Imagining Gene Chizik's Opening Speech

Auburn's new coach Gene Chizik has remained under the radar thus far. Fortunately here at the ClayNation column we became aware that each new coach has to stand up and introduce himself to the other SEC coaches at the annual coaches meeting.

Fortunately we were able to capture the entirety of this fabricated introduction. And now we can fabricate it for your enjoyment today. Meet Gene Chizik. Already his introductory speech is being called the Gettysburg Address of Auburn football.

"Hey, y'all my name's Gene Chizik and I'm the new coach at Auburn. Some of y'all remember me, some of y'all won't. I'm just a regular ole guy who likes fishing and eating Twinkies with the wrappers still on. I'm from Florida, and Auburn's always been my dream job. Except for Florida, I've always liked Florida better than Auburn since I went to college there, but they already had a coach. Really, I'm gonna be honest, I didn't care where the hell I ended up so long as it wasn't in Ames, Iowa. Ames, Iowa is about the worst place in the world. The sun never shines and it snows in July. I guess y'all know how successful I was there. Pretty big-time. I won five games."

Chizik extends a finger as he counts, "One, two, three, four, five. Five big ones."

Some people down at Auburn say, well, 'Five ain't that impressive, Gene, didn't you lose 19?' And I say to them, 'I say, hey ole boy, I ain't here to talk about the past. This here is about the future.'" For instance, I say to them, 'You want big numbers? How 'bout 60, 62, and 76, them's big numbers.' That's where Rivals ranked my recruiting classes at Iowa State.

"Then I say, 'Do you know how hard you have to work to come up with the 60th best recruiting class in America? Real hard. It ain't easy.' That's exactly average. Right smack dab in the middle. The most average collection of players you could possibly assemble. If somebody who didn't watch college football said, 'What does the most average football player on Earth look like?' I know the answer. I could say, send 'em to Ames. We know how to do it. We put the white in white boys.

"Y'all know what I'm talking about. That's why we went rolling around in the white limousine. Raise your hand if you'd still be a virgin without a white limousine to show off to the ladies."

Surveys the room and nods.

"That's what I thought. While we're sitting in the comfortable white limo fabric, that's real white leather, straight from a white cow in El Dorado, not no pleather, I put my arm around those boys and I say, 'Do you know who had the number 111 total defense in 2008? Me.' Let me tell you, numbers tell the whole story. Not the half story or the quarter story, or the thing that comes after the quarter, half of the quarter, the whole story."

"Hell, we all know players matter. That's why I need you real bad.

"If there was ever a poster boy to illustrate the phrase, 'Talent makes coaches look better than they actually are,' I'm him. I had Michael Huff and Aaron Ross and Michael Griffin and Carlos Rogers in the secondary at Texas and Auburn. Hell, you could have coached those guys from Moscow. That's in Russia where they wear furry hats and drink vodka. By the way, anybody remember Yakov Smirnoff? Now that guy was funny. I wanted him to ride in the limo. We tried to hire him. Every time we hit a red light he was going to say, 'Auburn: What a country!' but it didn't happen."

Sighs.

"Anyway, here's what I'd tell Rogers and Griffin and Ross when it got time to break down my defensive philosophy, 'I'd say, line up 10 yards off the ball and when you see a guy running to try to catch the ball, you catch it instead. Hell, it ain't rocket science!'

Dagnabbit.

"But some people want to focus on the past. Like Charles Barkley, that old fat guy who gets arrested going to meet prostitutes in Arizona and didn't think I was qualified for the job. They want to talk about why 36 Auburn fans killed themselves at midfield on Jordan-Hare, the day I was introduced. That's finished. Done for. I heard they were trying to toast celebratory Jell-O shots and accidentally somebody made them out of arsenic instead. That stuff happens. It's college, what can you do? Somebody told me that arsenic and grape Jell-O look the same. I don't know about that. I've never really liked grape jello.

What I do like is passion and limos. And the combination of the two. That's what I tell the recruits when we all climb in together and open the sun roof. I say, 'Son, if you can come to Auburn, I'll promise you two words: passionate limos.'

"The other day I got up at a boosters lunch and somebody said, 'How long's it going to take to beat Alabama?' And I said, 'I'll say it just like Pat Dye said it, 'Sixty years.' Nobody said a word, turns out Pat Dye said 60 minutes.

"I think our fans are going to buy in, I really do. Already Auburn had to pay $750,000 to hire me away from Iowa State. My agent tells me that means Iowa State gets an extra $150,000 for each of my wins. That's a return! A big return. Anyway, I appreciate y'all letting me talk to you. I also wanted to let you know that the rumor you heard about Auburn fans putting fresh meat inside my headset so the war eagle attacks me when he takes off for the first game of the season Sept. 5 against West Virginia, that's just not true.

War Eagle!"