If you follow me on Twitter (@KennyEller) or have liked my mevsMJ.com Facebook page, you’ve probably seen me mention the push-up challenge over the last couple of weeks.

Thank you to those of you that have partaken in the fun!

Simply put, I pick a player that I think will score the most points during an NBA game and commit to doing 5 push-ups per point scored.  20 points = 100 push-ups and so on.

Well, that’s the modified version anyway.

The Story Behind the Push-Up Challenge

The original push-up challenge was born in 2008 during the NBA Finals.

I would routinely have my brother and a couple of friends over to the house to watch games.  With me loving challenges and competition (Are you ready to play yet MJ?) I wanted to make the Lakers vs. Celtics series a bit more interesting since none of us really had anything more in the game than just a love for hoops.

At the time, McDonald’s was running a special on cheeseburgers on certain days during the week for something like 59 cents each.  This will be relevant in just a bit…keep reading.  Oh and yes, back then I ate fast food much more than I do now!

So as the guys got to the house, I announced something like, “Let’s have a push-up challenge!”

Of the four of us there, everyone was really into it, except one, so they asked what the challenge was.

On the fly, I explained that we would all pick a different player and do 5 push-ups for each point that player scored.

AND

To make sure that we all pushed ourselves, the person who picked the weakest player would be penalized every single quarter.

The penalty was, if your player scored the fewest points, resulting in you doing the least amount of push-ups, you had to eat a McDonald’s Cheeseburger at the end of each quarter.

Also if your player finished the game with the least amount of points scored, you had to eat another cheeseburger.

So if we all picked strong players, we all had a chance at the penalty, on top of a lot of push-ups.

That was the goal anyway and it started out just as planned, for 30 seconds.

My brother called out, “I’ve got Kobe!”

I said, “I’ll take Pierce.”

Another friend said, “Give me Garnett.”

Kendrick Perkins?

And then Karol, who stands a legit 6’5” (I’ve measured him with tape measure) and who vehemently detested push-ups (he does have long arms), let us know with a laugh that he was taking Kendrick Perkins.

During the 2007-2008 NBA Season Perkins averaged 6 points in just over 24 minutes per game.  He ended up mirroring that in the playoffs.

Kobe on the other hand averaged 28, Pierce 19 and Garnett 18 in the regular season and their numbers only improved in the post season.

Can you see where this is going?

You got it, that night my good friend; the other “KG”, did just a few push-ups, but ATE 5 CHEESEBURGERS!!!

Seeing him get up for each “cheeseburger penalty” at the end of every quarter and then at the end of the game was one of the funniest things ever!  We all had a good laugh about it!

Who knew that would be the last meat he’d eat?!?!

He immediately thereafter went vegetarian and then later vegan and while I’m sure he’d give that night a lot of the credit as the turning point in his dietary ways, we can’t forget about Kendrick Perkins!  For without Perkins, who knows what Karol would be eating these days?

That was the last night we included the cheeseburgers in the challenge.  I think it was more due to them not being on special, than Karol’s unwilling indulgent experience, but for whatever reason we kept the challenge to just push-ups.

That’s the story behind the push-up challenge.

OK, there’s a game tonight!  Who’s In?!?!

####

Connect:  Twitter (@KennyEller) and mevsMJ.com Facebook Fan Page.

####

If you’re new to the site, I set out in August 2010 to get a game of 1-on-1 vs. my childhood hero Michael Jordan.  This site is about that journey…through every valley, to every mountain top of triumph!

Michael Jordan had a sponsorship with McDonalds and the best way the Golden Arches could take advantage of his staggering fame was to come up with a limited time only McJordan Burger.

I was coming off the bench of the JV basketball team at the time and when that burger came out, it became my pre-game meal.

You have to understand that I had gotten serious about basketball as an eighth grader, when my parents got my brother and me our first hoop.  Making the JV team was a good accomplishment for me and by the time the season began I was the sixth or seventh man, meaning the first or second off the bench.

I had grown to around 5’8” or 5’9” over the summer, so I was average size for a point guard in the 10^th grade.  Size wasn’t really the hindering issue with success on the team though.  No matter how much I practiced, I couldn’t make up for the real game experience the other guys on the team had.  I had never played in a YMCA or City League growing up or even on the High School Freshman team.  My first exposure to team basketball was the JV team.  Looking back, making the team was a decent accomplishment.

I wouldn’t leave mouths agape with my athletic ability, but I could shoot.  Not off the move, I still wasn’t strong enough for that and really had never practiced it.  Just set up three pointers, like John Paxon and BJ Armstrong.  Sounds so dumb now, as I was so ill prepared, but I had taught myself to play so every experience was a learning one.

I remember the first day of practice, the coach had us do left handed layups.  We couldn’t use our right hands, at all.  What?  I had never practiced with my left hand.  It was sad.  It took me quite awhile before I felt comfortable going to the basket (wide open) with my left hand.

There were most likely only a couple of reasons I was even on the team.  One, because I would hustle like there was no tomorrow.  No one would out work me.  The other because I could shoot.  If I had a wide open three I thought it was automatic.  At the time it wasn’t, but I was a better shooter than most on the team.

So the McJordan came out and I begged my Mom to take me by McDonalds as often as possible.  I would eat one or two of them before every game.  If I remember right, it was basically a quarter pounder with cheese, mustard, BBQ sauce, pickles, onions and bacon.  Doesn’t even sound good now and from a nutritional standpoint, I’m fairly certain it wasn’t the best pre-game meal:-)  At the time though, if Mike ate them, and he did according to those commercials, so would I.  Whatever MJ did, I wanted to do.

The burger, like the shoes and the Gatorade never made me a better player, but at the time I believed that they would:-)  Today I realize of course that it was just great marketing.

Some would call the small breaths of air those companies put in my sail, false hope.  I, on the other hand, enjoyed growing up believing that I could one day be like Mike.

It sure beat someone coming to me and saying at 15 years of age, it’s not going to happen kid.