Mad Dash: Melvin Gordon's mom won't wear his jersey until he earns it

Parents often try to encourage their children in whatever way they see fit. San Diego Chargers running back Melvin Gordon can safely say his mom doesn't go easy on him. In an interview with ESPN, Carmen Gordon revealed she won't be wearing her son's jersey anytime soon. No, it's not superstition, and no, it's not because she doesn't like jerseys. Quite simply, her son has to earn the privilege of his mother sporting his number in the stands, a practice she held when he was playing at Wisconsin, too. 

“You’ve got to show me a little something, but it won’t be this year,” she said. “So you might see me in the stands, but I won’t have the jersey on. I did the same thing in college because I just want to hear what people are saying.”

We see the method to her madness. It would be hard to get an honest opinion from fans around you about how your son is performing if they know you're his mother. And in her defense, if her son has earned the right to have his mother wearing his jersey, we're guessing plenty of Chargers fans will have already done so themselves. It's pretty amusing to hear that a mother whose son has reached the pinnacle of his career is still pushing him to do even more, but maybe that's been the secret to his success all along.

Lots of schools just add a Heisman to the team trophy case and call it a day. Oregon went just a bit further with Marcus Mariota's hardware. The Ducks put the trophy on top of a ridiculously ornate inverted pyramid in the middle of a marble display that includes benches crafted out of stone to look like the Hawaiian islands. You only get one chance to celebrate your first, so we can't blame Oregon and Nike for going big on this one. 

If you don't know about Nick Bonino and his dog, Kali, let's just say their Twitter antics are fantastic. Adding to their fun, the duo showed off Kali in the new gear the Pittsburgh Penguins sent Bonino after recently acquiring him. Now we're kind of wishing we would have traded for Bonino, just to get more of Kali in our lives.