The Arizona court system should throw JacenLankow in jail.
Maybe not for the 18 months currently on the table for Lankow's class six felony charges of criminal impersonation of a referee at last Thursday's Arizona−UCLA football game, but at least for a while.
Lankowsnuck onto the field with four seconds left in the first half of last week's game dressed like a referee, tried to take the ball from the actual referee and failed, then stripped down to a red Speedo and ran around the field for 12 seconds before getting tackled by police. Then a fight broke out between the two teams, and the ESPN announcers chastised everyone while the higher−ups drooled about the ratings the clip would get when played on a loop later that night on SportsCenter.
It's not that I don't support people stripping in public. I enjoy a banana hammock as much as anyone. And I appreciate this University of Arizona senior giving writers like me ample material that we know will capture the attention of a wider spectrum of readers than, say, this lackluster World Series.
But Lankow is having so much fun this week that if he doesn't go to jail, there is going to be a rash of similar "streaking" incidents. I'm convinced of it.
Just look at what Lankow tweeted yesterday morning (or late−night Pacific Time) from his account @whoisjacen, which has jumped from 30 followers to over 800 in a week: "Ice cream, joos ball, family guy, yess."
Ice cream? Joos ball? He's due in court next month, he might get expelled in his final semester at college and he's sitting there on the couch eating a pint of Chunky Monkey and playing what I assume is volleyball with empty boxes of berry blue Juicy Juice.
That sounds tremendous.
Lankow's been making the interview rounds this week, from KVOA−TV in Tucson to Inside Edition, where hard−hitting journalist Paul Boyd asked him: "What were you thinking?"
What Lankow has echoed in every interview he's done so far is that what he was thinking is that this was his "last hoorah," a way to "go out with a bang," that he'd regret it for the rest of his life had he not taken the risk and shown some skin on national TV.
The only thing he would have done differently was gotten hold of the ball and "scored a touchdown," Lankow told KVOA−TV. Oh, and do the Jared Allen unwrapping−of−a−birthday−present touchdown dance.
Lankow told the folks at ZonaHomePage.com — an incredible site, by the way, if you're interested in cute blond chicks and take−out — that he was also thinking that "getting media coverage was not my intention" and that "I didn't anticipate this kind of attention."
Oh come on, Jacen. You have to be a little dumb to pull a stunt like this, but I know you're not dumb enough to believe this media circus wouldn't ensue if your plan worked. So much has changed since an anonymous Englishman ran in 1799 from Cornhill to Cheapside for a bet of ten guineas — the first recorded account of streaking.
Today, even with TV's honorable decision to never show a streaker on camera, footage gets around because of camera phones and YouTube. And then the story gets circulated because nearly every news outlet cannot resist a headline with the word "streaker" or "nudity" in it.
Lankow must have known that this would make him famous at least for a week. And hey, I'm a fan of a little nudity in my sports and a little sport in my nudity, except I have one question: Does it even count as streaking if you don't get completely naked?
Sack up, Lankow. It's time for Round Two.
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Ben Kochman is a junior majoring in
English. He can be reached at bkoch.tufts@
gmail.com or on Twitter @benkochman.
