Bizarre

Without outing, what's the strangest thing that you have personally seen an athlete (prep, collegiate, pro) do?

 

During the game?

 

For shits and giggles, either in a game or away from the field or arena or stadium. But remember, you had to have personally seen this. No second or third-handed entries allowed. AND NO OUTING!!!

 

I was at the Kevin Gross game in Philly ..

 

We had an annual rivalry football game with our neighboring school. Two years after I graduated, the other team came out for its first offensive series. The center snapped the ball, hit one guy, and kept on running. Down the field, through the end zone and into the cornfield behind the end zone.

It was determined that he was chemically enhanced for the game.

 

This happened after the event but said pro threw his arm around me in the middle of an interview and smiled really big for someone who was taking his picture. ???

 

I once saw Eric Lindros skate a shift with his head up.

 

I once saw a soccer game where players didn't act like they'd been shot when their opponents breathed on them.

 

I was doing a sidebar at a game Luis Tiant pitched. He was pissed he was being taken out, and instead of handing the ball to the manager, he dropped it to the mound. Then, as he walked toward the dugout, he took off his glove and threw it toward the stands, where it was caught by the netting that kept fans safe from popups. After the game, everyone wanted to talk to Tiant. He took a very long shower. Then he emerged with a large cigar in his mouth and a white towel wrapped around his waist. Reporters trailed him like a procession of silent ducklings following their mother. Tiant had not yet reached his locker when he turned to face us, removed the cigar from his mouth and said, "What, somebody fuckin' die?"

 

At the NCAA track & field meet in Indianapolis in 1986, when Kathy Ormsby of North Carolina State ran off the track during the 10,000, ran out the gate and jumped off the White River bridge. Totally bizarre, but she survived and is doing wonderful work now with other disabled people.

 

There was a girl in the area who was one of the top cross country runners in the state. She was being coached by her brother, who was an absolute ass to her and anyone he dealt with. He ran her in every event he could during the season, and every road race he could in the area during the spring and summer.

In her senior year, after she had pretty much gone undefeated during her career (I think she lost one or two races), she started falling out of meets with mysterious "injuries". At one meet I covered, I watched her purposely run just a few feet off the course and trip over a cone marking the course, then she fell, grabbing her ankle as if she was hurt. It was so obvious she did it on purpose, and her brother started screaming at her. One of the veteran coaches at the meet told me it was "the most pathetic thing I've ever seen."

She ran one more meet a couple of weeks later, finished in the middle of the pack, and never ran again.

 

Shit. I had never heard of that one.