Out of Uniform, But In Fashion

This article originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/05/31/sports-rush-fashionably-forward-thinking/

We’d call it “the fashion event of the season,” except the season hasn’t started yet. We refer to the football season, and while Dallas Cowboys fans still have a few months to wait for the start of games that count, they do have an opportunity to connect with the team this week. The wives and girlfriends of players and coaches will put on their annual fashion show on Thursday evening in Dallas. In today’s blog post, we interview event chair Candice Romo on camera about the event. 

Watch the video to find out how the extravaganza benefits a couple of deserving women’s charities and about why her husband, Tony, has a fine line to walk this year to avoid getting in trouble.

For the discerning viewer: If you listen very closely at the end, you can hear the voice of Hawkins Romo, Candice and Tony’s 4-year old son, start to chime in. Hawkins had worked really hard to stay quiet and not jump on the couch during the interview. He almost made it. Then he helped us load our gear while also discussing LEGOs.

If you’d like to buy tickets to Fashion’s First Down, visit dallascowboys.com/FashionsFirstDown.



Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.


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Top Spots in Ft. Worth to Watch the Rangers

This post originally appeared on the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau blog. To read on that site : http://www.fortworth.com/blog/post/2016/19/Top-Spots-to-Watch-the-Rangers/1263/

The Texas Rangers don’t play at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

Well, okay, they don’t always play at Globe Life. Half their games are road games, and Spring Training games happen mostly in Arizona. That means you’ve got to find somewhere to watch your Rangers play when they don’t do it in Tarrant County. Luckily. Fort Worth has a number of establishments you can access to get your game on.

We’d like to establish that this list is not comprehensive. Do you have a favorite place where you like to watch the local baseball team? Let us know in the comments and on social media and help us spread the word about good places to share nine innings with old or new friends.

We’ve organized this list geographically, so you can find somewhere close to you.

West 7th

On one of the fact-finding missions for this column, Landmark Bar & Kitchen won the titles (across neighborhoods) for most total TVs showing the Rangers game and most consecutive sets with the game on. More than half a dozen LGs ringing the outdoor bar all showed the Fox Sports Southwest broadcast and several more inside had it as well. Preston the bartender told us he wanted to be able to move anywhere in the place and keep up with the game, and he succeeded. Good call by him.

The West 7th area actually gives you lots of options for catching the game. The Varsity Tavern has TVs as big as Nomar Mazara’s future, and you can also look for the game on multiple screens at the likes of King Crab Tap House, Brewsters, Reservoir, the Durty Crow, The Local, BoomerJacks, and several others.

Downtown

It’s hard to pick one place in downtown. It might depend on where your hotel or office is, or perhaps what kind of food you want. Frankie’s is near the central library, but the bar that’s actually called “The Library” is at Houston and 6th, Ojos Locos bills itself as a sports cantina, with Tex-Mex offerings and TVs in several booths, so you can feel like you’ve got Steve Busby and Tom Grieve actually dining with you. Whiskey & Rye has won a few awards for best sports bar in town. You’ll find them in the Omni Hotel in southern downtown by the convention center.

A downtown sleeper pick : The Red Goose Saloon. You can sit at the bar and watch the game on a couple of screens, and the food is underrated. You can smoke here, if that appeals to you.

You could actually watch the game at the Texas Rangers Team Shop on Main Street. Not only do they have a TV inside the store, they have a couple of sets by the windows facing the street. If you don’t mind standing on the sidewalk, you can be sure the game will be priority programming.

Stockyards

Nolan Ryan is a member of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, located in the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District. However, Cowtown’s north side has more saloons than sports bars. We recommend you sit at the bar at Filthy McNasty’s Saloon (they’re friendlier than they sound) and enjoy a beverage while watching the game on the TVs above the bar.

East Side

The No Frills Grill on Eastchase is as close as you can get to Globe Life Park in Arlington without leaving Fort Worth. And they do, in truth, have some frills - specifically TVs showing the Rangers game. You can almost see the home run fireworks from there.

Near South Side

Upper 90 on College came into being when the owners felt the Magnolia area needed a sports bar. They may be named after a soccer term, but you can still count on them having the Rangers game on one of their many TVs.

Hulen Area

You’ve got plenty of choices in restaurants near the mall. We’ve watched a Super Bowl or two at the Fox & Hound. You can play pool while you watch the ballgame there, too.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


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A History-Making Rivalry

This article originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/05/24/sports-rush-a-history-making-rivalry/

(Photos by Hannah Reinmiller)

 

You might have read how, back in the day, cowboys drove wild critters along the Texas Trail from Cowtown to Shreveport.

By “back in the day,” we mean mid-April.

On April 16, a local outfit known as the Fort Worth Vaqueros (Spanish for “cowboy”), accompanied by a group of their most animated fans, took a trip to Northwest Louisiana to play soccer against Shreveport Rafters FC. The teams hope the match represented the start of a historic rivalry. They’ve even given it a name rooted in the cities’ shared past: The Texas Trail Series.

The idea behind the title came from Rafters co-owner Will Broyles.
“I am a huge history buff,” he explained. “When you’re promoting a soccer series like this or anything else, if you can root it in the history of the two cities, it makes it more impactful and meaningful.”

 

The Texas Trail ran between the two cities, with cattle driven from Fort Worth to Shreveport for distribution down the Mississippi River.

“The Texas Trail goes back to early 1800s,” Broyles said.

It followed paths long established by the Caddo Indians. Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, and Broyles pointed out that the name “Texas” comes from the tribe’s word for “friend”: “tejas.” The development of a friendly rivalry along the old trail is the ideal result for these National Premier Soccer League franchises.

“Both teams, they want to go out and win regardless if it’s a cup game or a league game,” noted Vaqueros coach Mark Snell. “It will turn into a rivalry because we want to have the trophy.”
The winning team will retain a set of mounted cattle horns. Shreveport got a leg up on acquiring the talisman with a win in the first game of the two-leg series. It was an unusual contest.

“We planned to play one goalkeeper each half. The agreement was that we would play by NPSL rules, with which there’s no re-entry, meaning once you’re subbed off, you’re subbed off. We pretty much dominated the game, had a lot of chances. Their goalkeeper played very well,” Snell explained.
“The second half, we subbed our goalkeeper in. We only bring two goalkeepers, of course. Within ten minutes, there was a bad back pass to the goalkeeper and he had to come out and take down with a strong tackle the opponent and it was a last man call, meaning it was an automatic red card. So that was a PK (penalty kick) and they scored on that. And we had to put a field player in goal as well as play a man down.”

The Vaqueros kept it close, but Shreveport won the game 2-0. It was effectively a preseason game, and the first in the expansion-Rafters’ history. It’s possible that this kind of unusual match could indeed fuel a rivalry, with fans likely to remember its unique circumstances. It turns out a lot of Vaqueros fans were there to see it. The team’s supporters group took a bus to the Port City for the game (and maybe the casinos a bit, too). Snell appreciated their support on the road.

“We are beyond fortunate with this group. They call themselves the Panther City Hellfire,” said Snell. “These guys are just die-hard soccer fans.”

Broyles took notice of the visiting crew.

“The fans of Fort Worth were impressive,” he said.

Broyles also indicated that the Hellfire did more than just cheer for their team.

 

“They set the tone for that game, they set the tone for our fans for the season,” he noted. “Because everything was new, nobody in our crowd knew how the stands looked. When the Fort Worth contingent marched in with drums and flags, it gave us something to aspire toward. Our guys rallied. They got together the next game and we had drums. Now we actually have a trombone in our supporters group. We’ve got the flags.”

Fort Worth, then, may have helped fuel this budding rivalry by showing the Rafters’ own passionate fan club, now known as the Riverjacks, the right path to follow. Broyles expected many of his squad’s fans to travel the Texas Trail (whose route I-20 mirrors) tonight, when the series concludes with a game at the Vaqueros’ Martin Field. Perhaps they’ll be able to say they saw something historic.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.


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Marketing’s Future : Integration (and Maybe Robots)

The photo that accompanies this post comes from a talk I recently enjoyed given by a marketing cyborg named Repcor.

Ok, the speaker was actually a real person named Rebecca Corliss, but she said she likes to go by "Repcor," which to me sounds like a robotic supermarketer Hubspot built to save the future or something. I suppose I don’t know for certain she isn’t a replicant, but for now I’ll take her word that she’s actually a human who goes by the same mononym as her Twitter handle (@repcor).

To get back to the photo, Corliss’ talk was entitled “How to Build a World Class Marketing Team like HubSpot.” She started working (or perhaps was created in a lab) at the Boston-based company some eight years ago, and one of the reasons she loved the opportunity was the company’s fresh outlook on marketing. The slide in the photo summarizes old channels to which they believed marketers gave too much consideration:

• Advertising
• Conferences/Events
• Paid Search/PPC
• Email List Rentals
• Cold Calling

And new channels deserving of more attention:

• Blogging
• SEO
• Free Tools
• Social Media
• Opt-In Email Lists

Hubspot is still in business, so they must have hit on something here. Certainly the second list houses much of the creative work my company does. The items on the first list haven’t gone away, however. Companies still spend scads of dollars on TV advertising, often justifiably so. Hubspot itself does conferences and events worldwide, we found out from the humanoid addressing us.

What struck me is how much everything in the first list is complemented by the entries in the second column. If you do a conference, you market it with social media, the email lists you’ve cultivated, and everything else in List #2. And if you’re smart, you feed the content from that conference right back into those channels to generate more engagement.

The same goes for advertising. I would never shoot a spot without doing behind-the-scenes content for social media, and all creative these days must appeal to the user who can self-select what he or she watches.

And if you’re going to have your salespeople cold calling, you can make their jobs loads easier by priming the pump through top of the funnel content that inspires an “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you” when your AE introduces herself.

As a creative, List B affects the choices I make in language and approach, even when I’m working on a project in List A. For others in the marketing world, I’m sure they consider choices like balancing paid search with organic and whether to buy national-network TV spots or invest in original online content (self-serving note – if you buy into one of my TV projects, you get both).

It’s a big integrated world out there. Old-school marketing can cooperate with modern techniques to the betterment of all. Until, that is, we’re all replaced by machines. Which, um, could be closer than we think.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports and corporate entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports. He is also spearheading various film and television projects.

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A Different Kind of Weather Delay

This article originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/05/17/sports-rush/

 

Could your brain handle the pressure of standing on the dugout in front of fans at the Texas Rangers ballpark, competing in a game in which you try to decide whether a phrase describes weather, baseball, or has been created out of thin air? Kids do it all the time.

I annually help the Rangers’ mascot, Rangers Captain, warm up the crowd before CBS-11 Weather Day. Schoolkids come out to learn about weather before they watch the ballgame. As they arrive, Rangers Captain, Texas Rangers Six Shooters, and I play games and do our best to entertain the crowd.

This video blog post offers some highlights from the 2016 show. How did the student contestants we selected deal with their competitive situation? Watch and find out.

 
Special thanks to Hugo Carbajal, Alan H. Rose, Tanner Leggett, Chris DeRuyscher, Jason Abbadie, Chuck Morgan, and everyone with the Rangers for making this video possible. Disclosure: The Rangers pay me to do the Weather Day Warmup show.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.



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The Coolest Thing in Athletics

This article originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To read it on that site :http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/05/10/sports-rush-the-coolest-thing-in-athletics/

I just tried the hottest trend in sports recovery.

Or at least as hot as you can get at 240 degrees below zero.

When you play sports your whole life, you inevitably run (or stumble) into situations where you have to “put some ice on it.” We’ve all filled plastic bags from the freezer to place on sprained ankles and sore shoulders. The method I sampled is an ice bag on steroids (ok, bad choice of recovery metaphor there).

Wearing only gloves, socks, and a pair of plaid boxer shorts (your underwear selection may vary), one steps into a shoulder-high cylinder which floods with chilled nitrogen gas. Then the chamber gets cold. Really cold. Snow Miser cold.

I had my session at C3 Cryo Club in Burleson. Owner Lisa Flynn monitored the machine as it rapidly lowered the numbers on the attached thermometer.

“The cryotherapy starts to work on your body when the temperature reaches minus 166 in the chamber. The temperature will drop to minus 240, minus 250, sometimes minus 260 for about 30 seconds while you’re in the chamber,” Flynn explained.

I had played softball the night before and run more than usual (fallen over more, too). I hoped the cryotherapy would alleviate some of the inevitable muscle soreness. Flynn became aware of cryotherapy thanks to an injury of the diamond.

“My son was a freshman in high school, 14 years old. He rolled his ankle running to first base. The trainer told us we needed to take him to have an x-ray. It swelled up pretty bad. He had a high ankle sprain. The orthopedic told us he’d be out of playing three to five weeks. So he came to the trainer and he went and did cryotherapy every other for two weeks, so he did six treatments. After that sixth treatment, he was back on the field running, sliding, playing like he’d never gotten hurt before.”


Athletes at all levels have started using the procedure, most prominently in place of ice baths. After her son’s experience, Flynn, a nurse by profession, began to investigate the procedure before eventually opening her own shop.

“We discovered that cryotherapy was actually developed in the 70s in Japan and it was originally developed for rheumatoid arthritis patients. However, it had gotten popular here in the United States in 2011, actually in Texas in 2011, when the Dallas Mavericks used it for their winning season.”
Flynn’s cryo users consist of more than just players seeking a championship.

“A lot of people will come in with joint pain, inflammation, just in general throughout their body. They may be or may not be diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, (or) lupus,” she explained, “It has helped symptoms with those clients so they can have a better quality of life. It doesn’t necessarily cure it, but it does help with the inflammation they experience in their bodies.”

The science behind the treatment involves fooling your body into rushing blood to a core it believes is in mortal danger. Research is ongoing. How did it make me feel? I felt cold. Duh.

I grew up in Texas. I don’t like cold. I’d rather it be 100 every day than ever drop below 60. Luckily, the operator (Lisa Flynn in my case) talks to the subject the whole time to take one’s mind off one’s goosebumps. She also doesn’t leave the groceries in the freezer too long.

“We control the time that you’re in there. You cannot stay in there any longer than three minutes,” Flynn said. “Some people, two minutes, that’s it, every time they get in. The average time is two and a half minutes.”

It was hard for me to evaluate whether I felt better afterward than I would have otherwise after just a single cryo session. But the endurance athlete who recommended it uses it regularly and plenty of other sportspersons do as well. I may have a better idea after the next time I play softball and don’t use it. In the meantime, you can guess what I’ll be thinking about every time the air conditioner comes on.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.


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Food + Football

This article originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/05/04/sports-rush-food-and-football/

courtesy of Lori Gunter

 

Would it seem stereotypical to assume tackles, guards, and centers should really love an event that revolves around food?

New Dallas Cowboys center/guard Joe Looney thought the characterization fit. “You get to eat and have a good time – nothing better for an offensive lineman,“ he said of Sunday’s 12th Annual Taste of the NFL event at AT&T Stadium. The Cowboys and their co-hosts, the North Texas Food Bank, bill it as the Ultimate Tailgate Party, and even the running backs do go there to eat.

“Some great eats and it’s benefiting a great cause“ said newly signed ‘Boys rusher Alfred Morris. “I tried every meal they had except the pork bellies.”

Morris had heard that the pork bellies were, in fact, superb and vowed to sample them before leaving. All of the food should taste good, considering the event books 20 of North Texas’ top chefs to prepare it. Kent Rathbun of Abacus in uptown Dallas organizes his local brethren to each prepare a single original dish. Attendees wander from station to station filling up on the various concoctions.
“Having a good mix of chefs and foods and wines makes the party,” said Rathbun.



Despite the myriad of tasty options, it turns out the Cowboys players and alums who involve themselves in the event do so for reasons beyond feeding their own bellies.

“Childhood hunger is near to my heart,” said center Travis Frederick.”It’s (the Taste of the NFL event) a great way to raise money.”

Frederick has become a leader among the linemen in supporting the Taste of the NFL. This year, he even volunteered himself to accompany some live auction winners on a bowling trip to PINSTACK. His enthusiasm for the cause inspires his teammates to participate as well.

“He volunteers for everyone to come here. He doesn’t tell us we have to come, but we want to be here for that guy.“ said Looney.

courtesy of Lori Gunter

Four members of the o-line even got to play quarterback Sunday. During the live auction’s final phase, auctioneer Wendy Lambert invited the crowd to contribute to an NTFB fundraising goal. The first twenty or so donors got an autographed football thrown to them from the stage by Frederick, Jared Smith, Tyron Smith, or Charles Brown. We saw more spirals than ducks from men whose day jobs often revolve around helping someone else pass effectively. Some of the donors/receivers even successfully caught the passes standing on the turf where the Cowboys play their home games.

The event took place mostly outdoors last year, with food stations and a stage set up on the plaza just west of the stadium. Weather concerns moved the 2016 event inside, where chefs, musicians (Downtown Doug and Jack Ingram played sets), and other VIPs could be sheltered. The function exceeded its fundraising targets, perhaps allowing the Cowboys to declare it the first win of the year on their home field. Those funds will provide nutrition for some important recipients.

“All the proceeds go to our child programs for the North Texas Food Bank. That includes Food 4 Kids. That includes our after-school programs,” explained Lora Farris, the food bank’s Senior Manager of Marketing.

In addition to the good they have done for local youth in need, the Cowboys can also make the case they have one-upped their biggest rivals.

courtesy of Lori Gunter

“This is an awesome event. At the Redskins, we didn’t do this one,” said Morris of his former team. “I’m going to give them a call and tell them to do this one.”

His first call should probably go to the linemen.

Disclosure : An event company associated with the event hired me to produce some videos for it


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.


RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports