A quick primer on pep talks

FYI, a sister publication of Forbes magazine, had an inspiring article on "Pep Speeches -- You Can Do It" by Christopher Buckley. Here are some excerpts:

When Aeschines spoke, the people said, "How well he speaks." But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, "Let us march!"

-- Anonymous

"Over? Did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"

-- Bluto Blutarsky in "Animal House"

History doesn't record who gave the first pep talk or what the occasion was, but at some point, a long, long time ago when the chips were down and things were looking bleak, someone, probably wearing fur, stood atop a boulder in some Neolithic locker room and said, "We had a rough first half out there. We weren't counting on the volcano erupting and the velociraptors. But are we going to let a bunch of woolly mammoths walk all over us and eat our lunch? Or are we going to show them what Neanderthal Man is made of?"

To which the reply was, surely,

"Huah!

"Huah!"

Give me a lever, said Archimedes, and I'll move the world. A few well-chosen words can do the same.

George W. Bush stood on the rubble at Ground Zero and told the rescue workers through a bullhorn, "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."

Nothing stirs the blood like the prospect of spilling the enemy's.

Ronald Reagan went on TV hours after the space shuttle Challenger Roman-candled over Florida and said, "The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them."

His most memorable movie role was playing George Gipp -- "the Gipper" -- who inspired the 1928 Notre Dame team to go back out there and beat Army.

Pep talks are formally delivered in locker rooms at half-time, on the threshold of battlefields, from marble podiums after Japanese bombers have ruined an otherwise lovely Sunday morning in Hawaii.

They can take the form of asserting a negative. "Failure is not an option!" Apollo 13's Mission Control flight director Gene Kranz famously barked to his brigade of crew-cut, white shirt engineers.

In the movie "Glengarry Glen Ross." the tyrannical sales manager incentivizes his Willy Lomans by telling them, "As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired."

Biblical texts can have a somber fatalistic air:

"Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die" (Isaiah 22:13). A promissory aspect: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:10). Reassurance: "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27). Hope, amidst excruciation: "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).

But the great ones tend to be delivered formally, script in hand.

They also tend to become the signature utterances of whoever said them. History favors the up-lifter over the doomsayer.

Germany, ancient and modern, has been the setting for memorable pep talks. The most stirring of my youth was given in Berlin by John F. Kennedy on June 26, 1963. It was remarkable at even a technical level: One key line was in Latin. The punch line was in German.

"Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is Ich bin ein Berliner." The words were spelled out phonetically in Kennedy's speech text as "ISH BEEN OIN BEARLEE-NER."

Berliners needed some cheering up. They'd been through rather a lot, what with World War I, Weimar, World War II. Two years prior to Kennedy's visit, the East Germans had built a wall through the city. Every night, they went to sleep to the sound of guards shooting escapees and Russian tanks on the other side revving their engines. ...

When he got back aboard Air Force One, the adrenaline was still pumping. He said to his speech writer Ted Sorensen, "We'll never have another day like this one, as long as we live." That turned out to be prophetically correct.

The speech marked the high point of transatlantic relations. These days, German politicians tend to run against the United States -- and win. But in 1987, Ronald Reagan gave West Berliners a pep talk that turned out to be the first death-knell of soviet Communism. "Mr. Gorbachev," he said, looking uncharacteristically grave, "tear ... down ... this ... wall!"

Vince Lombardi, legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, inspired by evincing contempt for anything but victory. "There is a second-place bowl game," he said, "but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win."

On the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 42-year-old commander of the First Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment gave a remarkable talk to his men. It's worth quoting:

"The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. ...

"We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. ... Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there. ...

"You will see things that no man could pay to see. ..."

-- Lt. Colonel Tim Collins

Gary Rust is the chairman of Rust Communications.