Tailored wear imparting confidence / WED 11-9-16 / Playful response to zinger / Old French coin / Walk like tosspot

Constructor:John Lieb

Relative difficulty:Easy, I think, I don't know (3:28)


THEME: common verb phrases clued as if someone is talking to a pro sports"coach" and telling him to do something to his team—

Theme answers:

• COUNT THE STARS (20A: "Coach, make sure everyone's here" [N.H.L.])
• BRING THE HEAT (25A: "Coach, get 'em to today's game" [N.B.A.])
• COOL YOUR JETS (46A: "Coach, get thsoe guys a little ice water" [N.F.L.])
• CATCH SOME RAYS (53A: "Coach, nab a few of those curfew violators" [M.L.B.]) 

Word of the Day:ISLIP(5A: Long Island airport site) —

Islip (/ˈaɪslɪp/EYE-slip) is one of ten towns in Suffolk County, New York (USA). Located on the South Shore of Long Island, the town population was 335,543 at the 2010 census. Within the Town of Islip is a smaller, unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place also named Islip. [...] Long Island MacArthur Airport and the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, located in the Town of Islip, are both in the hamlet of Ronkonkoma. A smaller rural airport known as Bayport Aerodrome also exists within the town used for antique aircraft. (wikipedia)

You'll pardon me if I just don't have it in me to write much tonight. It's very late, and it feels like the world is falling apart, and badly. I need to get some sleep. Rejuvenate. Maybe you understand. The puzzle was about average for the NYT of late. Fine. I don't really get who's speaking in the clues. Someone is coaching the "Coach?" It's odd. But you get one team from each major U.S. sports league, so that's something, I guess. What does COUNT THE STARS mean? When I google it in quotation marks, I get a wikipedia page: "Count the Stars was a four-piece pop punk band from Albany, New York that formed in 1995." I know BRING THE PAIN and BRING THE NOISE better than BRING THE HEAT, but I guess that's a phrase. The other two seems fine. Cultural frame of reference, decidedly old (though "OH, SNAP" is currentish), fill is creaky (though perhaps slightly less so than that of M and T this week). UIES STET CEE HST is really, truly, inexcusably dire for such a small corner. I remain baffled by the lack of care / craft. ASTR? Come on. That should be last-ditch. But like I said, no energy for this fight tonight.

I hope to be back tomorrow at something close to full strength. Thanks.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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