before the match I don’t want to see any of you taking a knee when the band plays the theme to Big Bang Theory. We stand in unity, okay? When that song is played we are ONE team, the mighty, mighty SACRIFICIAL PAWNS! We are no longer divided by our Star Trek backgrounds or our Star Wars backgrounds. When our sacred Big Bang Theory song is played WE BEAM DOWN AS ONE and we STAND AWKWARDLY AS ONE like the all-American nerds we are. No one is either Captain Kirk or Han Solo; we are all SACRIFICIAL PAWNS! OOOOH-RAH! Gimme an OOOH-RAH!”

“…um…oooh-rah?”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

“(squeak) ooh-rah?”

“Okay, fine, fine. Now, then, if the other team offers a prayer, just go with that, okay?”

“But Coach,” said Trevor, “we’re chess players. We see existential reality only in the Spanish Opening, El Ruy Lopez, and nothing more.”

“Au contraire,” replied Neville. “Who can consider the symmetry, the logic, the elegance of the Giuoco Piano and fail to understand that only the Creator of the universe could make that opening?”

“But then how do you explain the Pirc Defense, which is obviously from the Dark Side?” asked Ponsonby.

“Focus, men. If we get into all that theology stuff someone will think we’re…ugh…liberal arts students.”

Team: “EEEEyewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

“Now, when you make a capture, remember that under the new rules we’ll be penalized two pawns and a cheerleader if you spike a rook, knight, or bishop.”

“Okay, coach, but can we spike the punch, haha?”

“You’re getting a penalty for that bad pun, Vladislav. One more thing, men. You’re going to have to clean up your language around the cheerleaders.”

“Awwwwwwwwww, mannnnnnnnnnn,” whined Clive. “Whenever I’m around Chloe Zoe, well, she just makes my Rubik’s Cube whirrrr out of sync. She makes me want to whisper a Shakespearean sonnet to her.”

“Now THAT is just the kind of language we just DON’T need, not even in our manly-man locker room. Shakespeare! If I had said “Shakespeare” or “Keats” my old physics instructor would have washed my mouth out with H202.”

“Yessss, Coach.”

“Now then,” concluded Coach Sheldon, holding up a regulation chess clock: “Out there on the field of mental battle you’ll have only two friends, your superior left-brained intellect (dramatic pause) and this. Now let’s go out there and kick some serious quantum entanglement and non-locality! Yeahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

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