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No matter how “SEC” you are, if you follow college football, it’s likely you’re aware of the dramatic end to Michigan State’s 27-23 win against Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan team on Saturday.
In one of the most improbable wins in a big-time college football game ever, Jalen Watts-Jackson snagged a bobbled snap by Michigan’s punter, then sprinted 38 yards for the game-winning touchdown as time expired.
But Watts-Jackson dislocated his hip during a wild celebration, leading to him frantically pushing away dog-piling teammates and eventually heading to the hospital, where he endured surgery Sunday morning.
Incredible. Absolutely incredible! Brought to you by @GrubHub. http://t.co/Tp1sXNvPm8
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) October 17, 2015
Watts-Jackson’s injury — again, suffered while his team celebrated a huge win — got us thinking about the most famous infamous celebratory injuries in football history. Because, not to glorify injury, but Bill Gramatica and Gus Frerotte made it pretty hard not to smile at their misfortune. Here are a few of our favorites.
THE ORIGINAL HEADBUTT
Zinedine Zidane since has replaced Frerotte as the most famous head-butter in sports history, slamming his forehead into the upper chest of an Italian player during the 2006 World Cup final.
But this one remains popular. If you think football players who grab teammates and slam helmet-clad heads are dumb, what must you think of Frerotte?
After scoring a crucial touchdown, Frerotte gave a passionate fist-pump, and then head-butted a wall. Sure, it was a big game — the Washington Redskins needed the touchdown to tie the New York Giants — but the wall’s thin padding did little to prevent the concrete that Frerotte slammed his head against from injuring him.
IT’S JUST A FIELD GOAL
Wild celebrations for common plays have become pervasive in major college football.
Cornerbacks waive their arms to signal incomplete and shake their heads emphatically even when the receiver beat them but dropped the pass. Linebackers pound their chests and prance after stopping a running back 3 yards past the line of scrimmage — while trailing by two touchdowns.
Former Arizona Cardinals kicker Bill Gramatica turned that sort of celebration into an art form in 2001. Early in a game against the New York Giants, Gramatica made a routine field goal to give his team a 3-0 lead. Then he jumped wildly into the air, pumping his arms.
His season ended upon the landing, as he tore his ACL. Perhaps this is a history lesson that needs to be remembered by today’s players.
SACK CELEBRATIONS
Edmund Burke would be so disappointed. (“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”) Thirteen years after Gramatica’s torn ACL, two players met similar fates while executing boisterous, hip-shaking, bouncing sack celebrations.
Both of these took place in 2014. First, there’s Detroit’s Stephen Tulloch:
https://vine.co/v/O7K9hI2VqUV
And then Lamarr Houston of the Chicago Bears:
https://vine.co/v/Ohlwnet2rxJ
DON’T TACKLE TEAMMATES
After hearing talk of SEC speed for days leading up to the BCS Championship showdown with Florida, Ohio State’s Ted Ginn Jr. outraced the entire Gators kickoff coverage team and housed the opening kick.
Then his teammates — with predictable Big Ten speed — eventually caught him, thinking it fitting to tackle their dynamic star. Somewhere between Ginn Jr.’s touchdown and the time more than 1,000 pounds of large humans unstacked themselves from him, the returner/receiver had suffered an injury that forced him to miss the rest of the game.
Florida eventually won, 41-14. The lesson, though? Don’t chase after and tackle unsuspecting teammates after they score.
SAVE THE VERT FOR THE COMBINE
SEC players aren’t immune here. Georgia receiver Malcolm Mitchell tore up his knee earlier in his college career.
Not by planting funny on a sharp cut or getting his leg rolled by a lineman. No, Mitchell suffered the injury during a three-way acrobatic chest bump.
As you can see in the video, Mitchell was rotating his body, risking entanglement with the other players and launching to heights that he sometimes doesn’t even reach trying to high-point footballs as a receiver.
Some advice to athletic skill players with hops like Mitchell’s: save the non-game vertical leap for the NFL Combine.
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
