The Tonight Show's Ross the Intern was identified in Eric Snider's NFL Media Day post only as "the queenie guy." To be fair, no one is queenier than Ross the Intern, aka Ross Matthews — that's his schtick — but he's also got balls. (Pink balls, to be exact, but we'll get to that in a moment.) The footage from Media Day he showed on Friday's Tonight Show was seriously hilarious, partly because of the incongruity of that helium voice and fluttery persona on the loose in football world, but also because he was fearless. Take that pink ball — a pink football he was carrying around, trying to convince players they should switch from brown to pink: "It's the color of pig!" Some players didn't know what to make of him — "Don't be throwin' me no pink balls," growled one — but most were disarmed, even charmed. He even got one guy to do a pretty creditable version of the wiggly "Ross victory dance." The NFL ought to start inviting him to all their press conferences; I'd like to see what he'd do when players and commentators throw around classic sports cliches like the Madden-attributed "He sees the hole, then runs through it." I can hear him squealing already.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2009.
