The Anals of Long-Form Journalism

ESPN The Magazine‘s annual “Body Issue” has become their excuse to put naked women on the cover, but there’s a glorious mess floating in the pool this year: David Fleming’s distressingly well-researched article on athletes shitting themselves:

In other words, athletes poop their pants (or shorts) far more often than you realize. And once we kick open the stall of shame and secrecy that surrounds the topic, it turns out most of them have a poop story (or two) to tell. “It sounds crazy and gross, but I think a lot of athletes will read this and go, ‘Oh, god, yes, I know that feeling,’” Moss says. “They’ll understand that in my situation it really was a simple, even an easy, choice for me. Yes, I was willing to s— my pants rather than stop.”

It’s a great article, and I envy Fleming’s opportunity to write the following sentences for a respectable glossy:

The fact that it happens so frequently, and publicly, to athletes in action creates a toxic paradox that, just like a triple bacon gordita, we don’t exactly know how to process.

In less scientific circles, this is what is known as prairie doggin’.

The epic mushroom cloud of funk had set in with Tobeck’s linemates and even with the Redskins

And of course:

Jesus pooped.

Read the whole thing.