Feels like this whole thing has kinda jumped the shark.
The College World Series is underway in Omaha, Nebraska, and one of the great traditions surrounding the event has always been the Rocco’s College World Series Jell-O shot challenge.
If you’re not familiar, the annual challenge is hosted by a restaurant called Rocco’s Pizza and Cantina for fans in town for the College World Series. Fans support their school by buying Jell-O shots, and a tally is kept to see which school’s fans can buy the most Jell-O shots throughout the course of the tournament. The shots are $5 each, and a portion of the money from each shot goes to both the Omaha community and back to the communities of the participating schools.
Sounds like a great thing, right?
Well over the past couple years, it’s turned into an arms race between donors of the schools to see who can make the biggest donation and win the challenge for their school, which is still great but obviously takes a little but of the organic fun out of it. I mean, isn’t it more fun when it’s just the average fan buying a round of shots for their friends and not billionaires dropping $300k on shots just to get their school to the top of the leaderboard?
But I digress.
The moment that really may prove to be the “jump the shark” moment for the challenge may end up being their treatment of ESPN host and WVU football legend Pat McAfee.
The Mountaineers are in Omaha for the College World Series, and of course McAfee had to stop in Rocco’s to support his team in the challenge – and he brought his checkbook ready to drop serious money on some Jell-O shots. But according to the College GameDay host, it sounds like the restaurant was less than hospitable.
McAfee discussed his experience on his show today, revealing that the manager of Rocco’s told him that his check would “probably bounce” – and clarified that it wasn’t a joke:
“We were supposed to call ahead to this guy, who is the general manager. He was not happy that we did not call ahead. … So then I started asking questions. I go, ‘How does this work? Like, do I write a check?’ I brought checks. I brought, I brought checks. I have checks with me. … like this is f—ing 1995.
I go, ‘So like, do I write checks?’ The guy goes, ‘Yours would bounce, I think.’ Just kept walking.
Wasn’t like a joking thing. This is the general manager of the place. The guy that was in the video of the entire thing.”
Yikes…not great customer service.
Well McAfee says that they finally got it figured out, and after he bought the shots he was brought boxes of pre-made Jell-O shots. But the whole experience has seemingly left him with a bad taste in his mouth – and he doesn’t plan to return:
“It was nowhere near what I thought it was going to be like. … I was very bummed out. This will be a one-and-done thing.”
The good news for McAfee, though, is that his donation has given WVU a commanding lead in the Jell-O shot challenge. As of the last tally, the Mountaineers have taken a nearly 6,000-shot lead over Ole Miss. And the bar also revealed that despite his bad experience, McAfee still left the largest tip they’ve ever received:
Wonder how the manager is feeling after how he treated him…
