Coach Hyatt Is a Riot!
Read Coach Hyatt Is a Riot! Online
Authors: Dan Gutman
My Weird School Daze #4
Dan Gutman
Pictures by Jim Paillot
1
The Thing I Love
2
Coach Hyatt Is Mean
3
Cheerleaders Who Throw Up
4
Weird Training Methods
5
Dancing in the End Zone
6
Rufus the Doofus
7
The Sharks
8
The First Half
9
Halftime
10
Our Secret Weapon
11
The Moose Goes Nuts
12
The Secret Play
13
UFM*
For Emma
The Thing I Love
My name is A.J. and I
love
school.
Going to school is just
so
much fun! I wish we could go to school at night. I wish we could go to school on the weekend. I wish we never had vacations.
Just kidding!
I
hate
school! Do you know what I would rather do than go to school? I
would rather eat a dead-bug sandwich. No, I would rather eat a
live
-bug sandwich. That would be even worse than a dead-bug sandwich, because the bugs would still be moving around in the sandwich while I was eating it. Ugh, disgusting! But even more disgusting than eating a live-bug sandwich is going to school.
I don't hate
everything
, you know. Some stuff I love. Like video games. And skate-boarding. And trick biking.
I'll tell you the one thing that I
really
love more than anything in the world. And it's
not
Andrea Young, this annoying girl in my class with curly brown hair.
I love Pee Wee Football.
In the fall I play football every Saturday. Football is cool because you get to push and shove and yell and knock kids on their butts. And the best part is, you don't even get punished!
At school, if you push and shove and yell and knock kids on their butts, you have to go to the principal's office. But in football you're
supposed
to push and shove and yell and knock kids on their butts.
That's why I hate school and love Pee Wee Football. If you ask me, the world would be a better place if they closed all the schools and turned them into Pee Wee Football camps.
The only problem is, my team
stinks
!
We're called the Moose,
*
and we lost every game last season. Every game!
The good news is, we're getting a new coach this year named Coach Hyatt. I bet he'll be a lot better than our old coach, Mr. Boozer. Mr. Boozer was a loser.
I put on my uniform and shoulder pads to get ready for our first practice. Shoulder pads are cool because they make it look like you have big muscles. Our uniform is red, and we have red helmets with a lightning bolt down the middle.
Mom drove me to practice at the high school field. We got out of the car and
looked around until we found the other guys in the seventy-pound league.
“Give me a good-bye hug, A.J.,” my mom said.
Mom is always trying to hug me, especially in front of other kids. Moms are weird.
“Not now, Mom.”
“Hug me, A.J.,” my mom said.
“No way.”
“I want a hug, A.J.,” my mom said.
“I don't
think
so.”
Mom reached out to grab me. But I faked left. Then I faked right. Then I faked left again. Ha-ha! I totally faked out my mom! She can't play football to save her life. Eat
my dust, Mom!
There were around twenty kids with red uniforms like mine. Some of them were in my class, and some others I didn't know.
“I can't wait to meet Coach Hyatt,” said my friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“I hope he lets me be the kicker,” said Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn't food.
“I hope he lets me play fullback,” said Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
“I hope he lets me be the quarterback becauseâ”
*
I didn't get the chance to finish my sentence, because that's when a cool car pulled up. It looked just like a real car, only smaller. Michael knows all about cars. He said it was a Mini Cooper.
Coach Hyatt and some kid got out of the little car. They were coming over to us. The coach had on a red shirt and a red
hat, and wore a whistle around his neck.
But there was something really strange about him.
He wasn't a him at all!
Coach Hyatt wasâ¦a
lady
!
Coach Hyatt Is Mean
Girls aren't supposed to be football coaches! That's a scientific fact. What do girls know about pushing and shoving and knocking kids on their butts? Girls only care about puppies and butterflies, and what color nail polish they have on.
But the lady who got out of the Mini
Cooper
was
Coach Hyatt. I knew because she had a big name tag on her shirt that said MY NAME IS COACH HYATT. She blew her whistle.
“Line up!” Coach Hyatt barked.
We all looked at her. I wasn't about to line up for some lady coach. Ladies don't know the first thing about football. My mom thinks that sacking the quarterback means you put a bag over his head.
Like I said, moms are weird.
Coach Hyatt blew her whistle again.
“I SAID, âLINE UP!'”
We all lined up. Coach Hyatt looked mean. We were all shaking and shivering and quivering.
“Now listen up!” she barked. “This is my son, Wyatt. He's on the team, whether
you like it or not.”
Wyatt Hyatt? I knew right away this kid was weird.
Wyatt was a little guy. He looked like he was in first grade. Wyatt was picking his nose and wiping it on his helmet.
“I hope you kids are ready to
work
!” barked Coach Hyatt.
“Uh, we're here to play football,” I told her.
“Well, you're gonna work! And you're gonna sweat! And you're gonna stink! And you know what?”
“What?” we all asked.
“You're gonna
like
it!” she barked.
Coach Hyatt was scary! Some kids were
already whimpering and saying they wanted to go home.
“Aren't you taking this a little too seriously?” asked Michael. “We're only eight years old.”
“When I was eight,” Coach Hyatt told us, “I built a log cabin with my bare hands.”
I didn't know what that had to do with anything. But I wasn't about to complain, because Coach Hyatt seemed so mean.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” one kid asked.
“No!” Coach Hyatt barked. “Bathrooms are for losers. You're weak! I'll chew you up and spit you out. I'm gonna turn you ragamuffins into winners!”
I didn't know what a ragamuffin was. I figured it must be a muffin made out of rags, or a rag made out of muffins. But it didn't matter. If winners are people who aren't allowed to go to the bathroom, I think I'd rather be a loser.
I didn't even have to go to the bathroom; but after Coach Hyatt said we weren't allowed to, suddenly I had to. I hate when that happens.
She made us run all the way around the field, which is like a million hundred miles. Then she made us run all the way around the field
backward
, which is even farther. Then she made us run all the way around the field sideways!
We were huffing and puffing and holding our sides. When we finished, Wyatt picked his nose. There was a big jug of Gatorade on the bench, but Coach Hyatt wouldn't let us drink any.
“Can we take a break now?” Ryan asked.
“No!” Coach Hyatt barked. “Breaks are for losers.”
I thought I was gonna die.