Mocksession Captures Regrettable – But Hilarious – Moments in Sports

Trisha Cruz October 14, 2011 Tweet

Please tell me you’ve seen this video of a University of Oregon quarterback picking his nose during the last seconds of the BCS National Championship game. Yes, you heard me right: the fourth quarter’s ticking down, a championship’s on the line, and QB Darron Thomas is caught digging for gold on national television. Claaaassic. Thanks to Mocksession.com, you can watch this moment of comedy gold (pun intended) over and over again without interruption.

Mocksession is a collection of the weirdest, funniest, and most painful screengrabs and video clips captured from televised sports – and there’s nothing funnier than an extended reel of baseball fans getting hit in the face with foul balls. Founded by Ohio native Tim Burke, the site offers up over 12,500 images, 500 animated GIFs, and hundreds of videos of athletes doing hilarious things.

The best part is that Mocksession aims to capture the absurdities that the mainstream highlight reels missed – so it’s a must-see for anyone who calls themselves a sports fan. Getting to laugh and point at my favorite players’ most regrettable moments? Count me in. You can watch Yankees right fielder Andruw Jones get attacked by onion rings, Michael Phelps looking high at a baseball game, or a clip of Ronnie Brewer scrambling for a loose ball while being sound-tracked by the Mountain Goats.

Burke has been collecting these bizarre moments in sports history since 2006, when he working on his PhD in communication studies at the University of South Florida. While trying to write his dissertation, Burke’s love for the Tampa Bay Rays led him to set up a TV tuner to his computer so he could watch the ball game while he worked. This only led to him to notice more and more fleeting oddities like teammates flashing secret hand signals and hockey players getting knocked out by a speeding puck – and Mocksession was born.

The result of Burke’s obsession with sports is over a million unique views per month for the site. Mocksession has even been nominated for a Sports Media award, and it’s growing fast. The only thing standing in Burke’s way is having to deal with the persistent banning of his YouTube accounts from CBS and other media outlets. He’s already burned through five or six. For now, we’ll sit back and enjoy the hilarious fruits of his labor; check out an intro video for Mocksession here.