Josh Paschal (SEC Twitter Photo)
One of the interesting things that you get from SEC Media Days is the interaction with coaches and key players from each school. Typically, along with the head coach, schools will select an offensive and defensive player to accompany the coach and spend time with the media. It’s a great experience for the players and fans usually end up with some great stories about life outside of football.
During the week Kirby Smart told a story about being unrecognizable in Augusta while attending his kid’s baseball games (Vaughtsviews has a separate article about that on the site). Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin was asked about gaining weight and he blamed it on all the great food in Mississippi (former Mississippi State Coach Joe Moorhead alluded to the same problem when he took over the Bulldogs a couple of years ago; he also blamed the great food).
But one of the better non-football stories was from the UK contingent.
Josh Paschal, Kentucky’s versatile defensive end/outside linebacker, had a good one about the time he appeared on the “Today Show” along with Jennifer Lopez. Yes, that Jennifer Lopez. I’ll let him tell it.
“I’ll set the scene for everybody, all right?” Paschal said. “I was outside the dressing room because all the famous people and the actual commentators are right there. So J-Lo keeps coming in and out. So my mom, she keeps fan-girling and everything. She loves J-Lo.”
“And I’m like, all right, it’s not that big of a deal, but in my mind, I’m thinking ‘It’s J-Lo, it’s J-Lo, it’s J-Lo.’ I keep seeing her. So she’s changing (clothes) because she’s performing that day. She’s changing, and she’s coming back, and she’s walking up the stairs, and I just look up.”
“I was looking at the stairs, and I look up, and we make complete eye contact. And she winked at me. I hope that wink was real because I’ve been telling this story ever since it happened. When I tell you I melted, I melted.”
So what is the takeaway from this story other than an entertaining look into a very talented SEC Football player’s life? Maybe this: no matter how well they play football, no matter how big and strong they are and no matter what type of bravado they put out, they’re all still just middle school boys when it comes to meeting famous, attractive women.
Sounds like every other man I know.
— Keith Peel, Contributing Writer
