"Friday Night Tykes' Episode 7 Recap: The Coaches Go Full Psycho

Jerry Thornton 3/3/2017 9:30 AM

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As the season of Friday Night Tykes makes its inevitable march into the playoffs, this week’s episode focused on the debate that is not only at the heart of the show, but the center of the whole culture. What is the purpose of organized youth sports? Is it to teach, or is it about winning? What’s more important, fun or achievement? Is it all about the kids or the adults? And if you’ve ever spent an hour of your life around, playing or coaching a youth athletic program, you’ve had the conversations. You know what the answers always are. And you know what the truth always ends up being.

*The Outlaws – that would not be the knockoff brand Tha 210 Outlaws, but the Original Recipe Outlaws who are the defending champs – are preparing to defend their state championship. And DC Clayton Guillory opens the episode by saying they could be the most talented team in the history of Texas football. So you’d think things would be swell. But OC Marecus Goodloe had just about all he can take of HC Fred Davis’ constant meddling into his play calling. The situation has been coming to a head for weeks, but right about now Goodloe’s mood is about where Jules Winnfield’s was in the back of the car picking up bits of skull and brain while Vince Vega was washing the windows. He’s a mushroom cloud layin’ motherfucker, motherfucker. He’s the Guns of Navarone. And something is going to give.

*Meanwhile, Jr. Rockets coach Mike Hall – who we find out is yet another ex-military guy coaching in TYFA – explains that he wouldn’t coach if his own son was on his team because of something about kids needing to learn to get their asses kicked by strangers. Or something. Anyway, his team is coming off a tough loss and at Monday practice he’s got zero tolerance for the sloppiness during cals, screaming in his players faces and saying “You can see the trainwreck coming.”

*Venom is out of the playoff hunt, and president/Alpha Male/walking clenched fist Chris Davis is lamenting a lost year. But he’s taking it philosophically, saying “Mediocre seasons happen.” He hugs a player and tells him he loves him. He and his laidback/catatonic coach Corey Jefferson take turns talking about fun is the No. 1 priority, how their legacies will be measured not in championships but by how many opportunities they gave to kids, and how life is too short to worry about wins and losses. They have a long heart to heart where Davis thanks Jefferson for volunteering his time and “everything you’ve done for these kids.” 3 … 2 … 1 … And cutaway to Davis telling the camera he’s firing Jefferson and making himself the head coach next year. With just the right amount of third person menace “Coach Davis will not mess around” to make it clear all the that stuff was Grade A bullshit.

*It’s the homecoming game for the Jr. Rockets, and they’ve got their work cut out for them because they face the Steelers and LeTreveon McCutcheon is back from the one-game suspension his mother imposed for him fighting in school. Again. It’s a little early to determine what the suspension will do to his draft status on Mel Kiper’s big board. But in this game, first blood is drawn not by Tre Tre, but Tom Tom Cunningham to give the Rockets one touchdown lead. The teams trade fumbles and cheap shots, causing the Rockets’ Coach Hall to call a timeout and help get his team’s composure back. By which I mean he shrieks “Don’t let them get into your motherfucking heads! You understand me??? That’s bullshit, man!!!” And it works. For the Steelers. A 6-0 deficit becomes a 34-6 rout and they’re the district champs. A Steelers assistant puts it the way only a Texas youth football coach could. “They shouldn’t have put the homecoming on us. Because we’re gonna show them who’s the homecoming.”

*A few Outlaws families are out together at a BBQ joint, and Ju Ju Harris’ mom is talking about last year’s title game when Outlaws coaches got their hands on some cards with the Gators plays on it. One kid had no idea, but another player says his Instagram blew up afterwards with people calling him and his team cheaters. Xion Grant’s mom hopes a win in this week’s championship game will stop all the cheating allegations. Because foreshadowing.

*For his part, Fred Davis prepares to defend his title against the War Eagles by stopping at a barbershop and getting the inside of his nostrils waxed. It’s the single grossest thing I’ve ever witnessed involving football. I could watch a film festival that consists of nothing but Joe Theismann getting his tibia snapped like a pretzel rod on continuous loop before I could ever look at that again.

*In the pregame, War Eagles coach Mitchell Sessions delivers the youth coach version of the Gipper speech. “Now is the time for you to drop your goddamned nuts and play football!” Early on, following a tackle out of bounds, he offers this coaching point to an Outlaws player: “Chill the fuck out on that shit, man! He was out! Motherfucker!”

*Fred Davis is proving Goodloe’s point about his constant meddling, bellyaching to his OC after every play that they need to score, I guess just in case he forgot what all those offensive plays are for. And Davis doesn’t help his own credibility when he screams for his defense to watch for a long pass to No. 88, only to watch a power run through the 2-hole go for a long touchdown.  Davis wants Goodloe to pound the ball with Myzel Miller, but instead Goodloe makes up a play on the spot, sending three kids out to run verticals. Touchdown. But things haven’t even started to get ugly for either team.

*A fumble recovery call gets reversed and the Outlaws coaches lose their minds. Another fumble recovery gets reversed, and the War Eagles coaches go ballistic. The Eagles lose another fumble, it’s game over and Sessions can’t take it any longer. Of course, the Patriots fan in me knows exactly where this is going, and Sessions does not let me down. He demands to know if the officials are “gonna let them cheat us like that?” And he’s only getting warmed up. He finds the Friday Night Tykes camera and screams “Them Outlaws is a bunch of cheating motherfuckers!” while his assistant literally puts his face to the lens and says “Fred Davis is a bitchass!!!” Nevertheless, Sessions takes the high road, getting in the handshake line and “Good game”-ing every player, while still reminding them their coaches cheat. Davis’ high road consists of him call Sessions “a soreass motherfucking loser” while unidentified teenage girls cry. What follows is a lot of threatening gestures done in full speed backpedal, like the fake-angry non-violence you see after a Maury Povich paternity test result.

*It all results in the single most joyless award ceremony ever. Davis is going full Angry Doug Baldwin. The Outlaws all look like the producers of La La Land if Jimmy Kimmel told them their dogs were just hit by cars. Goodloe has come a long way since he was chanting “Fuck the Rockets” in Season One, says Davis is making it all about himself when it’s supposed to be about the kids and taking away from them winning a championship. “If this is what youth football is coming to,” he says “Man, maybe it’s time to do something else.” And if he’s kidding himself it really is about the kids and not the coaches and parents, he will be doing something else.

Next week’s preview shows someone physically attacking a referee. I haven’t looked forward to anything so much since the first Avengers movie.

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