Taste Flav is the official hype man for the US ladies’s water polo group within the Paris Olympics
Maggie Steffens requested for extra help for the U.S. ladies’s water polo group, and the captain acquired one significantly stunning response.
From a clock-wearing rap icon.
Moved by Steffens’ Instagram put up, Taste Flav has stepped ahead to assist the U.S. group because it goes for an unprecedented fourth consecutive gold medal on the Paris Olympics this summer time. He’s finalizing a deal that can make him a USA Water Polo sponsor and the official hype man for a program in search of an even bigger highlight.
The 65-year-old Flav, a founding member and hype man with Public Enemy, has jumped headfirst into his new duties, highlighting a number of the group’s finest gamers on social media. He is also planning to look at the ladies’s group play in Paris.
“Once I come out and I watch this water polo group … ‘USA! USA!’ Yo, I will be the largest hype man that they ever had of their life,” he advised the AP on Friday. “I will be larger than any cheerleader that they’d of their life. I will cheer this group on, and I will cheer this group into profitable a gold medal.”
Successful has been the standard outcome for the U.S. ladies’s group because the 2012 Olympics. Nevertheless it hasn’t attracted the identical consideration or help as equally dominant American packages, largely as a result of water polo stays a distinct segment sport all through many of the world.
That — together with somewhat nostalgia — prompted Steffens, 30, the final remaining member of the 2012 group, to put up on Instagram. Whereas expressing gratitude for the chance to play and her love for her sport, she additionally inspired anybody studying the put up to take a look at her group and highlighted the fixed monetary wrestle for many Olympic athletes.
“We’ve gotten a variety of feedback you realize of ‘Oh, it’s so cool what you’ve executed. Bummer you’re not a soccer participant or a basketball participant, as a result of your group could be getting far more publicity or far more help,’” Steffens mentioned Friday from Paris, the place the group is on a coaching journey forward of the Olympics.
“And as an alternative we’re nonetheless form of the place we had been at 12 years in the past, which for me isn’t my purpose. I’ve at all times wished to propel the game ahead.”
Enter Flav, who was inducted with the group Public Enemy into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 2013. Flav’s supervisor introduced the put up to his consideration, and he determined he wished to assist.
“One factor about me, I do know what it feels prefer to need to see a dream come true,” mentioned Flav, who is understood for sporting an enormous clock on a sequence round his neck. “I do know what it feels prefer to need to obtain a purpose, and I am the kind of individual that, if I see you making an attempt, then I will do no matter I can that will help you.”
Steffens mentioned it was “very surreal” when Flav — whose authorized identify is William Jonathan Drayton Jr. — reached out. Requested what she knew about Flav and Public Enemy earlier than the connection, Steffens promptly imitated Flav’s frequent “Taste Flav!” declaration.
Steffens is among the oldest gamers on the U.S. group, however she mentioned Ryann Neushul, 24, had Public Enemy in her prime 5 on the music streaming service, Spotify. A few the group’s coaches and Steffens’ household additionally had been excited in regards to the partnership.
“My entire household was like ‘Is that this actual? Flav is a part of the water polo world now?’” Steffens mentioned. “I used to be like ‘I don’t know what is going on on, however I need to put on a clock proper now and that is how I am feeling.’”
Steffens and the U.S. group even have one other high-profile supporter in Taylor Swift. That they had plans to see the musician’s Eras Tour live performance on Friday night time at La Défense Enviornment — the venue for the ladies’s water polo ultimate on Aug. 10.
Girls’s nationwide group supervisor Ally Beck reached out to Swift’s camp and stunned the group with the tickets. Flav mentioned he additionally contacted Swift’s group, however the tickets had already been accepted.
Flav, who’s engaged on one other tour with Public Enemy that might start later this yr, then held up a T-shirt along with his image that learn “KING SWIFTIE.”
“I am proud to help Taylor. … Taste Flav is a Swiftie, the king of all of the Swifties,” he mentioned.
That is one other connection Flav has along with his new favourite group.
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