Say what you want about Pat McAfee and The Pat McAfee Show, but the “progrum” is as entertaining as it gets.
Clearly Pat McAfee and his co-hosts/producers have tapped into a media format that works. What is that format you might be asking? Talk football, talk some more football, and get fans involved (then talk even more football).
Since Pat McAfee has joined onto ESPN’s College Gameday panel (some people are not so happy about that), he and his show have usually traveled to wherever the long-running college football goes to for the game of the week. As it turns out, putting The Pat McAfee Show on live from college campuses (this week at James Madison University) makes a lot of sense.
Instead of going to class, students have been showing up in droves every week to stand and watch Pat McAfee and his colleagues do their thing. Chants (sometimes riddled with profanity) break out in the background, fans cheer when McAfee goes scorched Earth on the ineptitude of the NCAA, and people in the crowd go crazy when Pat McAfee and company shoot hoops to give away money.
In today’s edition of the show, Pat McAfee and his co-hosts scanned the crowd to see who would be chosen to possibly win a prize of $5,000 (that’s a ton of money to a college student) if co-host AJ Hawk were able to shoot a basketball into a goal in the crowd. They looked around for a moment, and then ultimately chose someone that was holding a “RIP Dale #3” sign in honor of Dale Earnhardt.
“The Intimidator” sign was chosen, and shortly after it was, Pat instructed his crew and the rowdy crowd at James Madison University to honor the all-time great NASCAR driver with a moment of silence. As one does (and should) to pay their respects to Dale, the loud crowd quickly became silent to give Earnhardt a moment.
After about 10 seconds of silence, Pat got the crowd back into it by saying “thank you Dale,” and the stage was set for the $5,000 shot. Before the former Green Bay Packer AJ Hawk pulled the trigger, Pat yelled:
“This one’s for 3. AJ Hawk, $5000 dollars.”
And the moment could not have been any more perfect, because the ball swished right through the net, and the quad at JMU went absolutely bananas. There’s no doubt that Dale Earnhardt was watching over, and possibly even guided that basketball into the basket following his moment of silence.
Shortly after, one of the show’s co-hosts can be heard screaming:
“Praise Dale, raise hell!”
The spirit of Dale Earnhardt lives on. You can take a look at the electric moment in the video below:
