Dr. Anthony Fauci has been in his role as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made the 80-year-old longtime physician at the National Institute of Health a household name. Among the much more minor revelations to come out of the last year-plus is that Fauci was a point guard and captain of the Regis High School basketball team in the 1950s.
Late last month during an interview on All In with Chris Hayes, Fauci joked with the host — himself a former high school basketball player, albeit much more recently than 1958 — that he would “destroy” Hayes in a game of 1-on-1 should they play, which they could safely being both vaccinated.
This was a funny moment that got some thinking, namely the good fellas over at the No Dunks podcast, about whether Fauci stood a chance in a game of 1-on-1 with Hayes. On Tuesday, Hayes joined the No Dunks crew to set the record straight about how a 1-on-1 game with Fauci would go, and offer an update on whether it will happen — and why they will likely go in the direction of HORSE rather than 1-on-1.
As Hayes says, he would “physically injure” Fauci if they played 1-on-1 and that’s a big reason why he wants to play HORSE, because he can’t be the guy that hurts the director of the NIAID while playing basketball during an ongoing pandemic. It’s a funny conversation and Hayes tells a great story about how Barack Obama took an elbow from someone during a pickup game in his first term in office, which led to the end of Obama’s presidential pickup runs because the president can’t be getting hurt hooping. When pressed again he says there’s “literally no chance,” which while most likely true would make it even funnier if they played make-it-take-it and Fauci just caught fire from deep and ran Hayes off the floor.
At some point, the score must be settled and, honestly, Hayes runs a much bigger risk of getting washed in a game of HORSE because I have a feeling Fauci has some trick shots in his bag that he’s ready to unleash on the MSNBC host.
