When the opposition teams come to your stadium you are not supposed to make it easy for them. For years clubs have used whatever tricks they could do to make the opposition as uncomfortable as possible. None have gone so far as the San Antonio Spurs. When the Portland Trail Blazers went to San Antonio for a game, the Blazers were shocked to find a snake in the locker room.
There have been many stories of less than sportsmanlike behavior between teams. One manager famously made the away team locker room smaller as he didn’t want them to be comfortable in there despite having plenty of space. Some teams when they lose are known to trash the visitor’s locker rooms to show their disgust. While this behavior is a little childish no one has put live venomous animals in an opponent’s locker room before, at least until the Blazers came to San Antonio.
Now while we can’t say the San Antonio Spurs were responsible for the snake being in the locker room, the fact that the snake was black and white, the same color as the Spurs uniform makes them look more than a little suspicious. There was also a rumor at the time that the shooting guard for the Spurs was a snake collector.
The Blazers took the incident in their stride, sort of. When the snake was spotted players were said to have jumped up on their benches and screamed, the typical manly reaction you would expect from massive footballers. The coaches managed to save the day by catching the little snake and setting him back in the wild. Reports say the snake turned out not to be venomous at all and only 18 inches long.
The Blazers went on to lose to the Spurs 114-97. Perhaps the snake did just what was intended and put off the players enough for them to take their eye off the ball.
