American football and Twitter are once again in the news, after an act of kindness from a player towards an overlooked Twitter follower hit the blogosphere.
Last week I wrote about Tim Tebow’s touchdown pass being the most tweeted about sporting moment with a massive 9,420 tweets per second, however this story is all about an off-field play made by New England Patriots’ Wide Receiver, Chad Ochocinco.
Just over a week ago, a college student named Victor Gonzalez tweeted Chad to say that he’d been tweeting him for two years, and had never had a response. So what did the Patriot say in response?
And the tweet wasn’t just an empty gesture of goodwill. ‘The Ocho’, as he is known, also sorted out Victor with a plane ticket and hotel room, as well as a ticket to the game, so the random twitter follower had everything taken care of.
In a world where sports stars’ wages are continually being compared to the comparatively tiny sums of money earned by those working in hospitals and the emergency services, it’s nice to see an act such as this that gives something back to the fans. Sure, there will be a lot of positive publicity for Chad Ochocinco to come out of this, but I highly doubt the kid who was flown out to the game at the player’s expense would care one iota.