MovieChat Forums > One on One (1978) Discussion > what does the phrase 'All the way up wit...

what does the phrase 'All the way up with a red, hot poker! 'mean


can anyone break down where that phrase comes from and just what it means ive only ever heard it from this movie lol thanks

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Henry tells his coach he can take his scholarship and stick it up his azz with a red hot poker, because he can play anywhere he wants to after leading State to a win in the big game.

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So, does that mean that Henry quit the team? What the heck is he going to tell his parents now after keeping them in the dark this whole time about the coach wanting the scholarship back.

And that's another thing - why on earth would the coach want the scholarship back. It's not like he can use it in the middle of the year on someone else. Per the big game, he was obviously low on quality guards - only 4 in total...and that includes Henry.!! So why throw out the baby with the bath water? Have some onions, coach. Have one of your asst coaches make Henry his special case. You know, COACH HIM. Very few people coming from small rural rural areas.

If Im Henry, I quit, go home with Annette O'Toole, maybe play a year of Junior college and transfer those credits to a state college. That is the exact thing that Larry Bird did after he realized how wacky "Bobby Knight" was his first few weeks there. Bird would rater load feed in a feed store than play for a coach like Pat Riley - oops, I mean Pat Riley, oops again, I mean Bobby Knight

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During the Movie when Henry is not "Assimilating' to big time big school college basketball, Coach wants him to Renounce his scholarship. Coach wants to have it available to reward som other recruit. Henry wants the ability to continue to play, and go to school.
Coach yells at him that he can shove his wants 'up his ass with a red hot poker'
Coach then resorts to the brutality of leadership to try and run Henry off.

After Henry comes in and wins the 'big game' saving face (and possibly his job for the Coach, the Coach tells him al lthe pressure was to build him up and make him a better ball player, and wants him to stay.

Henry tells him to (using the coaches own words) shove it.

Two things this story misses -- many schools only award scholarships on a recurring one year basis. The school will genreally renew the scholarship each spring. Also the player who transfers after a year of scholarship aid will have to sit out (not play) for a the following season after the transfer.

So Henry saying 'I can play anywhere" is a bit of a misnomer. It will take a coach willing to wait for Henry to sit out a season.



The things you do mean something to people

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Not necessarily -- Henry could transfer to a Div. II college, where he could probably be a superstar, and play immediately.



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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

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Henry was only a freshman, so if he was really that good it wouldn't be too hard to find a team willing to wait a year for him to start playing again. This was the 70s, so I'm not sure if players could get an extra year of eligibility if they didn't play for a year.

This is a melodrama, so the characters and situations tend to be exaggerated to create conflict. I met a few students in college who could be arrogant or condescending, but none of them would have been as rude as his tutor and her boyfriend were to Henry. And its hard to imagine a coach giving up on a top recruit so totally and quickly as this coach did with Henry. I doubt it would be that unusual for a player from a small town to struggle at a big school like that as Henry was. But dramatically it wouldn't work as well if all this played out over 2 or 3 seasons instead of one.

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Yeah, that's like the time, back in the early 2000s, one of my former colleagues, who had taken an instant disliking to me, would constantly ridicule me in front of the manager and asst manager and complain about my job performance and that of my shift employees behind my back...was all for, he claimed, to make me a better supervisor. However he had no problems with mistakes committed by pretty, female supervisors.

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You've got to be kidding.






Perhaps the OP just wants to reach out for some sense of community.

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