Wednesday, October 3, 2007
“Don’t forget your power towel!”
These are the infamous words from Kansas State University head football coach Ron Prince that have been heard repeatedly on YouTube in a promotional video encouraging the fans to bring the specially made purple towel to all the football games this year, in hopes of starting a new Manhattan tradition. University of Kansas student reaction?
“It looks like a middle schooler made it,” said Justin Blair, Girard, sophomore.
“It looks like a 12-year-old who has their room decorated in trolls made the video,” said Josh Kenny, Hillsboro, freshman.
“If they wanted to intimidate us they could have at least made it modern,” said Hunter Ketcherside, Wichita, freshman.
Poor production aside, how and why do you start a new tradition with a towel? And why does everything associated with Kansas State University have to have the word “power” in it? Everything in that town is stamped with the power-cat logo. Maybe power towels will be the new curtains in everyone’s windows.
In each football stadium across the nation, at least one fan will have a towel of some sort twirling in the air in hopes of getting the home team fired up. Nevertheless, who thinks that thousands of people will affect a game by waving a towel in the air? What are they going to do, create enough wind current to move the ball out of the direction of the receiver? There is a better chance you will knock the drink out of the hands of the person sitting next to you.
A couple other sports teams have had success with a towel as a tradition. In 1975 a commentator named Myron Cope for the Pittsburgh Steelers asked fans to bring yellow towels to the game against the Baltimore Colts. The Steelers won the game. During the post season specially made gold towels with the words “Myron Cope’s Terrible Towel” appeared. They ended up winning Super Bowl X that year as well.
Another team that has made a towel part of its traditional ideas is the Minnesota Twins. The Homer Hanky became public in 1987 when the Minneapolis Star Tribune debuted the handkerchief. It is used when the Twins make the playoffs.
After watching the promotional video for the first time, I couldn’t believe what I just saw. Who would even allow that to be made public? A few people are probably rolling in their graves, either from laughter or pure embarrassment.
For those who have not seen the video, find the nearest computer and go watch it. But make sure it’s not in a place where quiet is the norm, because there will be laughter for the next five minutes.
As an added treat, Willie the Wildcat is in the video showing off his guitar skills. He could have been the lead guitarist of some 1980’s Hair Metal band. The awesome background effects when Willie is playing the electric guitar were the highlight of the video and are also the screen saver for my computer.
This Saturday, power towels will twirl all across Bill Snyder Family stadium. But who knows? Maybe Wildcat fans have finally realized by their sixth game of the season it really is not that cool and should not be a new tradition. But then again, they do like Wildcats instead of Jayhawks, that’s pretty lame to begin with.
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‘Power’ towels have a long history in sports
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