Happy Thanksgiving everyone! As many of you may know, coffee and Thanksgiving were inextricably linked from the very beginning. Since the time of Squanto, when the Pequot and Wampanoag tribes made pour overs for the Pilgrim settlers, delicious cups of coffee have been part of the Thanksgiving experience throughout American history.
What you might not know is, America’s other favorite Turkey Day tradition – football – has a long caffeinated history of its own. In honor of three of our very favorite things, here’s an annotated look at great coffee moments in NFL history, just in time for Thanksgiving.
Fielding H. Yost, of the Ohio Normal School, tackles Walter Chauncey Camp of Yale in an 1889 clash between the Klondikes and the Bulldogs. In the background: unidentified referee with Hario Buono, ready to whistle the first-ever 5 yard overextraction infraction.
1973: Washington Redskins OLB Reggie “Crackpot” Vacpot leads the league in sacks, hurries, and forced bubble-ups. Much like his namesake brew method, few players could properly handle Vacpot’s complexity and volatility.
Chug-a-lug! These Northwestern University gentlemen, offensive linemen all, credit their Brobdingnagian girth to a 7-breve-latte-a-day diet plan. Bottoms up, boys!
Usually aided by questionable refereeing and lax courtroom sentencing statutes, here the Pittsburgh Steelers get one over on Chargers’ offensive lineman Nick Hardwick by dint of his love for coffee. Hardwick’s passion for a gentle, sweet cup of Chemex is certainly understandable, if a bit untimely.
The city of Seattle is the most unfortunate, woebegone, sorrowful city in all of professional sports. Here is Jim Zorn in 1983, enjoying an Eva Solo shortly before being benched in favor of Dave Krieg. Krieg would go on to lead the Seahawks to their first-ever playoff appearance, winning two of the greatest games in Seahawks history: a wild card debacle triumph over the hated Denver Broncos in the Kingdome, and a whodathunkit upset of Dan Marino’s Miami Dolphins on the road, before losing to the LA Raiders in the AFC title game. Jim Zorn is now a quarterbacks coach for the Washington Redskins; Dave Krieg is working as a part-time barista in the Phoenix area. No existing Seattle team has ever won a professional championship.
