At the risk of sounding like your mother, could all you sports figures with poor hygiene habits please take it up a notch?
In case you missed it, a major health-related controversy erupted this past week. No, not the one involving our presidential candidates.
As repulsive as you might find Donald Trump, at least he doesn't leave a trail of tobacco juice on his golf courses. And as feeble as Hillary Clinton looked, at least video did not show her eating a booger before collapsing into that van.
Which brings us to Jim Harbaugh. Maybe Michigan's coach got bored watching his team play UCF last Saturday, but a TV camera showed him rubbing his nose with his thumb and then biting said thumb with his teeth.
The video has been dissected more than the Zapruder film. Conspiracy theorists and Ohio State fans are convinced Harbaugh indeed had a sideline snack. He addressed the issue head-on.
"It might have looked like that was happening. But if you rub your nose and then you bite your fingernail, that's not eating a booger," Harbaugh said. "There was no booger eaten."
Now there's a line you don't hear every day, unless you work at a kindergarten. Sports are gritty, however, so we usually give jocks wide latitude when it comes to hygienic offenses.
The floor of a major league dugout is usually so covered in congealed tobacco juice, wads of gum and chewed sunflower seed shells after a game that the grounds crew wears Hazmat suits to clean it.
The best gross-out story I ever heard was of a tobacco-chewer who'd spit into a cup for nine innings. When the game ended, he'd chug down the contents.
Which brings us to Dustin Johnson. Golf isn't baseball, though you'd be surprised how many pros sneak a pinch of smokeless tobacco into their mouths during a round. Johnson doesn't seem to realize that the sight of a long stream of brown fluid spewing from his mouth does not make for good TV.
His habit didn't matter nearly as much when he was known mainly as Paulina Gretzky's boy toy. But now Johnson is Da Man on the PGA Tour.
After spitting his way to a win at last week's BMW Championship, a British paper took Johnson to task, and the story went viral. To paraphrase Tom Hanks in "A League of Their Own," "There's no spitting in golf!"
The European Tour fined Tiger Woods in 2011 for spitting during a tournament in Dubai. Anyone caught spitting at the Masters is shot on sight.
It would actually be hilarious if Johnson dribbled some tobacco juice onto a green jacket, but there are bigger considerations here. Sports stars pack a lot of influence, and Johnson and Harbaugh have risen to the tops of their games.
At the very least, Harbaugh should be more careful with his sideline machinations. If nothing else, he knows Urban Meyer will use the issue against him when he makes recruiting visits:
"Do you really want to send your son to play for a booger-eater?"
As for Johnson, golf is trying to loosen its starched-shirt image and appeal more to kids. But do we want the face of the sport to have dried tobacco juice on its scruffy chin?
For the sake of America's impressionable youth, Dustin, please stop leaving a juicy trail on the golf course.
If that's too much to ask, please, please never spit into a cup for 18 holes and gulp it all down in a victory toast.
