ESPN’s Robert Griffin III Learns On Air His Wife is in Labor, Bolts Off Sideline: ‘Hold On Baby, Daddy’s Coming!’

ESPN football analyst Robert Griffin III learned on air during the Fiesta Bowl that his wife was in labor, causing him to leave the game.

During ESPN2’s broadcast of the game between Texas Christian University and the University of Michigan on Saturday, toward the end of the third quarter, as one analyst was giving his two cents, Griffin could be seen on the phone receiving the news that his wife, Grete Griffin, had gone into labor.

“Really?” said Griffin, holding the phone toward his ear.

“What are we doing?” asked analyst Cole Cublic.

“I gotta go!” said Griffin.

“To the bathroom?” asked Cublic.

Griffin explained that his wife was in labor and his co-hosts – Cublic, A.Q. Shipley and Taylor Lewan – reacted ecstatically at the news and hugged him as he bolted off the sideline.

Griffin later posted that he caught a Southwest flight home.

“Made a SOUTHWEST FLIGHT to get home. HOLD ON BABY, DADDYs COMING!” he tweeted. “MIRACLES DO HAPPEN.”

In another tweet, Griffin said he made it home but the baby has yet to be born.

“UPDATE!!! Southwest got me Home in time!!! Because our baby decided it WASN’T TIME TO COME OUT YET. We are at Home and enjoying the other kind of 2023 fireworks. Baby Girl must have known that Mommy and Daddy had never spent a New Years apart. GOD KNEW where I needed to be,” he tweeted.

Griffin’s baby, his third child with Grete, was eventually born as his wife tweeted, “Me and the baby held on!!” (Griffin has a child of his own from his previous marriage.)

As for the game, TCU won in an upset, 51-45, and will face the University of Georgia in the College Football Playoff National Championship on Jan. 9.

Watch above via ESPN2.