For those eight of you readers who never went to ODU, the school has this “student announcement system” they send out at around 2 every morning. The student announcements are typically fairly banal and deletable, with “news” such as the Monarch Techstore Football Hours and A Survey About Vending On Campus. (I’ve made those hyperlinks because AltDaily is, after all, a public service.)

But this morning something out of the ordinary caught my eye: Letter from Head FB Coach Bobby Wilder.

Coach Wilder

Of course I opened the letter and eagerly gave it a quick skim. See, my grand-daddy always told me I had the ass of a long snapper so, dream of all dreams, I hoped Coach Wilder was holding open auditions for someone who could hurl a ball between their legs with speed an accuracy.

Alas, no such luck. In reality, Coach Wilder had just written to say he loved us.

More specifically, he “LOVED US!!”

The letter is gushy about the team, the phenomenal support they’ve gotten from fans, and the impact fans have had on the team’s shocking 3-0 record. The letter is charming, folksy in all the right ways, and it makes me like Coach Wilder even more than I already did. That he even thought to write this letter to the students shows that he gets something important: that this is the students’ team first, and everyone else’s second.

But–deep sigh because Coach is a lot bigger than me–he does kind of write like an enthusiastic 13-year-old girl.

Coach started off with, “What an incredible win for your football team this past Saturday in Jacksonville!!” I don’t know what it is, but there’s something that tickles me about the double exclamation point. One exclamation point I get. It sort of means Weeee!, right? I understand three exclamation points too, which I think by now is short hand for holy crap, brah. But two? Isn’t that some sort of exclamatory double negative?

I decided it was and kept reading. This made Coach’s next use of double exclamation points much more entertaining. “What I am most proud of as the head coach, is our players simply “REFUSED TO LOSE” this game?” is so much funnier with a question mark at the end.

They refused to lose? Did they? “SOMEBODY ANSWER ME!!”

Which brings me to the next thing that struck me about the letter: “THE USE OF PHRASES IN ALL-CAPS SURROUNDED BY QUOTATION MARKS.” Coach Wilder does this seven times in his five paragraph letter. Here’s the list:

“REFUSED TO LOSE” “OUR HOUSE” “SLAP YOU A HIGH-FIVE” “ROCK THE HOUSE” “LOUD AND PROUD” “THE NOISE LEVEL HAS MADE THE DIFFERENCE” “OUR HOUSE”

So we all know that all-caps means yelling in emails. And we all know that quotation marks are used, typically, either when quoting someone or when doing the semi-ironic air quotes motion with your fingers that connotes the word ‘supposedly.’ Since Coach isn’t quoting anyone with these phrases, that leads to only one conclusion:

“THAT HE WANTS US TO IMAGINE HIM YELLING THESE PHRASES WHILE DOING QUOTE MARKS WITH HIS FINGERS.”

Which is f’ing hilarious. I implore you to try doing this to someone today. It’s funny with anything. “I’D LIKE A LATTE.” “HAND ME A SOME PRINTER PAPER.” “THAT’S A CUTE PUPPY.”

Which leads me to the greatest gift of Coach Wilder’s letter: saying things all-caps, in quotation marks, but then also as a question (if you’re with me that two exclamation points equals question mark).

“I’LL SEE YOU AFTER WORK, HONEY?”

“DUDE, THE HANGOVER WAS THE FUNNIEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER?”

“HUGH HEFNER IS STARTING TO GET SKIN LIKE A MUMMY?”

Okay, so I realize that emails, unlike proper letters, aren’t meant to be heard, just read, and that this is all very English teacher/writer geek stuff, so don’t take this as sincere hating on Coach Wilder. I will be “ROCKING THE HOUSE” on Saturday, even if I have to leave the press box to do so.

But if Coach Wilder really cares about the students as much as he implies, when this student (me) asks him a question in the post-game press conference this Saturday, I kindly request that he shout his answer as a question while using the ‘supposedly’ air quotes.

“IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?”