One of the stranger topics of discussion in sports revolves around players (and sometimes even commentators) relieving themselves during games. The latest perhaps-too-open admission there came from ESPN/ABC college football analyst Booger McFarland during an ABC halftime show for the Cure Bowl in Orlando Saturday.
That game, between the Miami RedHawks and Appalachian State Mountaineers (the Mountaineers won 13-9), was besieged by heavy rain. And that saw the halftime panel of McFarland, Kevin Negandhi, and Dan Mullen discussing the challenges of a halftime in the rain. And then McFarland found (starting around 0:39) an odd way to look on the bright side of life:
“Now, there is one upside to this. As a defensive lineman, when you’re soaking wet and it’s raining, and you’ve got to go to the bathroom…you have to find some good in it! Normally you have to go back in the locker room, but since everything is wet, you just let it flow!”
The laughter that produced from Negandhi and Mullen was quite something. And this isn’t the first time McFarland’s made comments about unusual behavior during cold games, with him famously discussing last year how he’d sometimes do whiskey shots during cold games during his NFL career.
But McFarland is from alone in going to the bathroom during a sports game. That’s been caught on broadcasts at times, including in the NFL in 2011 (Nick Novak) and in an English national soccer team training session (Jack Wilshire) in 2013. And even famed announcer Joe Buck has spoken about urinating in a garbage can during a call in 1994. So McFarland isn’t an anomaly. But this is still an unusual level of candor, and an unusual halftime show topic.
[Awful Announcing on Twitter]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.
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