First off, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Hopefully Santa brought you that new smart phone or iPad you wanted and now are using it to read this! While those gifts are cool the best Christmas present for me is yet to come.
I am a Michigan State Spartan. On New Year’s Day my beloved Spartans will take on Stanford in their first Rose Bowl appearance since 1988. All I really wanted for Christmas was a win. MSU has had a crazy year. We were two games into our season and still trying to decide who our starting QB was going to be. No one had any idea that such an amazing “Cinderalla-like” season would come together as it did. Throughout the whole year MSU has been dancing themselves to victory across social media networks. Because of this, Michigan State now has Rich Homie Quan.
For those of you that don’t know, Mr. Quan is a 24-year old Atlanta based rapper who’s hit song, “Type of Way,” has become some type of anthem for the Michigan State Spartans. After the huge win against in-state rival Michigan, tons of videos were posted from inside of the locker room showing the players and head coach, Mark Dantonio, dancing to Rich Homie Quan’s single. This video went viral throughout social networks and for a good reason. I mean when else have you seen a 57-year-old head coach “drop the top of his whip.” If you haven’t make sure to click that link.
Rich Homie Quan first saw that the Spartans had adapted his song via Twitter. After MSU secured their spot in the Big Ten Championship game, Quan released a video giving the Spartan Dawgs a huge shoutout:
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After claiming the Big Ten Title the Spartans claimed their spot in the 100th Rose Bowl. In the post game interview Dantonio gave Quan a shoutout this time when asked what he was going to do to celebrate:
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After hearing this interview it was clear Quan was feeling some color of green. “I want to be out there in a green jersey and feel a part of Michigan State,” Quan said. “I want to be at the game, I want to be out there with them. I feel a part of Michigan State now, and you don’t even know what it means to me.”
Can we expect the next video to be of a live locker room performance by Mr. Quan pumping up the Spartans? I’d like to hope it will happen, but it has yet to be confirmed if the plan to have him in Pasadena has worked out.
Looking toward the future – what will this mean for Michigan State Football? Will their presence on social media affect the decisions of future recruits? I feel high school football players prefer to go to a college where the coaching staff connects with the younger generation so well. I mean, it helps that the team is good, but why go else where when the defensive coordinator for the #1 defense in the nation is this cool:
I’ve talked about the dancing. Now check it our for yourself in this mashup courtesy of the Big Ten Network. It’ll have you feelin’ some type of way:
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Go Green!
