TREND SETTER???

I’m sure that most of you are familiar with a particular celebration that’s become very popular amongst athletes in recent years. It starts with two very excited guys running at each other and jumping into the air. Then while in the air they spin around so that their backs collide before coming back down to Earth. Some people know this as the back clap while others call it the jump and bump. It’s a play off of the soaring chest bumps that became prevalent in the 90’s….with a slightly higher degree of difficulty.

Now that we’re on the same page I’d like to tell you the story behind the creation of this particular maneuver. It began back in 1999 on the heavenly campus of the University of Iowa. A junior defensive end named Anthony Herron was trying to keep things spirited at practice during the doldrums of what ended up being a 1-10 season in Kirk Ferentz’s first year as the program’s head coach. After a very thickly built defensive lineman made a nice play in practice I ran at him and jumped up to give him a big chest bump. He returned the favor but outweighed me by about 30 pounds so the end result was me on my backside.

The next day in a similar situation I decided that I could absorb the impact better if I turned my back to the big fella after jumping. This required more energy on my part (which is at a premium during a Kirk Ferentz practice) but it would set me up for a better landing off the collision. I only did this sparingly during the rest of my time at Iowa because with the amount of reps I played in most games didn’t leave me wanting to do a bunch of extra hopping around.

Let’s fast forward to 2004 during my first season playing AFL football. After being released by the Lions in ‘03 I gave Arena football a try and spent the majority of the ’04 season with the Indiana Firebirds. For the first time in years football had become fun for me again without the injuries and pressure that enveloped the first few years of my NFL career. With my newfound zest for the game I started doing the jump and bump with my teammates after touchdowns.

Some close friends of mine would make their way out to the Firebird games. One of them was Dallas Clark who was early in his career with the Colts at the time. He knew that I wasn’t much for celebrating in the past and was pleasantly surprised at my creativity. This turned into him taking it to practice with the Colts and then into games. Before long it spread around the NFL like wildfire and penalty flags were being thrown all over the place.

It’s invaded the entire sports landscape since then and now you’ll see guys bumping hips, thighs, and all kinds of other body parts if they’re too tired to spin all the way around. Those who have been with me in years past will shoot me the occasional message if they see McNabb or Lebron doing a back bump with their teammates. If it was possible to copyright a celebration I could’ve went the Pat Riley route and made a bunch of money. Instead, I suppose I’ll just enjoy my obscure role as a guy with a flash of genius that changed sports as we know it….or something like that.