You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Lee Corso saying “F*** It” on live TV.
He could have said “Oh Fudge” or “The heck with it.” Instead he dropped the F bomb heard around the world wide web.
It all starts on ESPN Gameday, college football’s Bloody Mary of Saturday morning.
It’s 2 hours of endless banter about which college football team is number one and which teams win.
The stage is set in the middle of the quad or in front of the library or stadium. Students arrive in the wee hours of the morning to wave their signs and jump around trying to get on TV.
Like any good program, the show builds with anticipation to the end where long time coach, Lee Corso picks his winning team.
He does it with animated flamboyance by choosing the school’s mascot head and putting it on.
On Saturday, the Game Day Crew is in Houston where the undefeated Cougars play long time rivals SMU.
With Gold Medal Winner Carl Lewis on set, Corso is screaming through a megaphone about his pick. Then, suddenly, in a purely Corso moment, he throws the megaphone down and reaches for the big cougar head. While he does so he utters aloud,
“Oh F*** It!”
Kirk Herbstreit’s jaw drops and he pushes away from the anchor desk. Chris Fowler cannot believe his ears and lays his head down. Carl Lewis is clapping like he’s got a ring side table at an all male cabaret.
Facebook explodes with people asking one another “did Corso just drop the F bomb?”
Herbstreit opens the Cougar mascot’s mouth and looks in at an obviously embarrassed Corso as if to say “hey you senile old man, have you lost your ever loving mind?”
As the show fades to black, Fowler is heard saying that the cougar needs to wash his mouth out with soap.
It makes you wonder if Corso just signed his broadcast death warrant?
Corso would later come on and stoically apologize for the broadcast gaffe, saying he is sorry and it will never happen again.
Did he say “F It” on live TV. He sure did. Was it the end of the world? Hardly. It was in the middle of a pep rally, barely noticeable. It was extemporaneously uttered in a loud blender of chaos.
I dare say without the immediacy of the internet, it would be no more than a pimple on the back of a rhino. People would say “hey did you hear Corso drop the F bomb?” And you’d say, “He did, really?”
But with the power of a Facebook universe, there was no doubt.
Thanks to social media, you could be under anesthesia having your gall bladder removed, wake up, and still find out a full 24 hours later.
That’s the difference between an incident today and 5 years ago.
Today you are caught like a tuna in a viral long line fishing net. There is no escape, no deniability, nowhere to hide.
You can only do what Corso did; own up to the mistake and move on.
It wasn’t that big a deal, and actually was pretty cool. The mistake shows he’s human and he got caught up in the pageantry of the show.
Hopefully ESPN producers won’t get their panties in a bunch and take further disciplinary action.
“Hold on one second” ESPN.
And that is crazy.