It took her dad Scott McKillop 20-plus years to get into the national spotlight as Pitt’s leading tackler on one of the team’s best defenses in recent memory, but Harper McKillop’s wit got her 15 seconds of fame.
Twenty-four, to be exact, on Sunday’s episode of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
After an apparent long day of assisting with babysitting little brother Wes, 4-year-old Harper decides to decompress by chatting with her mother while sipping apple juice out of a mock champagne flute.
“It’s tough being a mom,” Lauren McKillop tells her daughter.
“Yeah, it’s tough being a mom,” Harper replies as she takes a swig from the glass with a relieving “Ahh.”
The in-studio audience laughs at the quip.
“But we get through it,” mom says.
“Yeah, it’s just what we do,” Harper adds as she downs another sip and looks at the camera.
Scott McKillop, an all-state player at Kiski Area High School, told the Trib that his daughter typically enjoys her “Harper juice” after long days. He said his wife gives it to her in a plastic champagne glass as she drinks her own glass of wine, which they call “Mom juice.”
“When she drinks it out of her champagne glass, she tries to act like an adult. She goes in between her Harper and her adult voice,” Scott said.
“I know I may be biased because she’s my daughter, but she is a real character,” he said.
The McKillop family now resides in Hurricane, W.Va., just outside of Charleston.
Scott McKillop gained All-American status as one of the nation’s leading tacklers while playing linebacker at Pitt in 2008.
He’ll forever be remembered as part of the school’s football folklore for stopping West Virginia University tailback Steve Slaton on a 4th and 3 from the Pitt 26 in the waning minutes of Pitt’s monumental 13-9 Backyard Brawl victory over the No. 2 Mountaineers. The loss kept WVU out of the national title game.
McKillop went on to play several years in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills.
