Worst cliche you keep encountering in coachspeak/interviews

I HATE!!!!!!!!! the one game at a time BS. I get the concept, sure, but I'm not writing that the entire season. A lot of the coaches around here try and pull that.

Another is "we're just looking towards next week."

Last week, one of teams in our area had a big game against a district game against its district rival, literal hatred between these two schools. I asked the coach and after the game what it meant to get the win. His response: "We came in here and got the win, now we're solely focused on next week. We have to take care of next week." Yeah, coach I get it, but I have a story to write tonight and we'll talk next week later on. Even a few of the players said the same thing.

Oh, and for preview stories, as soon as the coach says "they're a tough team, they try really hard and Podunk coach has put together a great team over the years, yadda, yadda," I take as they suck and we should be them to hell. Most of the time, that is exactly the case.

 

"They play good, technical [SPORT]" - They are utter shit
"[Player] is scrappy." - Player sucks/is undersized/is actually scrappy

 

One broadcasting cliche I hate: "It depends on the spot." Every play technically depends on the spot.

 

"We've got to score the basketball."
"He can sure score the basketball."
"We did a good job of scoring the basketball."

"Score the basketball" was a favorite phrase of our coach when I was an SID. I told him once I could make up his quotes for a game story, and he would never know it if I did. He admitted I was right.

And I once had an AP editor yell at me because I led a story with something funny that the coach of a losing team said. The winning team was ranked, and editor said I needed to lead with winning team coach. Problem is, winning team coach speaks nothing but coachspeak. I told her that if I waited for winning coach to say something interesting or worth quoting, the AP would never get its story. Editor didn't find my response amusing.

 

"Coach (blank) and his staff do a great job."

 

"Our expectations every week are..."

"He knows what we expect of him..."

"We expect to come out and..."

One coach in our area cannot get through two sentences without mentioning "expectations".

 

How about "going forward..."? What other options might a coach/team have?

Same question with regard to "He has to stay within himself".

 

That right there is a fine solution.

 

"two great teams"
"a fine program"
"we're a smaller school than they are"
"we work hard in practice"

and just about anything from the Don Carman list.

 

"We didn't quit," said coach Cliche.

No, you all didn't quit, but the team 50 points up on you with five minutes left did when they put their JV band in to finish up.

 

I have a current coach which tells me every week "We're 0-0" after every win or loss. "We have to just get better this week" is another favorite, along with "Team X has the best position we've seen all season." Now that I think about it, nearly everything he says is a cliche.

 

"We've got to go out there and execute."