PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia 76ers fan David Kelleher, who runs a local car dealership, went viral Sunday night during the Sixers’ Game 4 victory over the Miami Heat in the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals for missing part of the third quarter.
Because he was sleeping while sitting courtside.
Kelleher, who chatted with KYW Newsradio on Monday, was being a good sport about everything, calling going viral "fun," "positive" and "unprecedented."
Still, how and why exactly did he fall asleep?
"I had flown back home from Atlanta," Kelleher explained.
"I was with my daughter for a college visit. The night before, we got in after midnight. So I probably didn't get to sleep til 1 a.m. She had a soccer game in Annapolis that morning. We left the house at 7 a.m. So, not a lot of sleep and a long drive, both back and forth. I came back to Mother's Day brunch, probably ate more than I should have.”
After all that, he went to the Sixers game that tipped off at 8 p.m.
Related Jawncast: Dave Uram talks to the famous (infamous?) 76ers fan who went viral after falling asleep at Sunday’s game.
“I did have a drink or two, but not a lot. Anybody who knows me knows that I can play for long periods of time,” he said. “And just took a catnap."
He explained he was only briefly asleep before his sales director intervened.
"He woke up me up,” Kelleher said. “He said, 'You fell asleep.' I said, 'Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.' I guess I just dazed, dozed off. Just dazed out."
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Kelleher said he was awake for James Harden's big shots in the fourth quarter. He didn't sound too thrilled with Sixers icon Charles Barkley referring to him on TNT as drunk, which he indicated he was not. But Kelleher added that he has thick skin.
The amazing thing is, if social media didn't exist, there's a decent chance very little to no one would have paid much attention to Kelleher sleeping on television.
But again, that didn't appear to bother him.
"Most people go through life never being able to be viral,” he said. “I managed a moment in time to do that."
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