Bruce Arians GLENDALE, AZ – DECEMBER 07: Head coach Bruce Arians of the Arizona Cardinals looks up to the video board during the NFL game against the Kansas City Chiefs at the University of Phoenix Stadium on December 7, 2014 in Glendale, Arizona. The Cardinals defeated the Chiefs 17-14. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

To make it as an NFL football coach, you’ve got to take the game seriously. Enter Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, who admitted on SiriusXM radio that he once drank paint as a kid to improve his play.

How exactly was that supposed to help? The paint would make him harder to tackle, of course.

Since drinking pain will, at best, give you some undesirable digestion issues, and, at worst, kill you, Arians had to get his stomach pumped.

Lesson learned, right? Nope. He went for it a second time.

Apparently, this all started with a milk allergy. Let’s connect the dots with some help from our friend Bruce. Here’s a quote from his new book The Quarterback Whisperer: How to Build an Elite NFL Quarterback, via ArizonaSports.com:

When I was younger I wasn’t allowed to drink milk, because I was allergic to it. Was that going to stop me from drinking something that was surely going to make my bones stronger? Hell no. So I drank paint. Sure, I had to get my stomach pumped twice, but I had to try to put something down my throat that looked like milk and might make me harder to tackle when playing in our neighborhood football games.

Definitely not his best moment. But, somehow, maybe not his worst either.

Arians is 64 years old, which means he grew up in the 1950s and 60s, which means there’s a solid chance the paint he drank contained lead. Lead-based paint wasn’t federally banned until 1978.

[Sporting News]

About Jesse Kramer

Jesse is a writer and editor for The Comeback. He has also worked for SI.com and runs The Catch and Shoot, a college basketball website based in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow Jesse on Twitter @Jesse_Kramer.