Derailed by a bat

Holy PR Batman! This past Wednesday was another normal day for me (which means it was anything but normal) after Batgate took hold. If you didn't hear, a bat flew into the game and around the Gamblers players during a game Tuesday night at the Resch Center. The players, fearing for their safety, struck the bat with a hockey stick and killed it. The game was delayed for about 5 minutes during the whole ordeal. FOX 11 had the incident on video as part of the Resch Center's feed and played it on the sports that night. The next day FOX 11 did a full blown story on the incident, talked with a doctor who said the bat should have been killed, with PETA who said it shouldn't have been killed and with Gamblers Coach Jon Cooper who said he was relieved no fans or players were bitten by the bat. The story grew legs, or should I say wings, and took off. The story and video was picked up by media around the country and my phone didn't stop ringing. It aired on FOX national news, CNN, ESPN Sportscenter, Yahoo Sports, several major newspapers around the country as well as TV stations throughout the state. Coach Cooper was also on Canada's largest talk radio station the next day. Amazing how your day gets derailed by something like that. I spent hours on Wednesday dealing with the media on this story either looking for comments or by fulfilling requests for a copy of the video. The funny part is Coach Cooper happen to label it as Batgate during the FOX 11 interview and that term stuck and made headlines around the country. Holy smokes Batman!

Hot Shot & Me for a day

It's always interesting when you know you're going to spend the entire day with a Harlem Globetrotters player. Such was the case last Friday when I had the fortune of escorting Hot Shot Branch around Green Bay. The Globetrotters always send what they call an Advance Ambassador to go out and get publicity before the team performs in a particular city. In this case, the Globetrotters will be in Green Bay on December 30.

Our day started at 6:45am when we headed to FOX 11 for an appearance. Then it was over to WIXX and Y100 and then to CBS 5 for an interview. Then it was off to Kennedy Elementary on the city's west side for a presentation to the kids. It doesn't matter your age, everyone knows a Globetrotter when you see one and it always brings a smile to a face with the immediate response - "you know I use to watch Curly or Meadowlark or I saw them on Scooby Doo." We made promotional stops in the afternoon at Express Convenience and Festival Foods (thanks Nick for the hospitality!) and wrapped up the day with Hot Shot dropping the puck at the Gamblers game.

Hot Shot played college ball at Baylor and works very hard. He says he hasn't had a day off in weeks. Between playing with the team, he's off doing his Advance Ambassador duties. But he wouldn't have it any other way. He loves his job and gets paid to play a game he loves. When he's done, he hopes to have his own radio talk show. But for now, he's spinning the red, white and blue basketball on his fingers or drumstick or hockey stick or anything else he can get his hands on. Because for now, there's a smile to be put on a kid's face when he spins the ball on their finger. Like the commercial says....that's priceless.

No excuse for not knowing

I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me they didn't know a certain event was coming to Green Bay or to our complex. In this day and age of media explosion I tell them you've got to be kidding. Even if you don't listen to the radio or aren't able to catch the newspaper (either hard copy or online), there are a million other ways. Who doesn't have a smart phone these days? Actually, I don't, but besides me? We are using all of the so called hot social media outlets these days. Being "social" is in! The Resch Center is on facebook and of course we're tweeting like the rest of the free world on twitter @reschcenter. If that doesn't do it for you, you can sign up to be an eStar e-mail member. We'll send you the event announcements and you can even narrow it down to the the types of events you want to hear about. For a shameless plug, you can go to the ticketstaronline.com site and sign up at the top of the page. You'll always get the announcements right away and sometimes you'll get special ticket offers. Gosh, the only other thing we can do is personally knock on your door. Oh, and this blog? Yup, that's social media too. So, no more excuses...and I mean this especially for a few of MY friends. Get connected and stop letting the world pass you by!