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| Dear Yahoo!: |
| How did the tradition of dumping Gatorade on football coaches begin? |
Jason
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
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| Dear Jason: |
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Take one unsuspecting coach on the verge of victory. Add a bench full of giddy players looking to get a head start on the post-game celebration. Throw in easy access to a bucket of ice cold Gatorade and voila! -- you've got yourself a classic prank that's become standard operating procedure. So how did these impromptu (and involuntary) showers get their start? If high school gym class taught us one thing, it's that these sorts of pranks are usually inflicted on 98-pound weaklings who can't fight back. So imagine our surprise to learn the first victim was none other than Bill Parcells -- arguably one of the NFL's most
intimidating coaches. The merry pranksters behind the act were Jim Burt and Harry Carson, two hefty defensemen for the New York Giants back in the mid '80s. According to this site, Burt was getting a bit of revenge for having to put up with Parcells' harping during the previous week's practices. Little did Burt know that players from pee wee to the pros would follow his lead in the coming years -- and little did Gatorade know the cruel and unusual act would spark a tradition that would come to be known simply as "The Dunk."
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