Comedian Keegan-Michael Key donates to Dowdle’s charity after being fined for his “two pumps” celebration

CHARLOTTE (CAROLINA SPORTS LIVE) — In Sunday’s win against the Green Bay Packers, running back Rico Dowdle scored two touchdowns. He celebrated one of them with two “pumps,” for which the NFL fined him more than $14,000.

 Afterwards, Dowdle started a GoFundMe in which all proceeds will go toward the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina.

The “two pump” celebration is from a popular 20213 Comedy Central sketch from “Key & Peele.” In the sketch, the player isn’t fined until he hits the third “pump,” or hip thrust. Unfortunately, the NFL doesn’t operate on fictional sketch rules.

During a team meeting, head coach Dave Canales phoned in Keegan-Michael Key, who had a special message for Dowdle.

“So I did some math here… $14,000 for two pumps. If I’m doing that math here, that’s seven grand a pump. That means your next celebration, you do, let’s say, zero pumps, that’ll cost you zero thousand dollars,” Key joked. Then his wife, Elle Key, joined the call. “We just want to let you know we saw your GoFundMe, but even before that, we were going to make a donation to a charity of your choice for $15,000,” she said, which got a round of applause and cheers from Dowdle’s teammates.

Dowdle’s GoFundMe, titled ‘Support my fines… or Children’s Home Society of NC, started as a joke to cover his fine and turned into a charity donation, has raised more than $27,000.

“It’s a charity for kids and foster kids in homes that are in need of a family and it just so happened to be national adoption month,” Dowdle said Thursday at his locker after practice. “I’m kind of surprised (by the money that has been raised), but not really, because there are a lot of people in the world that have good hearts,” Dowdle said.