SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
MISSION, TX—Standing in front of a depth chart that witnesses described as “mostly weather,” Sharyland Pioneer head coach Eddie Galindo confirmed this week that the Diamondbacks’ non-district schedule of 6A heavyweights was assembled with one goal in mind: losing, deliberately, at a high level, and then growing from it like a fern.
“We’re not trying to win a preseason championship,” Galindo said, gesturing at a laminated schedule that several players privately called “the sentencing document.” “Anybody can fill September with winnable games and walk around feeling tall. We looked at our roster, our new quarterback, the realignment, and we asked ourselves one question: what if we got beat by schools with 3,000 more students, on purpose, and called it preparation? That’s not a schedule. That’s a curriculum.”
Officials confirmed the plan calls for returning only four offensive starters and six defensive starters, a ratio Galindo praised as “ideal, because you cannot break what has not been built.” The team’s brand-new starting quarterback, who asked not to be named because he is “still meeting everyone,” said he has been assured that every snap counts as a rep, including the ones he finishes horizontal.
“It’s Basically A Flu Shot”
Galindo compared the strategy to preventive medicine, noting that nobody in the Valley enjoys the flu shot at the H-E-B pharmacy either—you simply get it early, hurt briefly, and go on with your life. “That’s the 6A schedule,” he said. “You take the needle now so district doesn’t put you in the ground later.”
The urgency, sources said, comes from realignment. With two additional district games against Laredo Cigarroa, Juarez Lincoln and PSJA Southwest stretching the grind longer than ever, Pioneer’s staff determined that all character must be installed before Labor Day, like plywood before a hurricane. To that end, the program has commissioned a four-foot trophy reading “PRESEASON CHAMPIONSHIP OF CHARACTER,” to be awarded each fall to whichever Diamondback absorbs the most education per rib, and managers have been instructed to log every loss on the fieldhouse whiteboard under the heading “MILESTONES.”
Trainers have also been issued ice packs pre-stamped with the word “GROWTH.”
Boosters defended the approach, arguing that Pioneer’s playoff streak stopped being an achievement years ago and is now simply who they are as people.
“You can go 0-for-September as long as November still knows your name,” said longtime booster Rachel Cavazos, 54. “That’s not a record. That’s a personality. My son built so much character in one preseason he flinches at bus stops now. We couldn’t be prouder.”
Not everyone is convinced. One senior linebacker, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted the line between “intentional” and “just losing” has gotten blurry. “I’ve been here three years,” he said. “Every September we get pounded, and every October somebody says it was on purpose. At this point I honestly can’t tell if we’re geniuses or if the coach just knows how to lose with better vocabulary.”
Galindo, however, remained unbowed, closing his press conference by staring directly into a camera and delivering what he called the program’s thesis.
“When those district games come, those Laredo and PSJA kids are going to hit us, and our kids are going to think, ‘That’s it?'” Galindo said. “That’s the whole plan. That, and the trophy.”
