Happy Anniversary to the Best Accidental Headline in Christian Newspaper History

Today marks the ten-year anniversary of the greatest unintentional headline in Christian newspaper history.

On February 1, 2011, Liberty University’s student newspaper published an opinion piece about how the school’s basketball team may have won a game on a buzzer-beater, but they didn’t truly earn the victory because of how awful they played until those final moments.

The headline? “Saturday’s Win a Rim Job.”

The sub-head didn’t help: “Scrappy should not mean sloppy.”

This is what happens when your newspaper is put together by a team of students who grew up in purity culture. You get a headline that accidentally talks about a sloppy rim job.

Also not helping: The pictures next to those lines showing Jerry Falwell, Sr. and his (soon-to-be-in-a-sexual-scandal-of-his-own) son Jerry Falwell, Jr. crowdsurfing in the stands. Which seems about right because every story involving Liberty U. and sex acts must include at least an obligatory mention of the younger Falwell. It’s a law somewhere. I’m sure of it.

In any case, someone must have informed the reporter of what the phrase meant because the online version of the story soon adopted an alternative headline: “Saturday’s Win a Near Miss.”

There was no explanation for the change.

(via Christian Nightmares)