Fan girling - is it okay?

[MushroomKing]

I had the pleasure to sit next to a very big Greco Roman star* on a southwest flight…he just sort of sat next to me. 
 

i couldn’t help myself and barraged him with fangirl questions for the next 2 hours.

he was patient and answered  quite a few questions but fell asleep around hour 2.

 

question:

-what is your normal reaction to sitting next to a star, say David Taylor, rulan,JB 

- do the biggest stars in our sport take commercial flights?

 

questions that I still have after sitting next to the star. 

-Why don’t more NCAA champs go into Greco? It seems like it’s America’s international JV team. Is that fair?

-Do Greco athletes get paid to train? How much? 
-Does the military have freestyle teams? Or just Greco ?

 

 

[Winners Circle]

To answer the question in the title, seems like it's not only ok but encouraged. Look at FloWrestling. They like to make high school kids look like damn superstars. I am all for covering the sport at all levels. But I think treating 14-18 year old kids like they are 3x NCAA Champs is pretty odd.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

I've never had a wrestler sit next to me on a flight, but I have had an ESPN female sideline reporter sit next to me! She was very pleasant, asked me where I was coming from and when I said the OTC, she was able to intelligently talk about one of our past stars whom she had interviewed for a piece.  

It was pretty cool, especially when I would later see her on the sidelines of football games.

[Le duke]

My wife has had several female OTC and WCAP athletes in her classes. Has another one this semester. We’ve seen two of them out and about in town. I think they appreciated the fact that I knew who they were and had an interest in their careers.


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[11986]

44 minutes ago, MushroomKing said:

questions that I still have after sitting next to the star. 

-Why don’t more NCAA champs go into Greco? It seems like it’s America’s international JV team. Is that fair?

-Do Greco athletes get paid to train? How much? 
-Does the military have freestyle teams? Or just Greco ?

 

 

there was a good bit of discussion on the international forums a while back on how shitty USAW treats Greco

 

[11986]

this was linked in the greco discussion I mentioned

 

'Watching Dominoes Fall' Part II: In Too Deep (fivepointmove.com)

[gimpeltf]

1 hour ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

I've never had a wrestler sit next to me on a flight, but I have had an ESPN female sideline reporter sit next to me! She was very pleasant, asked me where I was coming from and when I said the OTC, she was able to intelligently talk about one of our past stars whom she had interviewed for a piece.  

It was pretty cool, especially when I would later see her on the sidelines of football games.

Steven Neal?

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

5 minutes ago, gimpeltf said:

Steven Neal?

Actually Mark Schultz, after the murder of Dave.

[bnwtwg]

1 hour ago, Le duke said:

My wife has had several female OTC and WCAP athletes in her classes. Has another one this semester. We’ve seen two of them out and about in town. I think they appreciated the fact that I knew who they were and had an interest in their careers.


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okay

 

[Tony Rotundo]

2 hours ago, MushroomKing said:

I had the pleasure to sit next to a very big Greco Roman star* on a southwest flight…he just sort of sat next to me. 
 

i couldn’t help myself and barraged him with fangirl questions for the next 2 hours.

he was patient and answered  quite a few questions but fell asleep around hour 2.

 

question:

-what is your normal reaction to sitting next to a star, say David Taylor, rulan,JB 

- do the biggest stars in our sport take commercial flights?

 

questions that I still have after sitting next to the star. 

-Why don’t more NCAA champs go into Greco? It seems like it’s America’s international JV team. Is that fair?

-Do Greco athletes get paid to train? How much? 
-Does the military have freestyle teams? Or just Greco ?

 

 

-what is your normal reaction to sitting next to a star, say David Taylor, rulan,JB 

"Hey buddy!" lol (I joke, I know them.)

- do the biggest stars in our sport take commercial flights?

They ain't flying private unless someone bankrolls that! So yes, 99% of the time they take commercial flights. I'm sure some of them have enough miles to fly first class, or someone offers them their seat in first class. I know some get bumped to first class by the pilot since they just won the Olympics, or Worlds. 

Fangirling is a thing in all sports or with actors, I think the approach is be respectful of their privacy and time. Read the room, if they want to talk they will, and when they are ready to stop talking they will give you the cues to stop talking. Like falling asleep. 

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

3 hours ago, Winners Circle said:

To answer the question in the title, seems like it's not only ok but encouraged. Look at FloWrestling. They like to make high school kids look like damn superstars. I am all for covering the sport at all levels. But I think treating 14-18 year old kids like they are 3x NCAA Champs is pretty odd.

Flo does some things wrong, but trying to create stars and storylines is good for casual fans and hardcore fans alike. 
 

I don’t follow any Hs wrestling but I know the top guys coming in each year due to their coverage, which makes the following year more fun when I can see how guys stack up. E.g. Shapiro, Blaze, Knox 

 

[alex1fly]

Should be fairly easy to judge whether someone sitting next to you wants to answer a bunch of questions. Sometimes folks do, sometimes they don't.

[gimpeltf]

9 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Actually Mark Schultz, after the murder of Dave.

I thought you were implying football.

[MPhillips]

It's okay if you're a chick...

[Natty Boh Army]

23 hours ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

Flo does some things wrong, but trying to create stars and storylines is good for casual fans and hardcore fans alike. 

This. A huge part of generating interest in any type of activity, sports included, is to tie in some type of narrative. Major media outlets know this and have worked these angles for decades in order to generate buzz and increase ratings- to great effect. Recall last year's NCAA Women's basketball tournament, where the national sports media latched onto the LSU-Iowa matchup by framing it through the lens of the team's respective stars (Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark). The media covered these two players exhaustively in the lead up to and following the finals, and created enormous buzz by comparing and contrasting their play style, life experiences, etc. Throw in a touch of racially-based controversy, and the end results speak for themselves: 10 million viewers, an all-time record for any women's basketball event. 

If Flo wants to occasionally focus on narrative-based coverage of young athletes, and these stories result in any additional interest in our sport, then I am all for it. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

On 1/26/2024 at 10:11 PM, gimpeltf said:

I thought you were implying football.

I think she mostly did football sideline stuff, but after Dave was murdered she was available and her employer sent her to interview Mark.