Jonny Linehan became a well-known character during his time as a punter for the BYU Cougars from 2015-2017, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the New Zealand native had quite the reaction Wednesday when news surfaced that the Cougars men’s basketball program has hired former St. Joseph’s assistant coach John Linehan (no known relation) to the same position.
On X, formerly Twitter, Jonny Linehan first posted Wednesday morning, “Do I get a family referral bonus?” and tagged the official BYU Men’s Basketball X account.
About an hour later, he sent off a series of tweets about the hire, with the first one reading, “Welcome to Provo, bro!” and he tagged John Linehan.
Just a few minutes after that, Jonny Linehan quoted a tweet from Vanquish The Foe’s Robby McCombs that highlighted some of John Linehan’s accomplishments and wrote, “Sometimes I even surprise myself with how good I was.”
And a few minutes later came this post: “Now I won’t look like a complete weirdo when I wear my jersey to the game. People will just think I’m supporting the coach 🙏.”
After taking a break for several hours, Jonny Linehan returned to X Wednesday evening and posted an iconic photo from “The Office” TV show in which a young Michael Scott is shaking boss Ed Truck’s hand and wrote, “Me meeting @John_Linehan12 on campus.”