You can imagine how many hundreds of thousands of tweets are directed towards Kate Upton every single day. You can also guess that 99.999% of those @replies go ignored and unanswered. (The tweet promoting the link to this story will be one of those) However, only one tweet at Kate Upton has ever become national sports news; and it became HUGE trending national trending sports news.
“I don’t know who I let talk me into that one,” said Michigan guard Spike Albrecht of his tweet to the two time Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girl.
Albrecht was at 2014 Big Ten Basketball Media Day in Chicago, and during our exclusive conversation we discussed how he became an overnight celebrity on title gamenight, his famous Kate Upton tweet, and all the hoopla that ensued afterward.
“Maybe I was just naive, but I should have known it was probably going to blow up, but I was young, wasn’t expecting it,” he continued.
“It just got way out of hand. Got way more attention than I expected,” Albrecht elaborated.
However, it was still good times all around.
“It was all fun and games, it was pretty funny. I think a lot of people found some good humor in it,” he said.
Here is the podcast of the entire interview, have a listen:
Earlier that evening, on the night of the national game, Upton did a Twitpic conveying her attendance at the 2013 national title game, as she isa a huge Michigan Wolverines fan. Upton hails from St. Joseph, Michigan (they erected a sign honoring her), and one of the state’s richest and most powerful families. Her grandfather invented the modern washing machine and founded Whirlpool Corporation. Fred Upton, the uncle of Kate Upton, is a high ranking Republican who worked for Ronald Reagan and is currently the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Back to Albrecht, entering the title game he had never scored more than 7 points in a single contest.
His Wolverines lost to the Louisville Cardinals by six, but Spike did his part and more, going four of five from three point range and finishing with a career-high 17.
Much better than his career 1.8 points per game average entering that night. Albrecht figured he “had the hot hand” on the court why not holla at Kate Upton, the most famous Wolverines fan of all, of the court?
Strike while the iron is hot! Here’s the tweet:
@kateupton hey saw you at the game last night, thanks for coming out! Hope to see you again ????
— spike albrecht (@SpikeAlbrecht) April 9, 2013
As you heard in our interview above, I applauded Albrecht for being assertive at the right moment. His stock was trading at it’s highest price to date following the ’13 national title game. However, that could change this year as Spike is going to have a much larger role with this year’s Wolverines team. Big things are expected of Spike and Michigan who are ranked #23 in the preseason coaches poll.
As for Kate Upton, no, she has not returned to a Wolverines basketball game since that famed evening. But as we learned at Media Day, she has attended a Michigan football game this year.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and very often writes The Sports Bank.net,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his features stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2
