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Game (Day) Theory with ThatChristinaG · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 0:45
  Welcome back to the boundary Corner podcast.
• 0:49
  Been a while guys. I'm Curtis Wilson.
• 0:52
  I'm Brian Sigler. How you doing everybody buddy.
• 0:56
  It's been a little over a month since we last talked.
• 0:59
  A lots been going on in both our lives but tonight folks were
• 1:02
  bringing you a very special interview with Christina
• 1:06
  Garnett, Christina. Welcome to the boundary Corner
• 1:08
  podcast. Thanks for having me.
• 1:10
  I'm excited to be here. And we're very excited to have
• 1:14
  you all for those on hooky Twitter.
• 1:16
  If you don't already follow Christina, you need to go ahead.
• 1:21
  And as soon as you start listening to this episode that
• 1:25
  Christina G following Twitter, a lot of marketing, insights lot
• 1:29
  of good takes about Hokies morphine.
• 1:30
  And that what we're going to talk about a lot here tonight,
• 1:33
  but before we get in deep to it, Christina give us a little
• 1:36
  background about yourself. How you got into marketing?
• 1:39
  And then how you kind of became a hockey fan.
• 1:42
  An absolutely. So I was an English major in
• 1:46
  college went to Davidson College in North Carolina, was actually
• 1:50
  hired as a math teacher right out.
• 1:53
  Taught math provides years. During that time period, I met
• 1:56
  my husband and he is responsible for me.
• 2:00
  Being a marketer and a hokie fan.
• 2:02
  I have to give him all the credit.
• 2:03
  He's the he's the MVP about two weeks ago stating he said that I
• 2:07
  should go into marketing because I would fix advertising
• 2:11
  advertisements and I Fix just literally anything ice of all.
• 2:15
  What the what the font choice that should be coloring?
• 2:18
  Copy all of it. I would just naturally fix it.
• 2:21
  So moved to Virginia. So that my in-laws would be able
• 2:26
  to be closer to their grandchildren and tried to
• 2:30
  figure out if I wanted to go back into teaching, or going to
• 2:32
  do something else and was pulled into marketing found, HubSpot
• 2:37
  Academy and sort of reading and taking every class reading every
• 2:41
  blog reading. We booked everything, I get my
• 2:43
  hands on. And now, I'm now I'm in
• 2:47
  marketing, digital marketing strategy, advocacy community
• 2:50
  building now. So it all it all.
• 2:53
  I blame it all on the hubs that in the hubs.
• 2:56
  And so, your is your husband Virginia Tech, Alum, or just a
• 2:59
  Virginia Tech fan, like, me and Brian.
• 3:02
  Virginia Tech fan, his brother went to Virginia Tech his two.
• 3:06
  Closest friends went to Virginia Tech his dad's been season
• 3:09
  ticket holders. I want to say 30 years, Oh, it's
• 3:13
  he's pretty Vic. They tell stories about.
• 3:18
  I've heard a lot of really cool stories from the past, so
• 3:22
  Virginia Tech football, and but he went to, he went to VCU, he
• 3:28
  went to, he went to art school at VCU and then went to Syracuse
• 3:31
  for his master's. Very nice where I actually work
• 3:35
  at VCU. So, I'm taking master classes
• 3:38
  and stuff. Right?
• 3:39
  Right. Right now, myself.
• 3:40
  So I kind of have a little little bit of a similar type
• 3:42
  Journey, trying to change change streams, little past my college
• 3:47
  career. So that's really cool though.
• 3:49
  I mean, like I said me and Curtis kind of grew up pokefans
• 3:53
  as well, bring ya pre Vic and and so yeah, we've definitely
• 4:00
  kind of been living it for a while now and and we started
• 4:03
  this podcast a little over a year ago and just love doing it,
• 4:07
  love talking, hooky Sports and it's what we love.
• 4:10
  So it's what we love is you know, it's something that we get
• 4:14
  to do kind of you know once or twice a week and you know it's a
• 4:18
  lot of fun to do but Christina why we brought you all here is
• 4:22
  you know couple reasons a I can first.
• 4:25
  Remember you, pop it on my Twitter feed, back in late
• 4:27
  summer, early fall last year when you literally put a hand
• 4:32
  out and said I would love to help Virginia Tech football with
• 4:35
  marketing, and you even put those very to special words,
• 4:38
  people like to hear pro bono. Yeah, I am going to assume no
• 4:43
  one ever reached out to, you know, that's sad, but that's not
• 4:50
  welcome. So we saw you do that and then
• 4:54
  your thread on December 15th. I mean, I remember right?
• 5:03
  Brian likes it. He's like did you see
• 5:05
  Christina's thread and I'm like I'm going through and we're
• 5:07
  like, oh Li Mo, you dropped so many things that night with that
• 5:13
  tweet. Yeah, there were a lot of good
• 5:15
  threads on December 15th and goodbye mean raking raking.
• 5:20
  The program over the coals a little bit for what was
• 5:23
  happening between some of the gas lighting from from wit.
• 5:28
  And all of the other things that came after when we Pretty much
• 5:33
  do that. We're probably get a new coach
• 5:35
  and all of a sudden that wasn't happening and I think the fan
• 5:40
  base that in a nutshell wouldn't have really pushed the fanbase
• 5:44
  to where it was, but I think it was kind of like a culmination
• 5:46
  of a bunch of months put together of things that were a
• 5:52
  lot of people in the fan base. Just said, this doesn't quite
• 5:55
  seem to be going the way we think it should.
• 5:57
  And that was just kind of the, the icing on the cake there and
• 6:01
  it really kind of put A lot of folks in a place where they were
• 6:05
  looking for answers and I thought you had a really good
• 6:08
  thread that kind of broke down to the nuts and bolts of what
• 6:12
  some of the problems are at least on the The Fan facing and
• 6:16
  the recruiting facing aspects of the program.
• 6:19
  No, no, I hope so I don't want it to the place.
• 6:24
  Like, I don't want anybody lose her job.
• 6:27
  I do want things to be better and I think there's an
• 6:30
  improvement. And so for me it all comes down
• 6:35
  to I I work in community every day, I work in advocacy, I work
• 6:42
  in being a fan of the Bands. That's that's some of the work
• 6:47
  that I enjoy the road and so I know the pitfalls of of not
• 6:53
  being able to make everybody happy.
• 6:54
  That's just, I understand that you have a deeply rooted
• 7:00
  passionate community and with that you get good and bad,
• 7:04
  you're going to get, you're going to get people who shake
• 7:06
  their fist. You're going to get people who
• 7:09
  love you, no matter what, you're going to see the gamut and
• 7:13
  that's fine, but I think that winner lose there are patterns
• 7:19
  that need to be addressed. And and from my perspective,
• 7:23
  everything that I'm seeing can be fixed every single thing to
• 7:26
  be fixed. But like most things you have to
• 7:28
  acknowledge that there's a problem.
• 7:29
  So for me, it really came down to if we're going to if we're
• 7:34
  going to have this conversation, I am a firm believer.
• 7:37
  In giving prescriptive complaints, if we're going to
• 7:43
  talk about something being bad or hating something, it isn't
• 7:47
  doing any good to just shake your fist.
• 7:51
  You can shake your fist in explain, what's wrong, then you
• 7:55
  can start taking those positive steps forward and really kind of
• 7:58
  focusing your energy on, what do we need to do to make this
• 8:02
  better. So I do want to say that and
• 8:04
  then I do want to give them a positive What they're doing with
• 8:08
  Dwight and bringing Dwight Vic on is such a positive First
• 8:15
  Step. It's a major, first sent for me.
• 8:17
  I want to give them kudos for that.
• 8:20
  I think that it's going to reverberate through the program.
• 8:24
  I think it's only going to create good things.
• 8:26
  I think he was the perfect choice to do it.
• 8:29
  I just want to die. I know that there's gonna be a
• 8:31
  lot of negativity in this, but I want to, I want to highlight
• 8:35
  that them, having Dwight, Take on that role and really be a
• 8:41
  conduit and a bridge between current Hokie nation and it's
• 8:45
  celebrated past is much needed and will bleed into other
• 8:51
  efforts in a very positive way. So I definitely want to
• 8:54
  highlight that and say that. I'm so so glad that they're
• 8:57
  doing that I think that that's going to pay dividends.
• 9:01
  We agree with you 100% on that. We had the pleasure back in
• 9:05
  February and we interviewed the Dwight, that episode was two
• 9:09
  hours. It could have been six and we
• 9:12
  were talking about the past, the present, his thoughts, on the
• 9:15
  current status of the program and he sort of got to give a
• 9:19
  little insight that night, that some things were coming down.
• 9:21
  And with him doing what, he's doing his personality.
• 9:26
  And if you've ever met him Christina and you may have, it's
• 9:29
  infectious, he's just a person. He literally Brian.
• 9:33
  If you remember that night, it felt like somebody that we like
• 9:36
  literally grew up. Talking over Skype.
• 9:39
  Yeah. And in you talk about them,
• 9:43
  bringing him in. Absolutely.
• 9:44
  I think they it is a huge, not just a layup.
• 9:49
  It's a slam dunk. Yeah, I mean, it looked like
• 9:52
  what they were doing with with Darryl before he took the job
• 9:55
  with the 49ers. They just said, hey Dwight pick
• 9:59
  up what Darrell's already started here and run with it.
• 10:01
  You are the perfect voice for this type of movement, that
• 10:05
  needs to come back to Virginia Tech because Being having ties
• 10:07
  to, you know, what built the program to begin with and
• 10:11
  understanding the state and understanding the school and
• 10:15
  just everything top to bottom, he kind of fits that mold.
• 10:18
  So we wanted to start the conversation tonight in terms of
• 10:23
  kind of what what Virginia Tech is may be lacking in terms of
• 10:28
  marketing and public relations and things of that nature and
• 10:33
  kind of break that down. And then see what that
• 10:35
  prescription would be as you kind of I talked about earlier,
• 10:38
  Christina. So let's start with branding.
• 10:42
  Yeah, that's, that's a big thing for us.
• 10:44
  Because I feel like Virginia Tech has always had kind of a
• 10:46
  standout brand, and I feel like we've lost that a little bit.
• 10:50
  So, we've got Buzz words right now that we use in the program,
• 10:53
  like, hard smart, tough and hard hat, mentality, and grit and me,
• 10:58
  and Curtis have talked a little bit in the past, is just a lot
• 11:01
  of the criticism that we have in that we've seen in general, is
• 11:04
  that these are kind of just words Or something that they
• 11:08
  kind of put there to be a stand-in for things that we used
• 11:13
  in the past. But they really are more like
• 11:16
  internal slogans that we think fit more like meetings and
• 11:19
  practices and workouts and not necessarily something that you
• 11:21
  would use as terms in terms of external branding and they don't
• 11:25
  really offer the broad appeal like lunch pail, or beer ball
• 11:28
  and you know, Terrordome and everything from the Beamer and
• 11:31
  Foster era. So what are some of the
• 11:33
  shortcomings you see from the football team in terms of their
• 11:36
  branding? Absolutely.
• 11:38
  It's a really great point. So probably the best way to
• 11:41
  describe it is that and a lot of the issues stem from stuff that
• 11:45
  it just circumstances. So basically what you have is
• 11:51
  you have the legacy of Virginia Tech football, you have its
• 11:55
  storied history, you have its longevity, you have Beamer being
• 12:01
  such a central and Foster being such core pillars of What?
• 12:07
  Football is a Virginia Tech and that's amazing, but it also is
• 12:13
  hurtful when you're having transitioned into something new
• 12:17
  because you have this disconnect, you need to
• 12:22
  celebrate and appreciate and continue to monetize the Legacy
• 12:28
  and the cloud of Virginia Tech football.
• 12:30
  But then you're also trying to make it into something.
• 12:32
  That's for this new, this new part.
• 12:35
  So what you're having is You're having this fight between the
• 12:41
  old and the new. And the fact is that they want
• 12:47
  the new regime wants, they want to put their footprint on it,
• 12:50
  and I'm not saying that's bad. That's that's natural
• 12:53
  inclination. It's, it's your job.
• 12:55
  It's your team. It's your, it's your house now.
• 13:00
  But it's directly opposed to the old rituals, the old chance the
• 13:08
  old vernacular. And so what they've done is
• 13:11
  there, they are trying to replace something that took
• 13:16
  decades to build in a couple Seasons with words.
• 13:22
  And that doesn't work. And it's not just a Virginia
• 13:25
  Tech thing, it wouldn't work anywhere because you are your
• 13:31
  you're trying to take something new and fresh and and hoping
• 13:36
  that it carries the weight of decades and it just can't it
• 13:39
  just really can't. I do want to say though that the
• 13:43
  graphic designs that are coming out are gorgeous.
• 13:47
  There's definitely been years, where I've been like, I don't
• 13:50
  know what that was. I mean What is this?
• 13:54
  So I want to give love. I want to give love where it's
• 13:56
  deserved. The graphic design is amazing,
• 13:59
  but that's also a problem. So, what's beautiful?
• 14:03
  What's really cool about the design is is not just the layers
• 14:07
  that they have, but there's this texture.
• 14:11
  So many Virginia Tech football, fans have saved tickets.
• 14:14
  They've saved, like all of the things and so if you look at
• 14:18
  some of the graphics, there's like those layers of wrinkles.
• 14:22
  So it locks it looks like a Keepsake.
• 14:26
  It looks like something that's on your board that if you have a
• 14:29
  table that's like decoupaged with like tickets that it looks
• 14:33
  like something that could fit in there.
• 14:35
  It has like storied like it's fresh but feels story and so I
• 14:40
  feel like graphically, they found the mix.
• 14:44
  But copy wise, they have not. Does that make sense?
• 14:48
  It does, it feels, it feels modern, but the layers of
• 14:52
  they've created in their, in their visual aesthetic creates
• 14:56
  this. This it's modern, but it has
• 15:00
  this touch of the past if it already feels like a Keepsake.
• 15:05
  So graphically, I feel like they've got The Branding quite
• 15:07
  well. The other thing is that, I find
• 15:12
  that if you look at Khan social and you look at the hashtags and
• 15:17
  where the hashtags are being used.
• 15:19
  The hashtags, actually have the best response when it's done by
• 15:23
  the recruits and then when it's done by the commitments.
• 15:26
  So when there are announcing and they are aligning themselves
• 15:31
  with this, so it it becomes a part of the recruitment story
• 15:38
  less so than like the current story of the team if you look at
• 15:42
  them like like Engagement wise, if it makes more sense because
• 15:48
  that's how their recruits are identifying themselves.
• 15:52
  And there's so many questions like oh, you're committing to
• 15:55
  Virginia Tech. Cool.
• 15:55
  But what's a hokie being able to have rally cry?
• 15:59
  A hashtag dissociates with. This is kind of who I am and the
• 16:04
  hard hat. Mentality feels very much in
• 16:06
  line of what would be our version of lunch pail.
• 16:10
  Well, would be this version and so I understand where that
• 16:14
  comes. From the hard smart tough.
• 16:17
  I don't like just because UVA did the same thing if like the
• 16:22
  next season and we made fun of it and it was, it was three
• 16:25
  words and I was like, yeah. And so I think the reason why
• 16:39
  the lunch pail and Beamer ball and Terrordome matter, is that
• 16:44
  there Shins that back up. Those words there are receipts.
• 16:49
  Yeah, so using hashtags for hard hat, like hard hat mentality and
• 16:53
  grit and hard smart Tov but doesn't really carry anything
• 16:57
  until there's something that accompanies it.
• 17:00
  Like if you say Terrordome, you don't hear Terror Dome.
• 17:03
  You actually feel like what that's like then your mind like,
• 17:10
  it comes with weights, like it carries stuck with it and that's
• 17:14
  the point of Branding, if the some of the best Brands, it's
• 17:18
  not the word. It's what the what comes with
• 17:21
  the word, it's what weight carries that think about, think
• 17:25
  about movies or your favorite song, or your favorite concert
• 17:29
  or your favorite. Like if you go to if I say
• 17:32
  McDonald's right now, You're pregnant to think about what
• 17:37
  you're going to order. What's your go-to order or you
• 17:40
  might smell the fries. But you have something that
• 17:43
  comes along with the word, it might even just be the jingle,
• 17:46
  but the word on its own doesn't like it doesn't exist by itself,
• 17:51
  it carries weight with it. So the thing is is that for
• 17:55
  Branding, they need to continue these until they are able to
• 18:00
  create weight with it. Or they need to embrace.
• 18:10
  What they, what they let go, which was like, when you think
• 18:15
  of the lunch pail, I think of all the Times They carried it.
• 18:18
  I think of watching them putting like the grass.
• 18:21
  Yes. Like, it's not just lunch pail
• 18:24
  to me. It's like, I think a beamer
• 18:26
  ball. There are specific plays.
• 18:29
  Yeah, that come into your head. It's not the word.
• 18:32
  Like that's the thing about branding as people want to put
• 18:34
  like a word, be like this sounds fancy.
• 18:36
  Like that. That's not the point.
• 18:38
  It needs to evoke. An emotional response because
• 18:41
  that's what carries. That's what creates connection.
• 18:44
  Christina, just a few minutes ago.
• 18:46
  You said Terrordome, my first thought was Clemson 1999, Corey
• 18:50
  Moore sitting on that bench. Saying the words I got chills to
• 18:54
  run on my arm. You close its associated with
• 18:57
  something. Yeah and no connection, you
• 19:02
  can't. Do you think them trying to
• 19:06
  Brand? It this way?
• 19:07
  So quickly was a mistake, like should they have just said, hey,
• 19:11
  stick with what we've got and then let something naturally
• 19:15
  happen and that's what our brand is.
• 19:19
  I think that they really should have focused on caring because
• 19:24
  it for that, for the first few years, that was that transition.
• 19:27
  You have the 25, you have to have things where they were
• 19:31
  trying to, they were very clearly.
• 19:33
  Especially when he's first year, they were very clearly trying to
• 19:36
  create a smooth transition. And I feel like they did a good
• 19:38
  job of that and then it was planting the seeds for this new
• 19:42
  regime and what that looks like. What I think that they really
• 19:46
  what I think would have been awesome was the thing is that We
• 19:52
  are all building like no matter who you are and what you're
• 19:55
  doing your building off of someone else's work.
• 19:59
  And it doesn't make you less sir.
• 20:02
  Like Fuente is building off of Beamers work, and that's not a
• 20:06
  bad thing. That's that's he's next.
• 20:09
  Like that's that's not bad, just like, every marketer is doing is
• 20:13
  standing on the shoulders of Ogle.
• 20:15
  Be like, it's just he's the OG and acknowledge and we worship
• 20:20
  him for it and then we, but we know that that will carry us
• 20:24
  through. So I feel like, especially
• 20:27
  because when today was supposed to be, or is supposed to be
• 20:32
  like, This offensive, have this offensive mindset.
• 20:38
  What would be the offensive version of lunch, pail?
• 20:43
  Beamer ball tear down. What does that look like?
• 20:46
  And so thinking about what people call it like, I just, I
• 20:54
  think of, like feed forward and I think funny.
• 20:58
  Yeah, yeah. The things I think of the things
• 21:02
  that the fans do by themselves, I'm a big football club fan
• 21:06
  like, I love Cool. So I I see teams outside of
• 21:14
  American football, they have these rituals and so much about
• 21:18
  community building is based off of rituals.
• 21:22
  And so it creates that emotional connection.
• 21:25
  It's why you shake your keys. It's why you move your arms to
• 21:30
  block a kick. Like, you can't remove be more
• 21:33
  ball and then expect people to still do that motion in the
• 21:35
  stand, you know? Like One creates a need for the
• 21:39
  other and the rituals also create an opportunity for the
• 21:45
  fans to participate and that's where I feel like such a
• 21:49
  disconnect as happen. I feel like there's been moments
• 21:53
  of opportunity where like for example the Barstool big cat
• 21:59
  game. Yeah, such a perfect moment.
• 22:08
  We're like the things that I love and I know that another and
• 22:13
  I know it's we're going to talk about social and that's
• 22:15
  obviously like, free social. I want him to have fun, like, I
• 22:21
  don't want it to look, perfectly curated and I don't want like
• 22:24
  perfect spaces between emojis. I want you, I want it to be
• 22:28
  obvious that you almost cost because you were so height, but
• 22:32
  like, stopped herself at the very last second, like, I want,
• 22:37
  like, so. One of the best accounts I had a
• 22:39
  friend who used to do the social for for the Tampa Bay Rays and
• 22:44
  if you look back especially like during like when they were, when
• 22:50
  they were playing in the series and when they were doing all
• 22:52
  this you'll see like they have videos on the Clips in the
• 22:55
  graphics like everybody else but when you look at the copy it
• 22:58
  looks like it was written by a fan.
• 23:00
  Like there's a shrug and there's like did you see that like it,
• 23:05
  it needs to feel the Beauty of football, especially in the ACC,
• 23:12
  is that it is unpredictable and that it is messy and that it is
• 23:16
  beautiful. And so I don't want this
• 23:18
  perfectly curated copy. I want it to feel frantic and
• 23:23
  Alive like I want it to feel like something like a person
• 23:28
  who's pressing the keys is having typos because they're so
• 23:32
  excited. Like that's what I want to see
• 23:34
  instead of this. Just like perfect line.
• 23:37
  Like they're about to send me a LinkedIn request like I love
• 23:44
  that. Christina will get to the social
• 23:47
  media because I feel like we could we could we could start
• 23:49
  talk with that and going forever.
• 23:51
  Yeah. You know is that they've been
• 23:52
  putting out of the practices and then the interviews, but more
• 23:56
  importantly, you want to talk about the messy.
• 23:59
  Let's talk about that Vance. Vice video with lettuce, myth
• 24:03
  and Brock. That was messy, that was
• 24:06
  beeping. That was a lot of beeping that
• 24:09
  was you felt like if the doors were closed that would still be
• 24:15
  happening. How do you feel like the video
• 24:17
  presentations have been going in all those aspects?
• 24:21
  They it still presents the same problem.
• 24:25
  Okay, it's creating behind-the-scenes access which
• 24:29
  is awesome and we want access. The problem is is that it's
• 24:34
  still coming from a publishing perspective and not a
• 24:37
  Conversation perspective. Okay, the problem with the
• 24:40
  videos and the problem like I'm glad that they're I'm glad that
• 24:43
  they're showcasing personality. I'm glad that they're doing all
• 24:47
  those things. My problem is is that it still
• 24:51
  one directional, Hmm, I would say this Virginia Tech.
• 24:57
  I would say this for any brand honestly, and I've made this
• 24:59
  complaint online in relationship to other to other brands.
• 25:04
  Is that there's a lot of Brands would be like why?
• 25:06
  Why do a lot of people not like our content, why is it?
• 25:09
  Not a lot of people engaging and retweeting and sharing stuff and
• 25:15
  it's because you're talking at them.
• 25:16
  You're not talking with them. And so there's an opportunity.
• 25:23
  T. To connect like you know what, I
• 25:27
  would love like what I would like those those videos have
• 25:30
  their place and I don't think that should stop doing them.
• 25:33
  But what I would love is that fan interaction.
• 25:38
  Like it's not enough, it's not enough.
• 25:44
  So let me give you an example. You have a child, you're going
• 25:50
  to take them to go, see a Marvel movie, what is your kid going to
• 25:55
  want to wear? Potentially the costume or
• 25:59
  Marvel shirt. Because they're associated with
• 26:04
  it. They want to feel like they're
• 26:06
  one with the moving. Exactly.
• 26:08
  When you go to a tech game, what do you want to wear as much
• 26:13
  maroon as possible? Exactly.
• 26:25
  How do you feel a part of the team?
• 26:27
  When all of the focus is on content going out and it not
• 26:32
  going back and forth there Stephanie and the thing to that
• 26:36
  was like all the hashtags and everything else.
• 26:39
  Like for an algorithm perspective that also doesn't
• 26:41
  perform well everything that's going to make you click out of
• 26:43
  the experience is going to have less views.
• 26:47
  I mean that's for any platform. They want you to stay, why don't
• 26:51
  you have a conversation where it since talking about like you
• 26:54
  know what I would love. Do a post and it says make a
• 26:59
  hokie fan have like show that gif of Peter Parker when his
• 27:03
  hair goes up when he has the spider sense tingling.
• 27:06
  And it's and we've seen a couple of these like make a hokie fan
• 27:10
  have this in five seconds or imagine if someone asked you
• 27:14
  about your favorite game, Your favorite play immediately have a
• 27:20
  motion. And so there's problem like I
• 27:24
  have I have problems with. Like, calling for Nostalgia but
• 27:32
  not doing it for that purpose. So like, for example, when the
• 27:37
  first, the first emails came out for donations after it was
• 27:42
  pretty clear, there wasn't going to be a season or or people were
• 27:45
  going to be able to attend. I almost rewrote that mail,
• 27:49
  like, three or four times. Like, I paste.
• 27:51
  Angrily. Like my husband, you have worked
• 27:54
  like, don't do this because it Felt it felt very much, like,
• 28:01
  remember standing in Lane? Remember, jumping up to Enter
• 28:04
  Sandman, and I was just like, all right, this is not working.
• 28:08
  I should cry. Because I can't be in Lane.
• 28:14
  Yep. So if you can't make me sad,
• 28:20
  then you're not going to get money out of me, if you can't
• 28:24
  evoke emotion, I mean. And that's honestly, like, if
• 28:26
  anyone takes like, if anyone takes anything out of this, is
• 28:30
  that the beauty of Virginia Tech.
• 28:31
  The beauty of any brand that does well, the beauty of any
• 28:35
  Community, it's laced, and into woven in Emotion.
• 28:39
  It is the most important lever you have.
• 28:44
  And you have a fan base that's angry at you and it's they're
• 28:48
  angry because they love it so much or they cheer you because
• 28:52
  they love you so much. The problem, the problem is not
• 28:57
  hateful fans. The problem is a pathetic fans.
• 29:01
  Bingo that's the problem. That's the best thing that you
• 29:05
  should be afraid of. That's going to stop caring.
• 29:08
  Then yelling at you all day long they wouldn't be so loud if they
• 29:12
  were if they didn't love you. You so much if it wasn't
• 29:14
  important to them like there's a reason why if I hope you baby is
• 29:19
  born, it will have at least one hokey onesie, it will be
• 29:23
  christened into the church of Hokie Nation pretty important.
• 29:28
  It just will Why would you if you could yell at that Team all
• 29:33
  day long, but you still want your child to be a part of that
• 29:37
  fan Hood upon birth. That comes from love, that comes
• 29:44
  from you. Having that become such a core
• 29:48
  part of you. And so, I've written a lot about
• 29:51
  this with community building, and I talked about how you enter
• 29:54
  a community, but the community has to enter you.
• 29:59
  It has to otherwise, you can leave easily.
• 30:04
  There's so many people who could have left after last year but
• 30:07
  and and there's so many angry fans who who could leave but
• 30:11
  they'd rather talk and try to figure out what's wrong, they'd
• 30:14
  rather shake their fist at weddings be like, dude, just fix
• 30:18
  it. Like I love you fix it.
• 30:21
  Like, that's the thing that's at rest and like, the problem I had
• 30:28
  with, with the wit press conference, after all that went
• 30:30
  down was that, you know, the quote unquote, Twitter mob Not
• 30:34
  that, that really kind of took. It took it ticked me off a
• 30:38
  little bit just because I was like, well, I don't always agree
• 30:41
  with the people that fly off and want to fire the coach every
• 30:44
  time something goes south, but at the same time, I'd rather
• 30:47
  have that than, as you said a fan that's like, I don't care.
• 30:53
  You know, I like the tailgating, I'll casually go to a game but I
• 30:56
  don't really care whether it's a win or a loss or any of that
• 31:00
  stuff. Because once you start getting
• 31:02
  the apathy, that's when you have A lot of the other problems that
• 31:06
  were already experiencing and those are going to get
• 31:08
  exacerbate estimated when it comes to donations.
• 31:10
  And people showing up for games, my, my thing is that the Twitter
• 31:15
  mom is real, it just is I, but I could say that for every single,
• 31:20
  I can see say that for every single fandom.
• 31:24
  I mean, I'm Star Wars fan and a Marvel fan.
• 31:26
  So trust me, I've seen darker sides, then I got you.
• 31:30
  Like, I've seen it. The thing is, is that those
• 31:37
  those mobs occur like, think about what a mob is.
• 31:41
  And like the classic monster movie Set, they have their fire,
• 31:45
  they have their pitchforks, and they are knocking and banging on
• 31:48
  a door of the castle to get to the monster.
• 31:51
  They are ostracized from the thing that they are trying to
• 31:54
  get to. Hmm.
• 31:56
  And that is what the Twitter mob is.
• 31:58
  There is an information vacuum. They feel like they can't be
• 32:02
  heard, they can't be seen. They feel like they're locked
• 32:04
  out. They don't have all the
• 32:05
  information. And so they're only Resorts.
• 32:08
  I mean, that's that's human nature.
• 32:11
  Oh, you can't hear me? I'll get louder.
• 32:14
  Like it's, it's that mentality. We're to the point where you ask
• 32:21
  for change, you want things to be different and then if it
• 32:25
  doesn't happen, Then you get louder, hoping hoping now
• 32:32
  they'll hear me, but I feel like PR is at the heart of
• 32:38
  everything. I feel like it's at the heart of
• 32:42
  everything that's made it worse. So like if we're going to talk
• 32:45
  about that press conference, I saw the by saw the post from the
• 32:51
  Press before. I just watch the thing.
• 32:54
  So I had my own little moment and then I watched it, And it
• 32:59
  still didn't get any better. It, I immediately I immediately
• 33:10
  treat situations and brand the way.
• 33:12
  I immediately treat them the way I would, if they were a client.
• 33:15
  Okay, I immediately perceive. Okay, this has happened.
• 33:19
  How would I fix this? And how can we move forward?
• 33:23
  There was no fixing that was my press conference.
• 33:26
  There was no fixing you had, we had, we had come off the three
• 33:31
  worst seasons in the last 27 years.
• 33:36
  We were a 500 program, you writing was on the wall behind
• 33:41
  pay walls behind rumors, he's bottle he's been told he's fired
• 33:48
  and then the walk out in the way with presented that day the way
• 33:52
  his face looked. He knew I wanted to fire him.
• 33:58
  And then for us as fans, it was, this punch know he's coming
• 34:01
  back. This is like his first year and
• 34:03
  you're like his pardon, my French.
• 34:05
  Christina, his birth year. Are you kidding me?
• 34:09
  He's been here for five years. Sorry.
• 34:14
  No, don't when it comes more. Here's the thing for me, there
• 34:20
  to be any time. There's going to be that much
• 34:24
  emotion, and anything is going to have that much on the line.
• 34:28
  There needs to be significant training, PR training for anyone
• 34:34
  who's going to be speaking in front of the press.
• 34:38
  And that that goes forward, that goes for Fuente that goes for
• 34:41
  anybody because we've already seen what happens when things
• 34:49
  don't go their way when you're telling when you're telling
• 34:52
  press the press that like, that's a ridiculous question.
• 34:55
  Like we've already seen what happens when you get angry.
• 34:59
  So my first thing would be prior to any press conference.
• 35:04
  We are going to go through the talking points.
• 35:06
  I'm To sit at the back of the room.
• 35:08
  And I'm going to say the most hateful hot-button questions you
• 35:12
  could ever possibly get, because you need to be prepared for the
• 35:15
  worst. You need to be prepared for the
• 35:19
  absolute worst question. You need to know what that
• 35:22
  answer is going to look like. And you also need to not have
• 35:26
  heard that question for the first time because seeing is raw
• 35:29
  emotion. You see raw anger frustration
• 35:33
  and like the like the snide comment about that, they don't,
• 35:37
  they don't really provide that much with the with the smirk
• 35:40
  that was frustration from wit, and my opinion, that was him
• 35:44
  trying to find a lot like find to find Levity and something
• 35:49
  that he finds frustrating and it didn't land well because it
• 35:52
  shouldn't have happened and that comes down to, like I said, that
• 35:58
  comes down to PR training that comes to, and I would recommend
• 36:02
  that for any power 5 school, any power 5 school because you have
• 36:06
  scrutiny, like look at Alabama. They could they could lose one
• 36:13
  game and there's going to be fans climbing the walls.
• 36:19
  If you are in a if you were at a power 5 school, you are
• 36:24
  constantly constantly under a microscope.
• 36:30
  The power of your school is dictated by, how many wins you
• 36:33
  have what recruits you can get. How many awards your coach can
• 36:36
  get, how many positive press mentions your coaching team can
• 36:40
  get, it's all contingent upon creating this ecosystem of
• 36:43
  success. And so when you don't have that,
• 36:48
  you're going to get questions, you're going to get, you're
• 36:51
  going to get people asking really mean hateful things that
• 36:57
  bother you. I mean the best example, Love it
• 37:00
  is imagine how many people were frustrated with the team didn't
• 37:05
  feel like they were being heard, nothing was changing.
• 37:08
  And then Herbstreit has a really clear moment on a plane and
• 37:13
  talks directly into the camera about what is happening at
• 37:16
  Virginia Tech. Yep.
• 37:17
  And there was immediate change and we had some new people come
• 37:23
  in and we had some thought process on how we going to right
• 37:25
  this ship. And so from that moment, Are
• 37:30
  people in the fan base, that realize.
• 37:32
  Okay. It just has to be the right
• 37:35
  choice to complain. It just has to be the right
• 37:37
  voice to ask questions and so that creates a moment where you
• 37:41
  wonder the information vacuum? Again.
• 37:44
  Same thing about when he was being interviewed at Baylor.
• 37:50
  And we didn't find out until after.
• 37:52
  That was a, no. And then wit told us he's a
• 37:54
  trustworthy guy. Yeah.
• 37:56
  We don't know him like you do when you're expecting us to.
• 38:02
  You can't vouch for him when we didn't know.
• 38:06
  Yeah. All we have is conjecture and
• 38:08
  all we have are rumors. Then, what is, what is anyone
• 38:12
  going to do when they don't have anybody?
• 38:14
  I mean, literally all of 2020 was about See theories and what
• 38:19
  is fake news? But you know I'm saying, and so,
• 38:23
  why would a football fan base, be any different in absence of
• 38:26
  the information? We fill in our own blanks?
• 38:29
  And given some of the product we've received lately, those are
• 38:33
  tending towards, not giving the program, the benefit of the
• 38:36
  doubt. Exactly.
• 38:38
  If you don't have the Truth, then you make up your own.
• 38:43
  And that's what we've had to do. A ton over these last few years
• 38:47
  because we really don't know the head coach.
• 38:50
  There are stories that, you know, we see him and we see him
• 38:54
  as, you know, probably a good football coach.
• 38:57
  Probably a good family man and then you hear stories from
• 39:00
  people that have interviewed him in behind closed, doors.
• 39:03
  It's likely such a different person.
• 39:06
  Why isn't that different person coming into the conference?
• 39:11
  I mean, into the interview, I mean, Christina.
• 39:14
  How would you coach when you hear?
• 39:17
  I've heard David teal, Wes McElroy.
• 39:20
  John laser people Associated either writing about the program
• 39:24
  or part of the program saying, hello.
• 39:25
  He's so different behind closed, doors, you love them.
• 39:29
  How do you tell that coach that needs to be you?
• 39:32
  When you get in front of that press conference, when you get
• 39:35
  in front of a video screen, you need to figure out what her his
• 39:39
  triggers to why he can be comfortable in one setting and
• 39:42
  not the other. Okay, what is it about?
• 39:46
  What is it about behind closed doors that he can open up?
• 39:49
  Because I get it, I get it. I get people being introverted,
• 39:53
  I get people being closed off. I get people being protective, I
• 39:56
  completely respect that, I totally get it.
• 39:59
  The problem is, once again, it's a powerful program and it is,
• 40:06
  but it's, it's it's a cult of personality.
• 40:11
  I mean, if you think about it this way, if horrible didn't
• 40:15
  have a personal brand, how on Earth would he still like, I'm
• 40:18
  still shocked but how would he be?
• 40:20
  Mr. Curtis is the 49ers fans that he's got another side of
• 40:25
  that relationship that he can talk about.
• 40:27
  So horrible. Older but it's cult of
• 40:31
  personality. And so when you think about it
• 40:34
  and and that's the thing too is Beamer was at an advantage
• 40:40
  because it made sense why he didn't have a social media
• 40:43
  presence. yeah, it made sense and so there was there was no
• 40:49
  like like the entire fanbase isn't going to claim her for him
• 40:52
  and be like dude you need to be on Twitter like that's that's
• 40:55
  not going to happen and it didn't happen but if one tastes
• 41:00
  going to be on Twitter and he's going to respond and he's and
• 41:04
  you're going to have these moments, then we need to
• 41:07
  determine What does it look like for him to feel comfortable like
• 41:13
  that? And doesn't mean that he needs
• 41:15
  to have like calls in his office or calls and on his back porch,
• 41:21
  or like, what is it going to take for him to feel more
• 41:25
  comfortable? And then, how can we make that?
• 41:29
  Come forward? I'll come, I don't want to
• 41:33
  compare, but I feel like I need to compare it to Mike Young.
• 41:36
  Who I'm good with that. He's, he's so affable.
• 41:43
  And so just comfortable that when he speaks.
• 41:50
  Like I just I love the picture of him sitting watch like eating
• 41:53
  popcorn. It's like one of my favorite
• 41:55
  things. It gives me such a beamer
• 41:56
  energy. Yep.
• 41:58
  It is just relaxed but cool. Well I also feel like because
• 42:04
  Mike young it was always his dream to be here.
• 42:08
  The now he's here it's like when you know you're at the right
• 42:11
  place at the right time you know where You're supposed to be.
• 42:14
  It's like that. Man is sitting and his life.
• 42:19
  Like no way. I'm supposed to be here and I
• 42:21
  feel like maybe because Fuente still trying to like shake off
• 42:26
  the beam Earnest and and make things his own and He's not
• 42:31
  hitting the strides that I think he would have, he would have
• 42:33
  wanted for himself, maybe that's why, but I think he needs to
• 42:37
  figure out whoever's working, whoever's going to be like
• 42:40
  managing the pr and who's going to be working with them.
• 42:43
  They need to do a lot of work in the room where he's he's able to
• 42:52
  show himself because and I'm guilty of this.
• 42:56
  I just remember all the times, he would get mad during a
• 42:58
  football game and it was just like the Was my favorite part of
• 43:01
  the game? Yes.
• 43:03
  Yes. I don't care if you're angry,
• 43:06
  but show me something, like, show me that you're in there and
• 43:10
  so like he's yelling and I was like yes ones.
• 43:13
  They use like the beam a few years back where like holnar
• 43:17
  dizzy meltdown. And when he was saying that,
• 43:22
  like Tech was touching off but like they were just manhandling
• 43:25
  Tecna whole game. Yeah, and Fuente, I think want a
• 43:30
  great. Like I think the ref had to like
• 43:32
  talk wanted to calm down like I got I stood up and clapped I was
• 43:35
  so high so hyped and then like when he when he tackled Foster.
• 43:41
  Yeah I just what do you think? I think fans want him excited
• 43:47
  about being a part of this program.
• 43:49
  I think I think that if I can put just a point on I feel like
• 43:53
  sometimes it feels like when the press conferences, it's very
• 43:56
  much. I'm here because I have to be,
• 43:58
  I'm going through the motions, but where are you?
• 44:00
  See him on the sidelines in those moments.
• 44:03
  Again, spit or those moments with Bud Foster.
• 44:06
  You see that? He cares about what he's doing
• 44:08
  and that's infectious but he doesn't bring that to the other
• 44:12
  avenues of the, of the coaching responsibilities.
• 44:15
  And as you said, being a power five coaches like being a CEO,
• 44:19
  You Can't Hide Your CEO in these key moments like when they
• 44:25
  interview for another job and then you have this other guy
• 44:28
  come up and explain about it like no.
• 44:30
  You're the football. Coaches, just did this, you talk
• 44:33
  about it. You explain why you're coming
• 44:34
  back to Virginia Tech and I think a lot of it also comes to
• 44:39
  risk aversion and I can and that's why the pr is so reactive
• 44:45
  instead of proactive isn't it? Almost waits for it to Bubble Up
• 44:48
  before? It says anything?
• 44:50
  Assuming hopefully that it will blow over best example of this
• 44:54
  is the Sports Illustrated article.
• 44:57
  How does how does Sports Illustrated have more knowledge
• 45:00
  about Our team then like boosters.
• 45:03
  Yeah, like I don't even understand and the thing is that
• 45:09
  you need the Press On Your Side, you need them to, you need them
• 45:14
  to like the program, and want you to be successful.
• 45:17
  And you want that needs to be a very, that's a very symbiotic
• 45:21
  relationship. But I still feel like we'll
• 45:25
  never understand what happened with all those players, and then
• 45:29
  so many of them. Get out of the program so you
• 45:31
  don't really even have access, you've got a couple that had
• 45:35
  some rounds on Twitter and now the fan base.
• 45:39
  But based on that information and based on nothing coming out,
• 45:43
  more or less from the program directly, it's like, okay, well,
• 45:46
  we've got these accounts and we got the SI stuff, but we really
• 45:49
  have nothing official coming from the football program
• 45:52
  directly. We're over here, making our own
• 45:55
  narrative again, and they're just playing damage control
• 45:58
  after the fact, and trying to clean up Medicine.
• 46:01
  It's not just affecting fans perception of the program, but
• 46:05
  it's real, you know, affecting how recruits look at the program
• 46:09
  as well. Can I ask you this Christina?
• 46:12
  This is, this is bronze Bugaboo. He hasn't said it yet, but he
• 46:15
  hates that we cannot get in front of anything.
• 46:20
  The spring game, being canceled, literally an hour and eight
• 46:24
  minutes before Ralph Northam, which we knew was going to be
• 46:27
  announced or going 30 percent capacity.
• 46:30
  Yeah. Yeah there's been other times
• 46:33
  too. Where Brian's been like get out
• 46:35
  in front of these easy things where you don't like brown just
• 46:38
  said played am in control. So when you see this happen I
• 46:41
  want you to think about my partner here space and how we
• 46:45
  get angry. And I'm using the way to getting
• 46:48
  the Skype or the text messages like get in front of this.
• 46:52
  This is your job. It's the easy stuff that bothers
• 46:56
  me. I'll go to the spring game.
• 47:00
  Whether I know people either want to have it or don't have it
• 47:03
  that that's beside the point. But to me you made this
• 47:07
  announcement on your own time. No one told you.
• 47:09
  You had to make this announcement at a given time.
• 47:13
  You choose number one before the Northam comments that day,
• 47:17
  number two, You either didn't see Fallout coming from this, or
• 47:22
  you saw it and decided we're going to announce this now, but
• 47:26
  announce our contingency for this an hour later or three
• 47:30
  hours later or the next day, I can't remember what it was.
• 47:32
  But include what your contingency is.
• 47:36
  If you're not going to have the spring game in the announcement
• 47:38
  that you're not having the spring game Henry?
• 47:41
  Well I think I think for me it comes down to you need to be
• 47:47
  prepared for The worst and press conferences, and any of those,
• 47:52
  and no one could have seen, no one could have seen this coming
• 47:56
  and we saw this. I mean, I'd like to think that
• 47:59
  the NCAA thought I was bullying them last year because they were
• 48:02
  useless, but I don't know. But there's supposed to be there
• 48:08
  needs to be someone and it's usually good if it's your PR
• 48:12
  person because they need to, they need to be able to smell
• 48:14
  trouble before it hits. But you need Marvel fans, you
• 48:19
  need a doctor, strange Doctor Strange on your team.
• 48:24
  You need someone who's going to be able to see like full game
• 48:28
  theory. What are all the ways?
• 48:29
  This could go? What is for, what are the
• 48:33
  possible things? What are the possible things
• 48:35
  that we could do? What does each variation look
• 48:38
  like assuming? This is the next is the next
• 48:41
  thing, what happens and then communicating at Foley with
• 48:44
  whoever needs to know that so that you have everything in
• 48:47
  place Lace. So when you know that a great
• 48:50
  Governor is going to say this, cool.
• 48:52
  Well, this is, this is the contingency plan that aligns.
• 48:55
  With that directive. We can have landing page made
• 48:59
  up. We can have it live quickly.
• 49:01
  We can have everything that we need but it comes down to
• 49:05
  planning and being prepared for the worst.
• 49:08
  When you have a, when you a perfect example, how many years
• 49:12
  did they ask for donations after a football game loss?
• 49:16
  Every game isn't Something you could have paused or purposely
• 49:21
  sent the donation email before the game in.
• 49:24
  Like I kind of deal, you know I'm saying like yeah it's the
• 49:28
  little marketing and PR move that they stopped sending the
• 49:34
  emails asking for money. After that after the losses
• 49:36
  because everyone got really angry and loud about how that
• 49:40
  was a bad choice. You just have flown out by pit.
• 49:43
  How about donating to the marks is probably the most ideal time
• 49:47
  to send. Nothing like that, especially
• 49:49
  only home game would be a mass blast.
• 49:52
  What 90 minutes before kickoff when everybody's in the parking
• 49:57
  lot with their iPhones and drinking beer and having a great
• 49:59
  time? Okay, clock wants to donate, 20
• 50:02
  bucks. Yeah, let's do it.
• 50:04
  If that's something you're talking about like the opportune
• 50:07
  times like if you have them with cold again, if you have a loss?
• 50:10
  No, don't think about that. But what your contingency plan
• 50:13
  for the next week or so you're saying this and I'm sitting in
• 50:17
  here. Novice Christina saying if you
• 50:20
  were to email me or send something on Twitter or anything
• 50:25
  like that, a few hours before the game, whether I'm sitting
• 50:28
  here in my my man cave or I'm down at tops in Blacksburg
• 50:33
  having a real you said that I'm feeling good.
• 50:38
  Yep. I've got a buzz about my body
• 50:40
  about the game that day where I just might say screw it's in ten
• 50:43
  bucks. It's the thing is that was that
• 50:47
  like And this is gonna sound really bad for any marketers on,
• 50:50
  but they'll agree with me. Get in the head of your
• 50:53
  customer, and really think about the customer experience.
• 50:57
  Like, you don't need a marketing class.
• 50:59
  You need to be able to think like the person you want to
• 51:03
  Target. Really swim in that.
• 51:08
  Like you said, where are you going to be the most height, the
• 51:14
  most Pro Hokies the most loose with your wallet just before the
• 51:19
  start of a game that's before the start of the game.
• 51:21
  I'm excited for the leave it. If I'm sitting at home.
• 51:23
  I'm excited for what I'm about to watch.
• 51:26
  I'm engaged with the program as optimistic as I'm going to be is
• 51:30
  before just before that kickoff. Yep.
• 51:32
  Regardless of what happens win or lose the most optimistic.
• 51:35
  I'm probably going to be about this game is just before
• 51:37
  kickoff. Yep.
• 51:39
  That's we're going to feel the best about the program.
• 51:41
  What I can do is you can even do it as like.
• 51:44
  I know that nonprofits can do this.
• 51:46
  I don't know if they'd be able to do it, but having like a text
• 51:49
  campaign like text hashtag Hokies to 5, 4, 3, 2 1 and you
• 51:55
  get 20 cent $25. That is and I mean as we're
• 52:03
  moving forward, this whole thing with donations, we're going to
• 52:06
  need a lot more money coming in especially relative to the what
• 52:10
  people in the ACC or doing because we're already falling
• 52:14
  behind on that front, especially on the individual donation side
• 52:18
  of things. In terms of what we are putting
• 52:21
  funding wise into the program. We're about middle of the pack
• 52:25
  in terms of total money and we're towards like the back
• 52:29
  third. In terms of donations.
• 52:32
  We got to figure out something to get, get those in here and it
• 52:35
  and I know winning helps but in lieu of that we're going to
• 52:39
  need. It need to figure out another
• 52:40
  way to get more folks engaged in the program, both with, you know
• 52:45
  putting asses in seats at game but also putting money into the
• 52:49
  the into hope Club. Well here's the thing, hokey
• 52:54
  Club, when you think about Hockey Club, what do you what is
• 52:57
  like your first thought? Drive for 25.
• 53:02
  But you know what? It should feel like, the hunky
• 53:04
  Club should be ran like an ambassador program, not like an
• 53:07
  entry-level donation Point. That's what, that's what
• 53:10
  probably Club is. It's, it's here's your entry to
• 53:14
  becoming a donor to Virginia Tech football, and that's not
• 53:17
  what it should be. It should be an ambassador
• 53:19
  program. Where everyone that gets to be a
• 53:23
  part of that is given tools that they can share their fan Hood.
• 53:27
  Here's the latest. Here's the latest graphic.
• 53:30
  We're going to give you that you can share on social before
• 53:32
  anyone else. Here's a special Banner that you
• 53:34
  can put for your Twitter and Facebook.
• 53:36
  Here's here's a Keepsake that you can have.
• 53:38
  Here's here's, here's a free ticket to bring someone who's
• 53:42
  never been to a hoagie game like just it shouldn't feel like now
• 53:49
  it feels like It feels like Hokie Club is the token answer
• 53:53
  for. Do I, do you support Virginia
• 53:56
  Tech football with your money and people say yes I'm hoping
• 53:58
  Club member That's it. Shouldn't feel like it's tied to
• 54:02
  money poke Club. Should never feel like it's tied
• 54:05
  to money. It should feel like that's your
• 54:09
  entry into becoming the person who gets to be on the field, the
• 54:15
  person who gets to help the person who gets to weave
• 54:18
  themselves into the history of Virginia Tech, it should feel
• 54:22
  like that is how you enter the community, it should feel
• 54:27
  emotional, you shouldn't be tied to money, should be tied to
• 54:30
  emotion. Like what I would love to say
• 54:34
  honestly as soon as things are open and as soon as it's safe
• 54:40
  for us all to congregate, I would love for there to be a
• 54:42
  field day at Lane know y'all go. Yep, that'd be really cool.
• 54:47
  Just be in that Stadium again. You can have layers.
• 54:51
  You can have past players, you can have the staff but it
• 54:55
  literally is like the whole point, the whole point.
• 55:00
  Is you go and you get to stay in on the field and you get to meet
• 55:04
  some of your favorite players and you get to hang out and hug
• 55:07
  your friends that you would normally you haven't seen in
• 55:10
  months. But used to tailgate with all
• 55:12
  the time, just do like a fifty dollar, a ticket field day and
• 55:17
  you get to go and you get to hang out and you get to hug your
• 55:22
  hokey friends. There you go.
• 55:25
  Let's talk about that a little bit more because I feel like in
• 55:27
  terms of the events that are engaging, Fans and getting fans
• 55:33
  access to the players and things like that.
• 55:36
  I know covid has pretty much put the kibosh on that last year and
• 55:40
  into this year but that was very lacking.
• 55:43
  Even before the things with covid, what are some other type
• 55:49
  of events or things that you, I know you just mentioned the the
• 55:51
  field day, they're there. Any other types of events like
• 55:54
  that that you think would be good for the football team to
• 55:57
  engage in with the fans. Yes, I I'm a massive fan of
• 56:01
  Peloton. I have my palate on bike.
• 56:04
  Imagine if any of the players there's got to be a Peloton in
• 56:07
  that Barn like there just has to be and if you don't get one but
• 56:11
  imagine if you basically had like a joint ride and you can
• 56:16
  ride with your favorite players or you can do like the tread and
• 56:20
  like on because on Saturdays at at 10 I do a ride with my
• 56:24
  friends from marketing Twitter and we all get on and we ride
• 56:27
  and it's like the leaderboards. There we high-five each other.
• 56:30
  Imagine imagine because these players are working out all the
• 56:34
  time. Anyway.
• 56:36
  Imagine if you got to be on a ride with one of your favorite
• 56:39
  players. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool.
• 56:42
  Pretty, pretty cool. You get to BU get to be Peloton
• 56:44
  buddies with. So and so you get to see their
• 56:46
  name on the leaderboard and it's going to push you harder than
• 56:49
  you would ever been pushed because you're going to want to
• 56:51
  get as close to their to their personal best.
• 56:54
  As you can imagine. How special that would be and
• 56:58
  all you need is one Peloton bike.
• 57:00
  And a tweet, every week, you can have a different player but
• 57:03
  would that tweet? Be timed at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.
• 57:12
  You can almost set your clock to the to the social media drops
• 57:15
  here, you can. And it's ridiculous.
• 57:18
  Although I have noticed, actually me and Brawn and we
• 57:21
  were discussing yesterday, all the things we want to talk about
• 57:24
  tonight. We kind of been going through it
• 57:26
  and it has been more random good about last ten or Of days and we
• 57:31
  say that like retweeted a tie rod one of his personal, not
• 57:36
  something they created and put out David plenty and other guys.
• 57:41
  But let me ask this about Twitter.
• 57:44
  Yeah. And if you don't want to answer
• 57:46
  it you don't have to give me a number grade that you would give
• 57:53
  the Virginia Tech football. Twitter account, number great,
• 57:55
  not letter number grade, 1 to 100.
• 58:00
  It's an 80, it's an 80 they're doing.
• 58:03
  Okay, I'm glad that they're, it's, it's their Twitter wears a
• 58:08
  tie. It's, it's, it's to curated the
• 58:18
  copies to clean the scheduling's to like specific even if it's a
• 58:23
  brand needs. Well, it needs to feel like
• 58:26
  there's a fan at the bank. Okay.
• 58:29
  So I'll go back to McDonald's because I know someone on their
• 58:31
  social media team and I love what they're doing.
• 58:34
  Some of the best stuff that McDonald's has been doing is
• 58:36
  they're being incredibly vulnerable, and real, and
• 58:39
  talking about customer experience, like one of the
• 58:42
  tweets that they did that, they did that.
• 58:45
  I absolutely loved was, it's never, how are you doing social
• 58:47
  media manager? It's always one, is McRib coming
• 58:49
  back. War is are you feeling okay?
• 58:55
  You've barely touched the top of your cup because they were like
• 58:58
  you poke the the top like you poke A little bubbles.
• 59:01
  Okay, another one was. Can I get?
• 59:05
  It feels so human and so you want you want it to feel.
• 59:14
  Human. It needs to feel like the person
• 59:18
  who's doing the copy and who was typing, and seeing the same
• 59:22
  thing, the same game that you are in a restricted when you're
• 59:25
  frustrated and happy when you're happy and it's just it's a lot
• 59:29
  of hashtags and it's a lot of emojis and it just doesn't feel
• 59:35
  authentic. Okay.
• 59:37
  And so What is it was a tie? It's a job.
• 59:48
  It feels like it's, it's a job. It's not like like you say it's
• 59:52
  a fan wear everyday us three is fans of Virginia Tech football.
• 59:58
  We look at Virginia Tech football, me and Brian.
• 1:00:01
  I mean, key play. We look at Tech sideline.
• 1:00:04
  We look at your Twitter account when you're saying something
• 1:00:06
  about it. We look at former players and
• 1:00:09
  that's what it you're right. And you just, that is just such
• 1:00:13
  a A great analogy to what our Twitter is.
• 1:00:17
  And and I'm going to say what I said a couple seconds ago.
• 1:00:20
  This is a football, Twitter ball, is he nice wear your tie
• 1:00:25
  very cordial sport. It's pop, it's hitting each
• 1:00:30
  other, it's a lot. But let's also compare it to a
• 1:00:34
  know we talked about Mike young earlier, but let's compare the
• 1:00:38
  Hokies Football Twitter account with the Hokies men's basketball
• 1:00:42
  Twitter account. And the type of Engagement that
• 1:00:46
  they were getting this season and the type of tweets that they
• 1:00:49
  were sending out and how those were tracking with the fan base
• 1:00:54
  and it's night and day and I know who runs that account and
• 1:01:00
  I'd they're younger and they are passionate about the team.
• 1:01:07
  And it reads it reads that way. I mean there's I also love the
• 1:01:11
  fact that I love that there doesn't always have to be there,
• 1:01:17
  doesn't always have to be a graphic, okay?
• 1:01:21
  And you can be playful with Emoji playful with gifts.
• 1:01:25
  And you can, I love that there is it just feels like I can tell
• 1:01:32
  a fan is running the basketball account.
• 1:01:37
  It feels like they're watching the game with us.
• 1:01:40
  Yep, yep. And I am also a fan of if you
• 1:01:45
  can do short, copy always do short.
• 1:01:47
  It's so much easier. Like it's the shorter.
• 1:01:52
  It is. The more likely it is to come
• 1:01:55
  across as pithy and get to the point the more copy there is the
• 1:02:01
  more it feels didactic and serious.
• 1:02:04
  Like I don't need it to be serious like Hype me up like
• 1:02:08
  make it, make it feel special. Let me, let me know what you're
• 1:02:11
  doing, and then I like that, they, I like that.
• 1:02:16
  Both of them that both accounts are starting to share, like,
• 1:02:18
  third-party content, but I think there's opportunities to do
• 1:02:21
  something really cool. Like, for example, I would love
• 1:02:26
  it. If they brought back one of
• 1:02:29
  like, find an old, find an older and older player, alumni who are
• 1:02:36
  really good on. Who get it, have them do a take
• 1:02:39
  over for the game, okay? Me account, the day, it'll give
• 1:02:45
  it'll get flavor, it'll feel very different.
• 1:02:48
  People who've never turned in before, will turn in to say hi.
• 1:02:52
  I think I think there's just so many opportunities to be able to
• 1:02:54
  do that. The other thing that I think was
• 1:02:56
  a missed opportunity was there weren't a lot of players that
• 1:03:01
  were. There were a lot of people who
• 1:03:04
  are able to watch the game last year and there were a couple
• 1:03:06
  Couple people who were able to go and did like a few minute
• 1:03:09
  lives. But what I think would have been
• 1:03:12
  really, really, really cool. Is they because they ask for
• 1:03:17
  money like can you will will take your money and you just
• 1:03:20
  like forgive your seat. Yeah yeah.
• 1:03:23
  What if you did a private like what if you did a video you
• 1:03:28
  linked it and you have a camera from one specific, see?
• 1:03:32
  It could be at the 50-yard line and you just have someone
• 1:03:35
  recording live and you get access to that to that feed.
• 1:03:40
  So you get to watch the game from that seat for the whole
• 1:03:42
  game. Instead of watching it on TV,
• 1:03:44
  you get to actually it's as close as To get to feeling like
• 1:03:46
  you're in the stadium and you pay extra for it, whatever you
• 1:03:50
  wanted to put for it. But you can call it like the
• 1:03:52
  50-yard, the 50-yard seat. Yeah, someone will be there and
• 1:03:56
  they'll move the cameras, the plays are happening, but you'll
• 1:04:00
  get to be as close as you can to being Lane.
• 1:04:03
  During all of that. I feel like that was a missed
• 1:04:05
  opportunity. Yep.
• 1:04:07
  That would have been awesome to do something like an auction
• 1:04:11
  online into the bid for that because there would have been
• 1:04:14
  people probably well Out of our price range, that would have
• 1:04:17
  wanted to do that and you're raising money and maybe you
• 1:04:21
  don't even go with just one whole game.
• 1:04:23
  Maybe you do one special for the whole game and then what we are
• 1:04:27
  doing is five minutes of the seat.
• 1:04:31
  You get to tune in and see it increase.
• 1:04:34
  How much you pay? I love that idea.
• 1:04:37
  You've mentioned a lot of things you would love to do, but as we
• 1:04:42
  move on the road forward, what are your top Top three.
• 1:04:46
  What are the three big things that for us as fans?
• 1:04:51
  What do you think we need to see changed in?
• 1:04:53
  What would you do? What would be your prescription
• 1:04:54
  to say? We are screwing up doing this.
• 1:04:57
  Here's how we fix it. Number one needs to be PR 100
• 1:05:01
  percent. We need to determine, they need
• 1:05:04
  to determine where the line is. And if they've already
• 1:05:07
  determined it, they need to move it back further than where they
• 1:05:09
  have it. They need to make it very clear.
• 1:05:12
  What's accessible to the fans? What's not?
• 1:05:14
  What is the cutoff for point? A, what is the cutoff for wit?
• 1:05:17
  What is the cutoff with alumni pass players?
• 1:05:21
  What does that look like? They need to determine where
• 1:05:23
  that line is. Like, where is the wall?
• 1:05:25
  Because there's a wall, but where is it big wall?
• 1:05:30
  And it needs to be pushed back. Along a long ways bad.
• 1:05:36
  Yes, kids can't go to scrimmages us as fans.
• 1:05:40
  Can't go to scrimmages. I mean, it was a miracle.
• 1:05:44
  When you saw Andy bitter and the writer say we got to go into 15
• 1:05:48
  periods of practice. And it's just kind of like there
• 1:05:53
  shouldn't be. How was that?
• 1:05:55
  At least not once a month? If not, once a week, number one,
• 1:06:01
  he are pushing that wall. Yes.
• 1:06:05
  Okay. What's the second second is, you
• 1:06:08
  need to rebuild the relationship between the press and the the
• 1:06:15
  admin and the coaches. And that's going to come down to
• 1:06:19
  being prepared. Were interviews being prepared
• 1:06:23
  for press conferences, being prepared for things that are
• 1:06:26
  completely uncomfortable. And so that's going to come down
• 1:06:29
  to practice, that's classic. PR having like literally me Amir
• 1:06:34
  someone in the back of the room shouting out, the one question,
• 1:06:38
  they hope no one asked because you'd rather me ask it or the pr
• 1:06:43
  person ask it, then someone who works for the Roanoke Times or
• 1:06:48
  someone else and then you want End up yelling them out of the
• 1:06:51
  room because you need that person on your side.
• 1:06:55
  You need that person to want you to be successful because they're
• 1:06:57
  going to be paid to cover you whether you win or lose the
• 1:06:59
  game. Yep.
• 1:07:01
  You want them hope you win. Kind of like when Mike Barber
• 1:07:05
  ask for went after the pit game. Hey, have you thought about
• 1:07:09
  taking over play calling? And he answered that's ludicrous
• 1:07:13
  crap. And every single one of those
• 1:07:15
  fan said, bullshit, it's not a ludicrous.
• 1:07:18
  The crap answer. To this question, sir, the best
• 1:07:22
  of the best. We looked all seasons went was
• 1:07:25
  the first game when he calls the plays.
• 1:07:34
  We have argued that, I think a lot of people were thinking that
• 1:07:40
  question, and I mean I've I'm probably less critical of the
• 1:07:44
  offense as a whole than most fans.
• 1:07:46
  But I I really get on corn with Situational play calling and how
• 1:07:52
  slow he is to adapt when what he does is not working.
• 1:07:57
  And that's a lie, that is a reasonable assessment, and when
• 1:08:01
  they should have been able to address that question, better
• 1:08:05
  than he did in just shutting it down and moving on.
• 1:08:08
  I think also, I think that question should have been
• 1:08:12
  answered. I found it was very valid
• 1:08:14
  because I agreed with that. I think the other thing is there
• 1:08:17
  needs to be better communication about why certain decisions are
• 1:08:21
  being made. Especially when they occur
• 1:08:23
  multiple times. Yep.
• 1:08:25
  We lost a lot of quality talent and not to the draft and it was
• 1:08:29
  because we're under utilized and I I feel bad for all of our
• 1:08:38
  quarterbacks because we have some really talented young men,
• 1:08:44
  and I feel like none of them got to properly show off.
• 1:08:48
  And if one of them had been my son, I wouldn't have had him
• 1:08:52
  stay, I would have had to leave for a better opportunity to
• 1:08:58
  yeah, because the ones that got an opportunity, I think we're
• 1:09:02
  utilized poorly relative to their skill set.
• 1:09:05
  And then there were others that did not get the opportunity to
• 1:09:08
  really put their talents on display.
• 1:09:12
  I feel like especially towards the end of the year we were
• 1:09:15
  using hand and hooker like Battering ram and not like a
• 1:09:20
  quarterback. I feel so bad for how he was
• 1:09:23
  treated and how the whole season went for him.
• 1:09:25
  He deserves so much better. Yep, I think it also.
• 1:09:29
  I think the lack of PR training also impacted how press
• 1:09:34
  conferences were handled. Could because they they were
• 1:09:38
  prepared for the worst and the fact that they knew they lost a
• 1:09:41
  game. So they knew like something bad
• 1:09:42
  was happening but not prepared in the fact that they were ready
• 1:09:45
  to speak. And so because of that, what you
• 1:09:47
  have is is the continued excuses.
• 1:09:52
  Like I what I loved about being more and what I love about good
• 1:09:57
  leaders in general is that when it's a loss they take it on
• 1:10:02
  themselves and when it's a when it was all the players they had
• 1:10:06
  no part in the wind they had everything to do in the lost and
• 1:10:09
  that is the opposite of what we've been seeing.
• 1:10:12
  Yeah. Yep.
• 1:10:13
  And in fact, even from the administration it wasn't the
• 1:10:16
  coaches and it wasn't the players.
• 1:10:18
  It wasn't the losing season, it was the fans fault.
• 1:10:20
  Like somehow, like I personally would have liked destroyed our
• 1:10:24
  do see myself like like the fans, I'll freely go up and put
• 1:10:30
  me at like, take me off the bench for that game.
• 1:10:32
  I'll run straight for that man. Yep, it's the defensiveness and
• 1:10:39
  the lack of accountability is problematic.
• 1:10:42
  I'm a firm believer that the best leaders They take the
• 1:10:47
  responsibility when things go bad, and when things, when they
• 1:10:51
  are the first to share the glory and that Beamer did that really
• 1:10:54
  well, he even did that with other teams whenever they lose.
• 1:10:58
  He was always so gracious about the other team and talked about
• 1:11:01
  how they were well prepared. And, and so, I think a lot of
• 1:11:03
  that comes down to the just needing needing training and
• 1:11:08
  needing someone to explain what. It's got to be like that press
• 1:11:11
  conference, because the power 5 stress is only going to.
• 1:11:15
  It's only going to keep Coming and the thing that bothers me
• 1:11:20
  too, and I've seen fans say this.
• 1:11:22
  And I've also seen the administration say this and
• 1:11:25
  other people, but you can't use covid as an excuse because
• 1:11:30
  covid-19 a Blacksburg problem. It was a local problem.
• 1:11:34
  We're not the only people who have that issue.
• 1:11:37
  We also weren't the ones who had it, the worst and the game that
• 1:11:40
  we perform the best was the one. We were losing the most guys.
• 1:11:44
  So that's not it. Like, you have to Lying to me,
• 1:11:47
  why? The first came out, we had the
• 1:11:50
  most players gone. We had the most coaches gone and
• 1:11:53
  we perform, like we wrecked that game, it was glorious.
• 1:11:58
  So the excuses of covet is not going to work because the entire
• 1:12:04
  world dealt with that, the entire like the NCAA turned its
• 1:12:10
  back on all the teams. Not just Virginia Tech, like the
• 1:12:14
  ACC had to figure out its own thing every day.
• 1:12:16
  Vision had to figure out its own thing.
• 1:12:18
  Everyone had to figure out what was happening.
• 1:12:20
  Every school had to figure out what they were going to do and
• 1:12:22
  what not? They weren't going to do and so,
• 1:12:26
  yes, changes. Yes, it was a massive challenge
• 1:12:30
  but it's what everybody's challenge is challenge.
• 1:12:36
  So, that's not it. Like, you have to accept that
• 1:12:39
  like something bad happened to all of us and some teams adapted
• 1:12:42
  better coming later this summer will be Brian and Tina's.
• 1:12:47
  NCAA bash session. I'm sure y'all.
• 1:12:50
  Yeah, you're for it. Oh my gosh.
• 1:12:52
  I'm so here for. Oh gosh.
• 1:12:55
  Is there a worst governing body in the world?
• 1:12:58
  Maybe it's flavie FIFA, maybe FIFA.
• 1:13:02
  Yeah, people didn't even see double life to bring you back in
• 1:13:16
  somewhere. And it's going to help you need
• 1:13:28
  to. Just got to make it fun again.
• 1:13:32
  These are make it fun again you just got to make it feel the
• 1:13:36
  beauty of Virginia Tech is that it's big while filling small.
• 1:13:41
  It is. It's huge while filling
• 1:13:43
  intimate. Your I am a Infj by Nature.
• 1:13:47
  So I'm introverted can't probably tell but I'm
• 1:13:51
  introverted, but I died because of that, I don't like crowded
• 1:13:54
  areas. Like I'm not a crowd person
• 1:13:58
  except for two things or three things Lane stadium in bounds
• 1:14:05
  the conference. And Foo Fighter concerts because
• 1:14:12
  you go in there. And it's electric and you're
• 1:14:17
  surrounded by tens of thousands of friends, you're not strangers
• 1:14:24
  and Hokie Nation. You can be on the other side of
• 1:14:26
  the world and if you see if you're in the airport and you
• 1:14:28
  see someone else wearing a hokie, I hope you anything.
• 1:14:32
  You don't just walk past, we are all a part of this family, this
• 1:14:37
  community. It's a core part of what we are.
• 1:14:41
  It's it makes or breaks our weekend.
• 1:14:44
  It dictates when we have our weddings, it like, it's so
• 1:14:50
  Central to our lives. and so all of this, with the losses and the
• 1:14:59
  stress, And the rumors and the worries and that the fear of
• 1:15:06
  instability and not knowing, what's going to happen next,
• 1:15:11
  it's drained. A lot of fans.
• 1:15:14
  And all of us the lovers in the haters, we just want to have fun
• 1:15:20
  again, we just want to, we just want to sit and Lane and lose
• 1:15:24
  our voice screaming. We just want to dance to the
• 1:15:27
  Hokey. Pokey also bring that back.
• 1:15:29
  We we we want to sing. We want to yell stick it in
• 1:15:35
  really loud. We bring that back back.
• 1:15:40
  We that's the thing is, there's There's all this, like I made a
• 1:15:47
  comment to my husband a couple years ago.
• 1:15:50
  It was like after one of those games was like, clearly spent
• 1:15:52
  like the annual budget on fireworks in one night.
• 1:15:56
  And all I could think was there's so many things I'd
• 1:15:58
  rather do with that money. There's so many other things
• 1:16:02
  because that's not what makes it special.
• 1:16:04
  It's what makes a picture of look good.
• 1:16:07
  It's great for an overhead shot but it's not, that's not the
• 1:16:12
  people. And so, the way to make it fun
• 1:16:16
  again, is to make it about the people in the community and
• 1:16:20
  that's the coaches and that's the fans and that's the players
• 1:16:24
  and that's everyone who gets to be inside Lane and so, When the
• 1:16:30
  world opens up and we're able to go to Lane again. it's going to
• 1:16:34
  feel like a spiritual experience for some of us and it should It
• 1:16:39
  should feel like your heart is right where it's supposed to be
• 1:16:42
  back again. There's there's such, there's so
• 1:16:48
  many people who don't who don't like football, who don't get
• 1:16:52
  college football, who don't understand how painful it was
• 1:16:55
  this past year that you don't get to do that.
• 1:16:59
  Yeah. And just watching it on TV isn't
• 1:17:02
  the same. And it's because you lose that
• 1:17:05
  human connection, you lose those rituals you're not in the thick
• 1:17:10
  of it, you're not actually they're experiencing it and so I
• 1:17:15
  hope that they find Opportunities to to really make
• 1:17:20
  it fun again. What I would also love for them
• 1:17:22
  to do, I don't know if they can do this.
• 1:17:24
  There's a lot of players that we didn't get to see who are not
• 1:17:27
  going to be at Lane Stadium again.
• 1:17:30
  Please do a donation event where we could like wash them play a
• 1:17:33
  scrimmage before they leave and play in the NFL.
• 1:17:37
  Like, give us a taste of what we got, but we missed like a tiny
• 1:17:41
  pay is like forces to pay for it.
• 1:17:43
  I don't care. It's like, that's what those
• 1:17:47
  spend money on. Yeah.
• 1:17:49
  I mean, we missed out on seeing probably one of the better
• 1:17:52
  athletes has ever been in. Virginia Tech play in 2020.
• 1:17:56
  Yeah, find an opportunity, do if you can, I don't know if you can
• 1:18:02
  because there's I'm sure there's regulations within siebel life
• 1:18:05
  but if There aren't if there, there's a way to bring those
• 1:18:09
  players back and just think it would be amazing to be able to
• 1:18:13
  watch, like a like a small scrimmage, and be able to like,
• 1:18:17
  tell them how much they mean to us.
• 1:18:18
  Nothing to as they complain. A lot about how recruits look at
• 1:18:23
  Angry Twitter and don't want to go to Virginia Tech because the
• 1:18:26
  fans are so hateful. But they forget the narrative
• 1:18:30
  that most hockey fans would drop whatever they were doing to help
• 1:18:32
  the player. If they needed anything, even
• 1:18:36
  after they're gone. Even after they've even after
• 1:18:40
  they've, they've graduated, or they see even after they've
• 1:18:44
  transferred to other teams. I wish you nothing.
• 1:18:47
  But the best are always a hokey. That's the thing is, there's
• 1:18:50
  there's so much good will and we love these players and we want
• 1:18:54
  them to be happy and we want them to be successful.
• 1:18:56
  I mean I will literally only have five Jersey, because tie
• 1:18:59
  rod is my man and I've never wanted to hurt a doctor more in
• 1:19:02
  my life than when he's all, man. I was about to like, like I just
• 1:19:07
  need bail money. Don't ask Why I just need bail.
• 1:19:09
  Money Tyrod is the most unlucky person when he gets a starting
• 1:19:13
  job. Like, it seems, like every time
• 1:19:15
  he gets the starting job, something bad happens to
• 1:19:18
  intervene in his ability to just do his thing.
• 1:19:23
  Circle around tie rod with like, to light candles and be like, we
• 1:19:26
  just need all the Good Vibes for you but that's the thing like we
• 1:19:29
  all have her favorite player. Yeah everything we all have a
• 1:19:33
  favorite player. We all have our favorite play.
• 1:19:35
  We're all going to talk about Danny call until the day or
• 1:19:37
  until the day we die. Die.
• 1:19:38
  Like we're all like we want 11 and 2 and 1 the Sugar Bowl but
• 1:19:47
  you know I'm saying the like we it's so core and emotionally
• 1:19:52
  Tethered to us. And so, I hope that we can
• 1:19:59
  there's just I just think of so many opportunities.
• 1:20:02
  Yeah, I just I just think if so many opportunities like I would
• 1:20:05
  love to love to go to Lane love to have tailgates love to have
• 1:20:10
  like that's a thing to like next time, there's like a drive or
• 1:20:16
  dry for money for the campus or even, just even just for the
• 1:20:22
  football program or athletics department in general, Do a
• 1:20:25
  tailgate and the tailgate you choose.
• 1:20:27
  You pay a ticket for that, and that's the tailgate you go to.
• 1:20:30
  So if you want to support the basketball team like, you know,
• 1:20:32
  the basketball tailgate, and then like, that's all the
• 1:20:34
  basketball fans, get to go there.
• 1:20:36
  And that's the you get to meet new people.
• 1:20:38
  You get to hang out, or you want to support the softball team.
• 1:20:42
  Okay, cool. That will have its own area for
• 1:20:44
  a tailgate, that way you get to do some of it.
• 1:20:46
  You get to embrace some of the rituals that we already have
• 1:20:49
  that you get to use them in a new way.
• 1:20:51
  The thing is that the way The way that.
• 1:20:57
  The communication, a lot of the communication we had last year
• 1:21:00
  was asking for money and nothing else.
• 1:21:03
  Yeah, yeah. I've always said Christina and
• 1:21:07
  run can confirm. They always talk about well, the
• 1:21:09
  former players and all this the Hokie Village is this huge you
• 1:21:14
  know, piece of real estate, right next to the stadium.
• 1:21:18
  Why can't you say? Hey, former players.
• 1:21:20
  We can't guarantee you tickets every game, that's, you know,
• 1:21:24
  but come every week we're going to make this special part of
• 1:21:28
  hokey Village. Just for you Lounge, also going
• 1:21:32
  to do Do is any fan that wants to pay a hundred dollars?
• 1:21:37
  It'll go to the Hokie club and they can come mingle with you.
• 1:21:40
  Do you know how much money they would raise?
• 1:22:08
  Thanks. But let me ask this Christina
• 1:22:10
  and kind of, let's let's start closing it out here, because I
• 1:22:14
  feel like, what if we were with the white, we probably could
• 1:22:18
  talk another hour with you and if the baby wakes up, I'm dead.
• 1:22:21
  So let me ask this winning. How does that impact, this
• 1:22:29
  perception of how we're looking at marketing?
• 1:22:32
  You know, we've broke down a lot of went through a lot of the
• 1:22:34
  shortcomings where we're screwing up, but right now, Now
• 1:22:37
  this team that is currently going through Spring ball Brian
• 1:22:42
  put here tonight on wins let's say they won 11 games this year.
• 1:22:48
  Does that sort of cover-up the the short I mean 100%?
• 1:22:55
  Yeah it's a honeymoon period. When you're in the honeymoon,
• 1:22:58
  period. Was someone think of it like a
• 1:22:59
  relationship. When you're in the honeymoon
• 1:23:00
  period you see some of the other things but you're just so like
• 1:23:03
  in love and it's like, oh, it's just that wonderful when you are
• 1:23:08
  mad at somebody, you you get hyper focused on everything
• 1:23:12
  else. You don't like about them.
• 1:23:14
  All the flaws are like more obvious than they ever were.
• 1:23:18
  For so if they win, you forget all of this, you ride the High.
• 1:23:24
  What what? PR well press the flaws become
• 1:23:29
  features when you're winning ten and eleven.
• 1:23:31
  Yeah, the flaws. The flaws are injured like oh
• 1:23:34
  he's eccentric like like went a is unbeatable and he cusses out
• 1:23:42
  the prasiolite. That's hilarious - he's sticking
• 1:23:47
  it to those feet and knees. Guys,
• 1:24:04
  like the biggest the biggest way to undo it.
• 1:24:07
  Short-term you gotta win the game, long-term, you got to fix
• 1:24:11
  those other issues, but yeah, it's like a honeymoon period.
• 1:24:13
  If you win the game, you forget. Well also the naysayers.
• 1:24:18
  Like well, hey, he went, he was terrible.
• 1:24:20
  The last two seasons everybody's going to basically give them the
• 1:24:23
  finger and be like go elsewhere. We just want 11 game we want any
• 1:24:28
  you beat Notre Dame we don't. I do have to say though I wish
• 1:24:33
  there wasn't so much inviting. I find that I find that hokey
• 1:24:37
  Twitter fights amongst itself more than it fights against the
• 1:24:40
  teeth like against those. And as someone who didn't go to
• 1:24:45
  Tech and also has negative things, Has to say there's
• 1:24:49
  definitely been times when my fan hood has been questioned and
• 1:24:53
  like I'm not a real and that's and my thing too is that I find
• 1:24:59
  that that's that's been really polarizing because that I find
• 1:25:03
  that that doesn't just hurt the team but that hurts people who
• 1:25:06
  are potential fans. Because there's always that
• 1:25:10
  barrier of Entry of like, what actually does it take to be a
• 1:25:13
  hockey fan? Doesn't mean that you go to Lane
• 1:25:15
  doesn't mean that you went to Virginia Tech.
• 1:25:16
  Is it mean that you've been a season ticket holder?
• 1:25:18
  Forever. Does it mean that does it mean
• 1:25:20
  that you know like Europe Metallica fan like what what is
• 1:25:25
  the true definition? And so to fill that Stadium you
• 1:25:31
  need more than just grads and you need more than us Metallica
• 1:25:36
  fans and you need more than just being ticket holders.
• 1:25:38
  Like, everyone's money is green. If the, when they went to school
• 1:25:44
  or, no matter, no matter how little or how much they give.
• 1:25:47
  So I think I think my big thing is, I wish that there was I wish
• 1:25:52
  that all hockey fans would remember that our North Star is
• 1:25:55
  the program and that we want it to be successful and that we're
• 1:25:59
  going to disagree on things and some of us are going to protect
• 1:26:03
  some coaches. Look like every fiber of our
• 1:26:06
  being and the others would leave him off the bus in Florida
• 1:26:09
  somewhere, but we need to remember what our North Star is
• 1:26:13
  and not question, someone's fan Hood because We differ from them
• 1:26:19
  and we disagree. So let's gatekeeping unless fan,
• 1:26:23
  carding, just over the little things and focus on what's best
• 1:26:28
  for the program. What we love about the program,
• 1:26:30
  how can we make this program, more fun and better?
• 1:26:33
  Yeah, well, do you hate Justin Fuente or not?
• 1:26:36
  It is better for this program to win and he Remain the coach then
• 1:26:42
  us be in the dumpster and he get fired because that's a lot of
• 1:26:45
  digging out. You happy?
• 1:26:47
  Yes. I'm just going to say people are
• 1:26:49
  watching so if we We, if we do, if he does, listen, there's
• 1:26:54
  another Bad season and he's let go.
• 1:26:57
  Hey, there's a lot of people watching that M of how much the
• 1:27:01
  BIOS going to be. And so there's going to be
• 1:27:04
  conversations about money, but there's also going to be
• 1:27:05
  conversations about how, how long are you willing to be given
• 1:27:10
  a chance in order to be successful?
• 1:27:13
  So you need to, you need to weigh all the odds, and I'm not
• 1:27:16
  saying you should be fired. I'm not saying you should stay,
• 1:27:19
  there's definitely pros and cons of each.
• 1:27:21
  Each but I think that, I hope that the administration knows
• 1:27:26
  that we're all coming from a place of love for this program
• 1:27:29
  and that this program means so much to us that even in our
• 1:27:35
  deepest criticism, we just want it to be successful. 100%
• 1:27:41
  Christina. We really appreciate you joining
• 1:27:44
  us tonight. Here at the boundary Corner
• 1:27:46
  podcast and it's going to wrap up this episode.
• 1:27:50
  My name is Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Sigler.
• 1:27:53
  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, subscribe to the podcast on your
• 1:27:56
  favorite Source, including Spotify, Amazon, and apple
• 1:27:59
  podcast do visit our Twitter page.
• 1:28:02
  We do have a website now, where you will be able to check this
• 1:28:05
  wonderful interview with Christina out, as always, we let
• 1:28:09
  our buddy. He's Jason long place, in play
• 1:28:11
  us out, catch him on Spotify, and apple music.
• 1:28:14
  He is in the Roanoke area and hopefully, as things open up, if
• 1:28:17
  he plays will, let you guys know where he is, we thank you for
• 1:28:20
  listening. And as always, Christina join
• 1:28:23
  with us. Let's go.
• 1:28:25
  Okay.