The hidden ball trick, the hot foot, the fake trade deals. Sports have been full of pranksters for many years. With all the money professional athletes earn from their multi-million dollar contracts, why shouldn’t they enjoy themselves.
The media gets in on the fun every year too, by passing around rumors and publishing fake stories. Instead of surprising everyone with a fake article about Braves point guard Darrell Brown transferring to Memphis, I rounded up some of the best sports pranks from our time, varying from player-on-player, coach-on-player, fan-on-player and fan-on-fan pranking.
Baseball movies have featured plenty of pranks, such as the water balloon dropping in ‘Little Big League,’ but big screen pranks have transferred over to the field. Angels pitcher Jerad Weaver once arranged for young phenom Mike Trout’s phone number to be plastered on the video board throughout a game for everyone to call. Braves pitcher Tim Hudson once defecated into teammate Adam LaRoche’s glove after LaRoche cut the crotch out of every teammates’ pants; challenging them to “play with their balls out.”
In January, Milwaukee Bucks rookie Sterling Brown was pranked by teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo, when he walked out to his car after practice, only to find it filled to the roof with popcorn. This was the third NBA-popcorn-car documented in the past 10 years.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is known as a gridiron gag-puller. His style of prank is filling trash cans full of water and waiting for an unsuspecting teammate to open the door, only to knock over the trash can and flood their room.
Coaches aren’t just stern-faced professionals all the time either. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll once had one of his players get “fake” arrested during a team meeting. Spurs coach Greg Popovich once punk’d Shaquille O’Neal with an intentional foul on the first play of the game, after employing the Hack-a-Shaq method throughout the playoffs a season earlier. University of Washington football coach Chris Peterson even invested money into pranking his team with ugly fake jerseys for the upcoming season.
It rare to see players and fans playing pranks on each other. Real creativity isn’t just cardboard signs or heckling. It’s antics like Arizona State’s curtain of distraction at the free-throw line that get people talking. An advertising campaign by Lyft once featured athletes like Kris Bryant, Rob Gronkowski and Danica Patrick driving unassuming patrons around town in disguises.
Some pranks seem jovial, but others have their own set of repercussions. We all remember the horrific catfishing of Notre Dame Heisman Trophy Finalist Manti Te’o, as well as Kevin Durant’s famous “burner” Twitter account, that were so funny.
Fan-on-fan pranking has been common, from straight up vandalism to UCLA jerseys hanging on USC statues.
The most notable prank came after Alabama’s loss to Auburn in 2010, when a man, who called himself Al from Dadeville, called into Paul Finebaum’s radio show to tell him he poured a poisonous herbicide on the trees at Auburn’s Toomer’s Corner.
Harvey Updyke’s true identity was uncovered, and he received six months in jail, but that didn’t stop the poisoning and eventual removal of two sacred trees.
No matter the sport, no matter the team, sports are a prank-plagued industry. Whether you plan to dye your roommate’s shampoo blue, or drop water balloons out your Geisert window, just remember that revenge is as inevitable as the Patriots making the playoffs.
What top sports prank did we miss? We’d love to hear your responses. Tweet your responses @ScoutSportsDesk.
You can’t have an article on pranksters without listing Walter Payton, who was the master of pranks, even in his last week of life. Calling player’s wives with his high voice, de-pantsing, fire-alarms at 3am. Just google it.