College football in the state of Oregon — and perhaps the collective BAC of certain pockets of The Beaver State — took on an interesting wrinkle earlier in September when Portland State head coach Bruce Barnum generated hype for the team’s home opener against Western Oregon by promising to buy a beer for every fan who came out to the game.
That was enough for fans to come out for a 21-17 Vikings victory, and now the time has come for their coach to pay the piper.
In a Twitter post on Tuesday afternoon, Bruce Barnum shared a receipt from Barny’s Beer Garden from Saturday’s game, showing that he paid $14,448 for a total of 2,064 drinks of beer. Coors Light was the drink of choice for 1,260 fans, while 786 fans made merry with Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA — a local brand from Bend, Ore.
“It blew up a little bit,” Barnum told KGW TV. “… I was thinking ‘pandemic, college football hasn’t been around, let’s kind of get a little crew and have beers on top of the roof like Shawshank Redemption.’ But this blew up a little too much.”
While putting himself out of nearly $15,000 may hurt his wallet — and his family may not also be particularly pleased, based on Barnum’s talk with local television — the beer-buying stunt proved a great success with fans, as well as with university brass.
“I heard everybody had a good time,” Barnum said. “I was told by the brass immediately after the game that everybody had a blast. So good for it. I hope that brings somebody back. I hope there’s some ‘hey, that was fun, let’s go back out and watch the Vikings play football.”http://www.cbssports.com/”
After picking up their first victory of the season, Portland State’s next game will be their first in Big Sky Conference play as they take on No. 13-ranked Montana State.
