Joel McHale has found tremendous success as an actor, comedian, and television host, but there was a time when he aspired to be a football player.
Well, kind of. McHale walked on at the University of Washington and never saw game action.
McHale joined Kenny Mayne on Audacy’s “Hey Mayne” podcast and the two traded stories of their brief careers as Huskies at the University of Washington.
“I was a terrible football player,” McHale said (29:34 in player above). “Ask Mark Bruener or Ernie Conwell, they’ll be like ‘He was like a mascot.’ I was super funny on skit night, and that’s the first time I got respect from the players when I f—--g nailed skit night. To the point where you know if you’re a freshman and seniors are there, and they’re already writing the checks because they’re already moving on to the NFL or bitter alcoholism. No, but they’re already moving on and then you get these freshmen and they didn’t talk to me at all. And I was on the practice squad on the entire time.”
Perhaps that skit night gave McHale the confidence he needed for his career in Hollywood, where he hosted “The Soup” and starred in NBC’s “Community”.
“But again, skit night, man,” he continued. “I remember D'Marco Farr walked up and he was like ‘Hey man, that was great,’” McHale explained, as if Farr was surprised because it was the opposite of what he saw on the football field.
“I walked on. I played one year in high school so I went on as kind of a fluke,” McHale said. “I didn’t play at all the first year and then they redshirted me the second year. Because they’re like OK, he’s not as horrible – I could run really fast for my size – but then I quit. Quite an illustrious career.”
McHale, who stands at 6’4”, walked on as a tight end at Washington. He was on the team at the same time as Bruener and Conwell, as he mentioned, and all three went on to be successful in their chosen career paths.
Mayne also walked on at Washington for a brief time before going to junior college at Wentachee Valley College and eventually UNLV.
“I walked on at Washington out of high school and then I walked off,” Mayne said, who was only there for five days. “I was better than the freshman on scholarship but I didn’t think they were gonna recognize that. You can just tell. I’m barely involved in the practice, I’m doing drills on the side, and I went to JC then I went to UNLV and I’m glad I did what I did, no offense to anybody.”
“I wanted to play right away,” Mayne continued, “I didn’t like the look of the opportunity so I went and found a place that liked me and was gonna play me and then UNLV.”
As a tight end, McHale preferred to run routes rather than block, but even then there were some worries.
“But then if you ran out for passes, people like Dave Hoffmann were gonna tear your head off – or Donald Jones – so you want to be like, how about a real short route? And whatever you do don’t put the ball too high because I don’t want to stretch out for anything.”
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