http://archive.today/2025.05.09-175851/https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6335131/2025/05/07/sports-performance-caffeine-dan-campbell-coffee/
Full article at Link.
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It was just past 11:20 a.m. on a Monday in New York City when the caffeine began to take hold. My head buzzed. My stomach sloshed. I had felt so confident just a couple of hours earlier. Now I felt defeated.
I was no Dan Campbell.
This story had started five days earlier when my editor reached out with a “fun” idea: Do you want to try to drink coffee like Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell for a day?
I was familiar with Campbell’s order, which went viral in 2022 and was later documented by The Athletic’s Dan Pompei in a terrific profile: Two 20-ounce Pike Place medium roast coffees with two shots of espresso in each one.
The colloquial term for the drink is a “black eye.” But I had one concern.
“Haha,” I wrote back. “I might die.”
Technically, it was service journalism.
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It was 8:12 a.m. when I walked to my neighborhood Starbucks. I had spent the previous 10 minutes considering how to ask for two venti “black eyes.”
Did I need to preface my order? Explain it? I felt like Nathan Fielder rehearsing it in my head.
Uhh, yeah, this is going to be a strange order, but …
Don’t worry, this is NOT an order for one person …
Instead, I went right into it. The woman behind the counter didn’t blink.
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The first 16 ounces went down quickly. I should note here that I drink coffee every day. My standard order, depending on the place, is a plain 12-ounce latte with a little simple syrup. If I can get through the rest of the day without any more coffee, that’s a win. (Narrator: I usually don’t.) I had never tackled 40 ounces of coffee, let alone 40 ounces with an additional four shots of espresso. But I was feeling cocky. Invincible.
At 9:10 a.m., I texted my editor.
I thought I was going to have a real problem with this Campbell order. But I’ll be done with the first cup in about 10 minutes.
Some important context before we go any farther: Campbell is 6 feet 5 and a former NFL tight end. I, on the other hand, am 5 feet 10 and a former high school shooting guard
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It was almost time for lunch, and I had two problems: The caffeine buzz had left my body craving food to balance things out. And I still had six ounces of coffee to drink.
Demoralized, I felt a little like Jerry when he started living in Kramer’s apartment in the “The Chicken Roaster” episode of “Seinfeld.”
I was also trying to adhere to Campbell’s method, which meant drinking the coffee and espresso black. In some ways, that felt more challenging than putting down 40 ounces in one morning.
When I covered the Kansas City Royals a decade ago, manager Ned Yost used to chastise me about putting milk and sugar in my coffee. The people who did that, he said, just didn’t like coffee.
Simpler times.