A Multi-Sport Athlete?

We're going to play a little game where you need to guess what all of these people have in common: Will Smith, Grace Kelly, Kevin Bacon, and Gritty. If you guessed that they're all actors, I don't think Gritty qualifies while only Grace Kelly has won an Academy Award of the four individuals. The correct answer is that they're famous Philadelphians who held two high-profile titles! Will Smith is an actor and musician, Grace Kelly was an actress before becoming the Princess of Monaco, and Kevin Bacon is also an actor and musician. As for Gritty, we know he has some skill when it comes to hockey, but would you believe he may have a future in basketball?

At first, I simply disregarded this as a promotional tool with the Harlem Globetrotters coming to town. After all, Gritty is a hockey mascot, not a basketball player. He's simply helping out the Gloebtrotters in the commercial, right?

Gritty didn't get to show off his mad basketball skills, but it dawned on me that he actually had shown off his skills earlier this season when he dropped in on a Rutgers basketball game and did this!

Perhaps we're on the verge of seeing Gritty become a two-sport phenomenon? The 76ers currently employ Franklin the Dog - seen here at the top-right - but I fail to see the tie-in with the choice of a dog. Gritty reportedly already lives at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, so why not just get him a XXXXL jersey and let the big man jack half-court shots all night long? The kicker in all this is that there's already a petition to remove Franklin the Dog as the mascot for the 76ers, and the blue puppy nearly made the king of all mascot blunders by almost missing his very first dunk. Our boy Gritty? He's like another Philly basketball icon in Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins - he's bringing the hammer if they let him get airborne! And to think that Franklin replaced rabbit mascot Hip-Hop - seen at the bottom-right - which was all sorts of awful in his own right. Philly, you only seem to succeed with monster-like, oversized mascots. Stop with the human-form animals.

With Gritty already supplanting the Philly Phantic as the best mascot in Philadelphia, it appears he's crossing over into new sports. Is there anything that Gritty can't do?

Here's a new game where people have things in common: Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Michael Jordan, Gritty. If your guess was multi-sport pro athlete, you've mastered these two questions just like Gritty has mastered two sports!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!