Yes, Alvin Kamara put on a garbage man outfit and rode on the back of the truck. But it's not part of some weekly community work the Saints running back is doing.
A tweet saying as much has gone viral in recent days, acquiring over 35,000 likes as of this writing. It's been shared by a number of members in sports media ... but the message behind the tweet is almost completely inaccurate.
MOCK DRAFT: Kyler Murray goes early; Eagles, Colts find new playmakers
Alvin Kamara working as a Trash Man today in New Orleans. Each Tuesday of the season, Alvin works a blue-collar trade job.
— L_George (@dynasty_idp) January 17, 2019
Credit: @larry_murrow pic.twitter.com/Q9wdEUXAsC
It's not clear where exactly that "each Tuesday of the season, Alvin works a blue-collar trade job" fact came from. A number of sites have attributed an article orginally published by the website Sportsnaut (it also appears on MSN.com and Yardbarker), but that story references only a since-deleted Instagram post with no other evidence to corroborate such a narrative. As far as we can tell, Kamara was just posing as a garbage collector for a TV commercial shot by Sidney Torres, owner of IV Waste, LLC.
“He and I have become friends over the last few years. He sent me a message a few weeks ago. One of my drivers had a jacket, a florecent green, and he said I gotta get one of those,” Torres told Fox 8 Live. "When we were on the phone I said, look, I'm doing this thing with the commercial. I was going to put something in the Saints game. Do you want to be a part of it? He said absolutely. Just tell me what time and when you're gonna shoot it."
Torres told the same story to NOLA.com, which clarified Kamara is not starring in a series about working blue-collar jobs like the viral tweet claims. But the back did tell Torres he'd like to help out as a garbage man more often.
From the article:
The star running back told Torres that he thinks picking up garbage would be some good off-season exercise, so he wants to take a couple of shifts working with IV Waste workers cruising the French Quarter cleaning up in the early morning hours after the season ends.
Nick Underhill, who covers the Saints for The New Orleans Advocate, also confirmed the details in the initial tweet aren't accurate.
I can't believe how many people think this is true. It's not true. https://t.co/fNeEaQcGRq
— Nick Underhill (@nick_underhill) January 18, 2019
So where did this myth even start?
There seem to be two sources of confusion that led to spreading this fabrication.
The first is a deleted Instagram post from the account @dirtycoast that was initially embedded in several stories. The caption read the same as the viral tweet. We can assume the post was eventually deleted because the user realized the information was wrong.
Another source seems to be from Kamara himself, who responded to a Twitter user saying he should work a blue-collar job each week.
Spoiler 🚨 https://t.co/AMEs1mn5jj
— Alvin Kamara (@A_kamara6) January 16, 2019
He never said he was actually doing that; all he tweeted was "spoiler," which was probably just referring to the commercial that hadn't yet been released.
