CHARLOTTE — Asked about the mayonnaise bath that awaited the winning coach following Thursday’s Duke’s Mayo Bowl, North Carolina coach Mack Brown said that he’d “let someone hit me in the face with a frying pan” if it meant his team came out on top.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to worry. His Tar Heels were beaten 38-21 by South Carolina at Bank of America Stadium.
That left the “honor” of getting five gallons of watery mayo dumped over his head to the Gamecocks’ Shane Beamer. And while Beamer didn’t get hit in the face with a frying pan, as Brown suggested, he did have to endure a little pain when the attendants doing the pouring accidently hit him in the head with the cooler.
“I got hammered in the back of the head by the cooler before they dumped it on me, so I may have a concussion from that. And on top of that I got mayoed,” Beamer joked after getting cleaned up from the celebration. “I’m so glad I got to experience it because we won, but it was even more awful than I thought it would be, to be honest with you.”
Duke’s offered up $10,000 to the charity of the coach’s choice if the winning team’s leader agreed to substitute the traditional Gatorade shower with one featuring the game sponsor’s product.
Both coaches agreed to do it.
The stunt generated even more publicity than bowl organizers could have imagined thanks to social media and a television broadcast on ESPN that featured analyst Mike Golic Jr. dipping different foods — including Oreo cookies — into mayonnaise and eating them.
The festivities didn’t take place on the sideline as time expired, as they normally do. The host Carolina Panthers likely didn’t want to have to clean up the mess on their artificial playing surface to let that happen.
So Beamer and his players made their way into the tunnel just off the field after their trophy ceremony, where the first-year Gamecocks coach sat in a chair and waited for the splashdown.
He made a smart move by leaving his hat on. As for the rest of his clothes … let’s just say it will be awhile before he wears them again. If he ever does.
“I’ve got mayo in my pockets,” he said. “I think it’s going to be on me for months.”
The stunt got a lot of laughs, especially since Beamer was such a good sport about it.
South Carolina linebacker Jordan Strachan, who had three tackles and 1.5 of the Gamecocks’ four sacks of UNC quarterback Sam Howell, was just glad it was his coach — not him — that had to take one for the team.
“I’m not a big fan of mayonnaise, so I thought it was gross,” Strachan said. “But hey, we won. I’m happy he did get it thrown on him because we did win. But the mayonnaise was kind of nasty.”
At least one member of the South Carolina contingent, Beamer’s 8-year-old son Hunter, got a kick out of the celebration.
“It was awesome,” he said.
