New Coach, New Uniforms, New April Fool’s Pranks at UW

Many athletes take a great sense of pride in pulling their uniform over their head before taking the field or court, and with the recent trend of college football jerseys getting more and more outlandish, football coach Chris Petersen, of the University of Washington, took advantage of that to pull a prank on his players.

Under the guise of bringing in awesome new jerseys for the upcoming season, Petersen told his players “They’re not going to release these for two weeks…But I always want you guys to see them first.”

With a bit of bravado, two models were brought into the meeting room in big coats. After pulling them off to reveal the uniforms, instead of excitement for a custom new look, all they received were laughs and grunts of confusion from the players.

In just his first season with the team, Petersen — who hasn’t even coached a game with the Huskies — has shown he has a sense of humor and can relate to the players a bit.

“It’s nice to see him building this kind of rapport with his new team,” wrote Fansided.com.

Most players were relatively respectful and quiet, despite the ugliness of the uniforms. And Petersen talked about living in the moment being a key to success.

“So what is now?” he posited. “It’s APRIL FOOLS!”

“That’s terrible!” and “Thank God!” were the most vocal responses amid laughter and cheers.

There are a dozen or so videos out there of college kids jumping around in excitement when they get new uniforms, and this isn’t the first example of the prank being done. Even if you don’t care about UW football, it might make you think about what would happen if your employer (not to say college athletes are employees) pulled the same prank.

In the average workplace, employees might not care nearly as much as the athletes, but little pranks are always funny and could be good for morale.

It’s hard to imagine that a video of a group of employees getting either super excited about new uniforms or getting pranked in that way will make it to YouTube any time soon, but it might be funny to think of your boss in the same situation.