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The Popcorn Incident
January 8, 2009 by Jason Thompson
Happy New Year to all!
I hope everybody has a New Year’s resolution for this year. I think mine is to get better and learn from this experience in the NBA so far. It’s been a great experience, maybe not the one I expected when I first got in here, but I think you have to go through some growing pains to be successful. And I have to remember, this is only the start of my journey.
We had a four-game road trip this past week that started off in Detroit. I played okay against them. I think the whole road trip we were really in the game, just at the end we didn’t finish. We obviously have to learn from this and just try to finish out games.
I have some family in the Detroit area and they came out to the game. I met with my Uncle Wes’ family. They just had a new baby. We had a great dinner. Just spending time with family is a great thing.
Then we went to Indianapolis and started off well. But it was just one of those games that got away from us in the end. It actually was my first time in Indy. It was a little chilly, but it’s not a bad city. Brad is a known-name there obviously with his success being an All-Star as a Pacer.
After the game, the Colts and the Chargers were playing so I went to Champs, which is one of the places I went on Draft day. I ate there and watched the game. The Colts actually lost, so the city was kind of on lockdown. A lot of people were mad! I was screaming out, ‘Go Eagles!’ and I’m sure they weren’t very appreciative of that!
The next morning I took an early flight home. The team left around 1 p.m. and I left at 8 o’clock in the morning. I took a commercial flight. And you know what happened… airline security took all my stuff out of my bag. It was crazy! Remember, they have all these new rules? You can only have a certain amount of ounces of liquid on the plane. Well, they took everything — my deodorant, toothpaste, body wash, lotion — everything. I was so mad!
But after all that happened at the airport, I was picked up in a limo in Philadelphia. Then Kings TV followed me around for a little Day in the Life of Jason Thompson. Then I was dropped off and went to my neighborhood barbershop, where I got a fresh haircut. I had a little segment over there where we talked. Then off we went to Rider, which was crazy when I got there. It was a doubleheader so the womens’ game was going on. I walked in and received a lot of applause. After that I had my jersey retired. It was a great feeling. They had the banner up in the rafters and unveiled my jersey. It was just crazy. I felt this crazy feeling, indescribable pretty much. I was just blessed with the four years that I had. It was one of the best days of my life.
The most important thing I want kids to know is that it’s not all about basketball when you’re in school. You’re a student-athlete when you go to college. All the times I had to stay up until 4 a.m. to study for a test is part of that banner. If you don’t have the grades, you can’t be a student-athlete. That’s why student comes before athlete.
After having my jersey retired, I spent time with my family. It wasn’t as much as I wanted, but you deal with what you’re given. Then I had a good game against the Nets. I don’t think there were as many fans as there were in Philly, but it was still a great crowd. I had to pay a lot for tickets for people, but the support was huge. I had my shot falling and everything was great.
And then we ended the trip in Chicago. I had a couple of highlight dunks on a few people. But in the end, we just came up short. It was an exciting game and it came down to the wire, just a couple shots that we wanted didn’t go in.
We’re coming up to the halfway point of the season. When it comes to the flow of the game, I’m starting to get the hang of it. Coming in, I don’t think anybody expected I would play so well early in the year. And throughout the season, I’ve been playing in and out of positions. Now I’m at the four so hopefully I get my mid-range and everything else going. I want to help the team out with rebounding and getting double-doubles so I can earn my nickname back — Mr. Double-Double.
I woke up Wednesday morning and had about 40-to-50 texts talking about the popcorn incident! It was funny. I didn’t know how people knew. And then I saw Kings.com had it, then next thing you know it was on YouTube and then it’s on Yahoo! They said it was the number two most viewed YouTube video in the world that day! As bad as the situation was on me, that’s a big honor to be the second-most viewed, not just in America, but the WORLD! YouTube, if you’re reading, I should get paid 10 cents a view!
The whole popcorn incident is something you obviously can learn from and laugh at. Probably over the years, I’m going to look back and laugh at it. But when it happened, it wasn’t too funny to me.
Now I have to call a secret agent to find out who was the main perpetrator of the popcorn incident. He better watch out because I’m going to get him!
To everybody, just keep supporting us! Come watch us at ARCO against the Heat in our first game of our three-game home game stretch as we start to pick up some more Ws!
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