Prince Harry‘s idea of fun this time around is slightly tamer, to say the least. The young royal made a stop by Colorado Springs, Colo.’s U.S. Air Force Academy on Sunday, May 12, as part of his U.S. tour — and found himself on the receiving end of an intense lesson in American football.
Harry, 28, joined 10 members of the Academy’s Falcon team, headed by coach Troy Calhoun, for a fun afternoon of tossing the pigskin around, though he admitted that he was “not that great.”
“Shall I throw or can I kick it?” the fun-loving royal joked as Calhoun explained to him how to throw the perfect pass. “Which part of the foot is best to use?”
“I’ll throw it and hopefully you’ll catch it,” he later quipped to a member of the team, who went long to catch Harry’s perfect 45-yard pass. At one point during his play, Harry even lobbed the ball directly into the lens of a BBC camera, which sent him off in a “fit of giggles.” The next time he was set to toss the ball again, he couldn’t help poking fun at himself.
“[Don’t] run until I have the ball in the right position in my hand … I’m not that great,” he said with a laugh. He even tried to get his private press secretary Edward in on the fun, calling out, “Ed! Ed! Care to have a go?”
Later in the afternoon, Harry was treated to a performance by six cheerleaders — three women and three men — who informed the prince that he would have to take part as well.
Though he was initially “bashful,” Harry soon gamely found himself on his hands and knees with members of the squad climbing on top of him to form a human pyramid. “What am I doing?!” he exclaimed with a laugh at one point. When the pyramid finally collapsed, he was overheard saying jokingly, “What a mess!” as he brushed himself off.
Not that the cheerleaders thought so. “He’s really good,” one female member told Us Weekly of Harry’s athletic prowess. “He said the only American football he has played is on the Xbox.”
Calhoun agreed. “The prince was terrific,” he told Us. “He has great body coordination. He’s smart, alert and has good skills. I was impressed and a little bit surprised at how well he did. …[and] character wise, Harry has what you look for in a great player.”
