During the 2015 college football season, Arizona politician David Schapira was a special guest at an Arizona State football game. He seemed to be having a good time until Sun Devils mascot Sparky jumped on his back and sent him walking off in pain.
What Sparky did not know is that Schapira had just recently had back surgery and jumping on the politician’s back caused a re-aggravation of the previous injury. He filed an insurance claim against the school for $120,000 and reached a settlement worth $76,000 with Arizona State on Thursday.
“I felt a pop in my lower back,” Schapira wrote in his claim, shared by the Arizona Republic. “I tried to push Sparky off as my wife and others yelled to him to get off, but I needed the assistance of another council member, Joel Navarro, to get him off my back.”
Schapira is a pretty big Sun Devil fan, so he wasn’t too upset when found out it was an unknowing Sparky just having some good fun.
“The only upside to the situation was that it was Sparky who jumped on me. If it had been Wilbur the Wildcat, I’d probably be pretty angry,” Schapira said.
The bright side of this whole situation is that Schapira is still going to cheer for his Sun Devils no matter what happens going forward. However, Spark might want to be a little more careful about who he is jumping on into the future.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
