Family room during March Madness

If you know me or watch my twitter, you know I’m a big basketball fan.  My love is equal to football, maybe even more so because my wife and daughter prefer basketball.  Of course, I’m a Gator and big on Billy Donovan but my Alabama readers shouldn’t close this page just yet.  My son is at Auburn, my daughter is starting at the University of Alabama this fall and I know something about Alabama’s new coach.

When Anthony Grant left Donovan’s staff to become a head coach VCU my family and I watched him there.  Grant helped Florida get to where it is so we were eager to see what he could do on his own.  Beyond the success in his own conference, beating Duke and getting knocked out in two very close NCAA games showed he could coach the game.

In high school, my daughter hung out with me and my wife a lot during the times of the oh-fours’s.   When Florida played Auburn a couple years ago, my oldest son, a freshman at the time, helped make a 3D poster of Joakim Noah for my daughter.  At the end of the game, Noah went out of his way to sign it for her.  Today, she follows the Chicago Bulls closely thanks to that game and probably knows more about the NBA and latest trades than I do. She is very serious about basketball.

The tricky part for her was late last year where my daughter became a Nation Merit Semi-Finalist.   Many schools compete for national merit finalists (which my daughter now is). While a good basketball team is secondary in picking a school, it would certainly be a nice thing to have in her case.  Plus she was already a Gator fan thanks to her dad. However, Alabama offered her one of their top scholarships and she eventually decided to go there (despite the so-so basketball tradition).  

Now, with Anthony Grant coming to the University of Alabama, we’ve ended up in a very good situation.  Alabama seems serious about becoming a real basketball school. Secondly, they have picked a coach that has been around the process of taking a Football school and making it a dual sports school. Lastly, for my family, its a coach we know and follow and respect.

Excellent work, Alabama  athletic department!  With respect to my Gator heritage and son at Auburn,  Roll Tide!

P.S. My daughter is majoring in either journalism/PR or education.  Someone in the athletic department needs to get her involved.

Zach Burhop and Billy Donovan

I just got back from the tweetup in Huntsville, AL at Angel’s Island Coffee House.  This was a greet meetup with a diverse group.  We had folks from three TV stations, a number of Alabama students or grads, social media experts, PR experts, and I’m not sure who else. Some interesting topics were:

• Adoption of twittter.
• Teaching of social Media at the universities.
• Business use of social media (i.e YAMMER and ESME)
• What businesses or brands should be posting on twitter.
• Dell and Starbucks
• @rdfrench - Auburn PR guy liked by Alabama grads – go figure.

There were other topics too but I’m kind of bias toward the business side and have a short memory  If you want more info, ask one of the folks that were there! They are:

Some that ALMOST came (but at least twittered to us at the tweetup):