Consider us shattered. We were absolutely crushed when Dikembe Mutombo said his famous, or — depending on who you ask — infamous, line from college, “Who wants to sex Mutombo,” is all a lie. This story has been one of our go-to bar anecdotes for years, something to regale sports fans and non sports fans alike as long as they’d consumed enough bourbon. But on Highly Questionable with Dan Le Batard and Bomani Jones, Mutombo said he never uttered the phrase.
Seth at SB Nation claims it dates back to a 2006 Deadspin post via the Mighty MJD.
Despite that post, Deadspin wasn’t the origin of the story. We went to college in Washington DC from 2001-2005, and we had already heard the tale told countless times before receiving a largely useless bachelor’s degreee in literature (there’s a Will Hunting joke in there somewhere about library late fees).
Mutombo, while attending Georgetown in the 1980s, used to walk into the club (we’ve also spoken with people who claim he would say it at house parties) and shout, “Who wants to sex Mutombo” in that gravelly bass voice of his. Now, we’re not giving the story justice here, you’ll need at least four fingers of some brown liquid in a low-ball glass before it really reaches its entertainment zenith. But now that story’s dream, which started more than a decade ago for us, might have been simply a myth.
When Le Batard asks Mutombo about it, Dikembe of course wags his finger and says it’s not true.
I’m in line with Bomani here, who doesn’t really believe Dikembe’s denial. We all said crazy stuff in college, regardless of who you might have become when you reached adulthood — if, you reached adulthood — you should acknowledge clowning in your youth. We think Mutombo should embrace the phrase, trademark it (like Pat Riley did with ™three-peat after he heard backup PG Wes Matthews say it in the Lakers’ locker-room in ’89) and sell some tee-shirts.
What do you think?
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