Luke Beveridge adapts Dr Seuss poem ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go’ at Western Bulldogs season launch

THERE was no cat in a hat at last night’s Western Bulldogs season launch, but a Dog in a suit channelled his inner poet ahead of the team’s premiership defence.

You can’t question the motivational tactics of premiership coach Luke Beveridge.

THERE was no cat in a hat at last night’s Western Bulldogs season launch, but a Dog in a suit channelled his inner poet ahead of the team’s premiership defence.

Coach Luke Beveridge — known to draw the occasional left-of-centre parallel to football, famously using an analogy from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during last year’s season — last night donned his Dr Seuss hat, reciting verses of the famed ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go’ to describe the lead-in to the season.

And the room was enthralled.

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“Our great friend and surgeon — I don’t know if he’s in the room tonight — Dr David Young alerted me to the fact that in 1990, the wise and wonderful Theodore Geisel, nickname Dr Seuss, wrote a book about the Bulldogs called ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go’,” Beveridge said, completely straight-faced.

“Like the great Nostradamus, Dr Seuss’ foresight was supernatural and uncanny.

“He wrote some paragraphs that not only applied at the end of 2014, but projected in a perpetual way to once again describe our circumstances:

“You will come to a place where the streets are not marks, some windows are lighted but mostly they’re darked.

“A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!

“Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?

“How much can you lose? How much can you win?

“And IF you go in, if you could turn left or right, or right and three-quarters? Or maybe not quite?

“Or go around the back and sneak in from behind?

“Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,

for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

“So I said to the players at the end of 2016, when we start our current campaign — everything’s changed, but nothing changes.

“We draw on our strength from within, and we will mark the streets, we will light the windows, we will dare to go in, risk losing to win. We won’t take shortcuts — and do it all with a grin.

“We can’t make any promises, we know we can improve. Who knows, it may be more difficult.

“But, the places we can go, there is fun to be done. There are points to be scored, there are games to be won. And the magical things we can do with that ball, can once again make us the winningest winner of all.”

You can’t question the motivational tactics of premiership coach Luke Beveridge.

Was Dr Seuss thinking of the Bulldogs when he wrote this book?