Oh, Dana, you prankster. I didn't know you had it in you. Its always the quiet ones, isn't it? If you're going to pull just one April Fools joke in your adult life, you'd better pull out all the stops...and boy, did he ever!
The ruse: pretend to take the Arkansas head coaching job.
The co-conspirators: Arkansas AD Frank Broyles, Arkansas Chancellor John A. White, Dana's wife, his assistant coaches, Creighton AD Bruce Rasmussen, and Creighton president Fr. John Schlegal.
With that impressive and all-encompassing list of co-conspirators, its not hard to see how everyone from fans to media was duped and fell for the ruse. I mean, I usually never fall for these things, and I took the bait -- hook, line and sinker. What else am I supposed to believe when ESPN reports every five minutes on the bottom line that Dana Altman is the new Arkansas coach?
Right. You bet.
Remember how we were all commenting on the strange awkwardness of Dana's half-hearted "Woo-Pig-Sooeee"? Remember how I said it would have been a 20 on a scale of 10 on the unintentional comedy scale if I wasn't throwing up in my mouth? Turns out the reason it looked so awkward is because Dana was trying to keep from laughing and blowing the cover off this clever ruse.
At first, Rassmussen wasn't down with the idea. Duping the fan base of two schools just for kicks and giggles? No way. "Pretend to leave Creighton? I can't go along with it...but you're right, its just too good. Well, OK." And not only did Rass come around, he kicked it up a notch by throwing in the bit about him leaving too. "How about this? We leak that I'm leaving to be Director of Basketball Operations. That should REALLY get people going!"
Father Schlegal was tougher. "You want me to lie? I'm afraid I can't do that...you're right though, this is just too good. OK, just this once."
The Arkansas AD, Frank Broyles, had by far the biggest supporting role in this scheme, and was skeptical. "So let me get this straight. We leak news of a private jet flying from Atlanta to Omaha, and then on to Fayetteville. We tell the media we've found our coach. We schedule a press conference for 5pm. We introduce you with not one, not two but three Wooo-Pig-Soooeee chants, with you pretending to look more and more sick on each one. I introduce your wife and make strange comments about her beauty. You introduce yourself, and then answer 45 minutes of questions from the assembled media. You tell the Omaha media you've always wanted to make one more move, and this is the right one."
"I don't know, that seems like quite a lot of stuff for a joke. You're right though, its just too good. I'm in."
And so just after 8am, word leaked that Arkansas was flying Dana back to Fayetteville to be introduced as their new coach. Everyone bought in, from ESPN to the Omaha World-Herald. The ruse came off without a hitch.
After a good night's rest, thoroughly enjoying the panic he'd wreaked back in Omaha -- and the calls for his firing in Arkansas just hours after taking the job and 8 months before he coached a game -- Dana went before the Arkansas media at 6:45pm and announced he'd made a horrible mistake and was returning to Creighton.
That my friends is the best April Fools Day joke ever. You bet.
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Seriously, as unbelievable as these two days have been, that almost sorta kinda maybe sounds possible, doesn't it? Of course it doesn't. But neither does the truth: Dana leaving, accepting the Arkansas job, going through the press conference, sleeping on it and deciding the next day its a horrible mistake. Wow.
Welcome back, Dana. You got us good. Damn.
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