N.C. State and former Boston College head coach Tom O'Brien has been the subject of not one but TWO different internet crazes this season. First it was the #notoriousTOB Twitter hash tag, which gave us such gems as:
"KICK IN THE DOOR/ PUNTIN' FROM THEIR 44 #notoriousTOB" (@JasonKirkSBN) as well as
"I left BC and Spaziani in the city/Rolling down to Raleigh bringing' mediocrity" #notoriousTOB (@SulliTheRed)
Now, the N.C. State blog Backing The Pack brings us the latest TOB-related internet meme: TOBing.
TOBing is the act of posing like Tom O'Brien, which according to BTP means: "Cross your arms and quietly survey that which lies before you. And if there's a little America on your hat, well, all the better." What started as a simple concept has drawn some pretty serious attention, including writeup from Dr. Saturday and the Raleigh News & Observer:
"It started out, as most Internet memes do these days, as a one-off joke on Twitter, a parody of the short-lived "Tebowing" fad, but TOBing appears to have some legs.
A website - tob-ing.tumblr.com - is cataloging pictures of O'Brien in his trademark stance as well as fans' imitations of it - including a strikingly dramatic shot of a Wolfpack fan TOBing on a Tallahassee, Fla., dance floor before the Florida State game, blurred bodies swirling around him in the near-dark.
It's an homage to the coach, but it's also gently mocking, a subtle reference to some fans' main complaint about O'Brien: He doesn't show enough emotion on the sideline."
If there's one thing we enjoy, it's a gentle mocking of TOB. Should you have some good ol' timey photos of Tom O'Brien TOB-ing on the Heights, be sure to submit them to the TOBing Tumblr site.
Here's BC's head coach Frank Spaziani doing his best TOBing imitation.
In addition, we can only encourage a similarly entrepreneurial Boston College student or fan to start up the sister Tumblr site, SPAZzing. We've gotten a number of different looks from Spaz this season, but I'd say a good majority of them look very similar to this:
Spread your arms wide in protest of a bad call and/or your "anemic" offense. And if you do it with a sweet stache, well, all the better.