Photo from Google Images
My favorite part of ESPN’s College GameDay are the signs in the background. My all time favorites are “Tebow Bunts”, “Gus Malzahn gets his turtlenecks from Lane Bryant” and “Did someone say white out?” (Penn State trolling Dolphins OL Coach for his extracurricular activities during their stadium white-out game.) Students with an unfiltered sense of humor are signs that there is hope for this world after all.
On September 14th, College GameDay was at Iowa State. Cyclones fan, Carson King, held up a sign saying “Bush Light Supply Needs Replenished ~Venmo ~ Carson-King-25”. He took his shot with a poster board and a sharpie to see if anyone would actually send him beer money. Once his Venmo reached over $300 dollars in money sent in, King decided to donate all the money he was sent (minus the cost of a case of beer) to the University of Iowa’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital. Venmo and Anheuser-Busch both pledged to match donations through September. (AB also said they would send King a year supply of beer and made a beer can with his name and photo.) With the donation match, Carson reached a million dollars by Monday and donations are still coming in.
The Iowa Wave is one of the best new traditions in college football. Since 2017, after the first quarter, Iowa fans, players, officials, coaches, and the visiting team’s fans and players all turn away from the field and wave to the children watching from the windows of the University of Iowa’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital. The hospital was built to perfectly view Kinnick Stadium. The hospitals “Press Box” is where patients and their families can forget about being sick for few hours and just watch the Hawkeyes play. The children put signs and posters in their windows to show they are rooting for the Hawkeyes, but when all of Kinnick Stadium is waving to the children, it shows the children that there is an entire stadium rooting for them.
Iowa Governor, Kim Reynolds (R) declared September 28th 2019 as Carson King Day. Thanks to Hawkeye fans John McCormally and Travis Lowe who gave their tickets to King so he could lead the Iowa Wave this Saturday, on his day!
Everything about this story is great. Bleeeeping amazing to see how many people across the country have donated their money to support sick children and it all started out as just needing some beer money. And then, the world of extreme journalism (that has become a witch-hunt of biased, one-sided, fake news and selfish politics that has corrupted the good in humans) can’t handle a great American story and digs deep. Really deep.
Aaron Calvin, a reporter for the Des Moines Register scrolled through eight, EIGHT years of Kings twitter history to find two tweets that King wasn’t proud of. King admitted to Calvin that he had tweeted them before the story was published. King had a press conference to acknowledge his past mistakes. “I am so embarrassed and stunned to reflect on what I thought was funny when I was 16 years old. I want to sincerely apologize,” King said. “Thankfully, high school kids grow up and hopefully become responsible and caring adults.”
Anheuser-Busch quickly pulled all ties to King. They said they will still honor their donation match, but will no longer offer King a year supply of beer or move forward with his personalized beer can because of two tweets from when he was a kid in high school. Shitty, just like their beer. I’m just glad social media was not around when I was in high school or college. AB could have sold the “King” can as another way to raise money for the children’s hospital, but nope, they are too woke in this cancel culture media world.
But two can play this stupid game of let me judge you for mistakes you made as a kid. As the community was outraged a reporter would stoop so low during a great story, King supporters did some scrolling on Calvin and found multiple offensive tweets by him. The Des Moines Register is now investigating their own reporter and we doubt anyone will be sending Calvin any beer money.
Thank goodness for Governor Reynolds who tweeted: “You can make a mistake in your life, and still go on to do amazing things. @CarsonKing2, thank you for reminding us all of that! #IowaProud”
