Cori
Rhetorical Analysis Paper
WHO AM I?!
“Who am I?! I am a champion!” This is the speech that a coach gave to his
football team, in their locker room, right before a big football game. Although this speech
is not famous and many people probably haven’t heard it, there are many forms of ethos,
pathos, and logos in this speech. Through the coach’s delivery of the speech, the
inspiration of the speech, and the metaphors used throughout the speech, ethos, pathos,
and logos are all present.
The coach, Coach Flowers, uses his voice, body language, and background music,
all characteristics of ethos, to get his message across to his team. Flowers gives this
speech right before going out onto the field to play a big football game. He wants to
motivate his team in anyway that he can, with music, body language, and tone. Flowers
wants to power-up his team and uses this speech do it. He starts off his speech by saying:
“Today gentleman, I am honored to coach you, and I am more honored to take you onto
the field of battle. There is another honor to be bestowed upon you. That is the answer
that comes with that question. WHO AM I?!” His team then responds by screaming “I am
a CHAMPION!” By starting it off his speech this way, he already grabs the teams’
attention and has them intently listening. They already feel his emotion and motivation
even though Flowers has only said three lines so far.
After each verse he recites, he ends with the question “WHO AM I?!” and his
team responds in unison “I am a CHAMPION!” Each verse after that his voice gets
louder and louder and his body language becomes more intense and the teams’ response
gets louder and louder and more intense. With each new verse, Flowers and the entire
team, become more pumped up to play and more motivated to win.
Along with the voice of the coach, the background music also adds to the speech.
The music that is playing is from "The Last of the Mohicans." The music has a very
“pump up” vibe to it and as the song goes on it gets more powerful and you really feel the
motivation and inspiration in it. Without the music, the speech still would be powerful
and inspirational, but it wouldn’t have the extra push in it to make it so much more so
impactful on the players. Music can change the whole dynamic of a speech by making it
more or less powerful and this music especially helped to bring that additional power to
the speech. Flowers incorporates the technique of ethos to grasp the attention of the team
and motivate them forward.
Not only does his intense emotion motivate the team, but the words and language also
assist in the motivation, which is the pathos in this speech. When even just reading the
speech, not necessarily hearing it, the language is so vivid and so full of emotion that you
yourself become motivated. “No one will deny me… No one will defy me… And no one
will tell me who and what I am and can be. Belief will change my world.” After reading
that, how could one not be motivated to conquer whatever challenges come one’s way.
Flowers really gets to his teams’ emotions and hearts by using such vivid language of
how to win and fight and battle on the field:
“Defeat, Retreat, those are not in my words. I do not understand those
definitions. I do not understand when things go wrong. I do not understand
mistakes, but I do understand this. I understand victory and I understand
never surrendering”
One feels how badly the coach wants this win by all the inspiration he brings to this
speech. He wants the team to think about only today and that there is no tomorrow until
you conquer today “Today will be my day, not tomorrow, not next week, but right now,
right here, in your house and in your home.” The coach really knows how to get into the
boys minds and hearts and pull out their strengths in order to win. One can feel the
emotion just from the language in the speech and how descriptive it gets.
Throughout this entire speech, metaphors of war are incorporated in order for the
team to really feel the emotion of going into this game and it being like a war battle:
“I will gladly, go out into the field of battle and I will move, groove and
do everything that I can do and I will reach my field of battle by any
means at my disposal and when I get there I will arrive violently. I will rip
the heart from my enemy and leave it bleeding on the ground, because he
cannot stop me.”
If one were to read this speech and not know it was for a football game, one might think
it was about going to war. These metaphors are the logos part of the speech. The team,
especially because they are boys, easily relate to a war type battle. There are metaphors
about enemies, quoted above, but also about his team:
“To my side I have comrades. Comrades that have been with me through
thick and thin. Through sacrifice, through blood, through sweat, through
tears. Never will I let them fall. Never will I let them down!”
He wants the boys to understand that it is not just about them, but also about the entire
team and that they are all there for each other. Therefore, he uses metaphors of comrades
in war in order to get his message across. Not only does he use metaphors and
comparisons to war, but he also includes comparisons to big events in history, “It has
moved continents, and countries and put man on the moon and it will carry me through
this battle.” These metaphors really make this speech. When playing a sport, one has to
think of it as a battle, so for this coach to use these metaphors and comparisons it only
makes the boys want to win that much more. They want to defeat their enemy.
With the music, tone, language, and comparisons, this speech incorporates all the
techniques of ethos, pathos, and logos. From the inspiration of the words, to the feeling in
the coach’s voice and body language, someone who is not even on the team feels the
emotions in the coach’s heart and in the teams’ hearts. This speech has all the elements
one would want in an inspirational and motivational speech.
Works Cited
Flowers, Coach. ""I Am a Champion" - Chilling Motivational Speech." The Success
Soup. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.
<http://thesuccesssoup.com/motivation/motivational-speech-i-am-achampion/>.