Remember when Cam Newtonhopped on a hoverboard after the Auburn/Alabama game last month and proceeded to ride it right through traffic?
Somehow, that didn’t convince Panthers head coach Ron Rivera that he needed to ban his players from riding hoverboards. But recently, he caught two of his players "drag racing" on them in a hallway at the Carolina facility and decided that enough was enough and banned them. During a press conference today, Rivera said that he also watched videos of hoverboards randomly lighting on fire and that that convinced him that he was making the right decision by telling players they couldn’t use them anymore.
“Somebody told me about them igniting so I went on YouTube and found them,” he said. “You see those things on YouTube blowing up and stuff? That is what concerns me more than anything else—something crazy happening.”
Rivera’s Charlotte, N.C. home was once involved in a pretty bad fire, so his concerns are warranted. But it also seems as though he may have seen some of the recent hoverboard fails—including this one that featured Mike Tyson—and that they helped him when he was making his decision.
“They also showed the [videos] with people falling off, people making sharp turns and there was somebody standing there and running into them,” he said. “I can’t imagine.”
It’s actually kind of surprising that more coaches haven’t done what Rivera just did. Hoverboards are cool and all, but do you really want your $100 million athlete riding around on one in the middle of the street? Probably not.
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[via Eye on Football]
