"I was 5'7 in high school, but played on the varsity basketball team."

Probably his most egregious lie of all time.

My favorite part of the dull and false basketball stories... Tom Sizemore laughing in his face when Opie was telling him could have gone pro. I think Sizemore asked if he started or something. I really feel that the best part of the show now is how douchey Opie is.

And then when Sizemore asked he was forced to admit that he didn't even play on the varsity team.

Exactly. I wasn't sure of the exact question. But when opie said he didn't play varsity Sizemore laughed right in his face. The opester keeps plugging along.

A truly eGREGious lie

fahkin' home run turd!

I've been relistening to the very first XM shows, and can tell you that the biggest lie so far is probably Opie's scuba diving fist fight. I'll update as I catch up through the next ten years.

Every team from the suburbs always has a few white boy short guys to take elbows and be a warm body at practice. I wouldn't say that far fetched. Also it was the mid seventies. Not like his area of Long Island was overly diverse to not keep him on a team.

Captain of my high school's varsity basketball team was probably 5'9". He now plays professionally ^{in Australia.}

70s in a white town on li. Why is this an obvious lie?

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great point, opie does tell the same fake stories but at least they vary from an Ex mobster, basketball all star, candy kid, taking on lawyers etc...

i think we could all write a jim norton joke easily, people say opie doesnt bring anything to the show which is true but jim doesnt either all he does is go home and get jerked off, that was interesting in 2001, so over played now, its like hearing about someone go to the grocery store.

Norton's bad at narrative humor though, no one cares about his stories. His standup isn't very good. He's a fucking maestro when he has a funny person to bang jokes back and forth with. Right now, he doesn't, so it's no wonder the show sucks. You can't have conversational humor when your straight man isn't bright enough to set up any but the crudest jokes.

See, that's why I think he'd be great at improv. His standup material isn't good, his written Vice show stuff is kind of ehh (the Kurt written skits are actually decent), etc. Yet, he's one of the fastest, funniest guys I've heard on radio. If he did work with a group for a while his standup and acting would improve for sure. They ragged on UCB and Second City types on the show a lot, but those are some of the biggest stars right now.

"i think we could all write a jim norton joke easily"

Happens 20 times a day here.

No one gives a shit about the same who gives a fuck high school basketball stories, that are probably just bullshit to begin with.

Greggshells

Opie had major skills. His NBA aspirations were cut short when he called his childhood friend the "N" word. His buddy asked him which way was "norf" and then knocked him out. He woke up hearing Christmas music an orderly holding a pillow with handles. From then on it was roller blades and disc golf. All in with the disk golf.

Opie's claim to basketball fame, and he has repeated this story more than once, was that he played on the same Harborfields High School team as 6'9" Bret Bearup. Bearup was one of the best players on LI in 1980. He ended up going to Kentucky and was a bench player. Of course, Opie never played on any team with Bearup in high school. He might of occasionally been in the same gym as Bearup once or twice like the rest of school. Another Opie lie.