LET'S HIRE BIG BOI AS KENNESAW'S MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY
An important bye week business proposal.
Thirty years into his career, Big Boi is well past the point where he needs to prove himself as an artist. The Outkast run and his solo music are more than enough to coast into retirement if he wanted. Instead, he’s playing a limited schedule that sounds like a dream for anyone who likes rap, football, and vacations:
Arena shows with LL Cool J and The Roots
The Jacksonville Taco and Tequila festival
Rock the Bells Cruise (followed by the Rock the Bells Resort in Cancun)
Monday Night Football’s halftime show when the Vikings play the 49ers
Add one more date to his picky fall schedule: Kennesaw State booked the rapper for a gameday concert when the Lincoln Oaklanders come to town next weekend. It’s an inventive way to stir up interest in a matchup that doesn’t have much reason to happen, during a season everyone kind of wishes would just end.
We can safely say this is Big Boi’s first performance for a 1-5 FCS team coming off two straight bye weeks to play a team that may or may not be Division II. The cynical view might lead you to say the school got nervous about the optics of a dead-end finish to the season and could be looking for an extra attendance boost. Bringing out Big Boi for a halftime cameo or postgame show gives an incentive to stick around, regardless of how the expected blowout actually plays out.
The galaxy-brained take: What if the concert is actually a job interview?
My proposal: Let’s hire Big Boi to play the Matthew McCounaghey role for Kennesaw State.
A few years back, Texas appointed McConaughey as their Minister of Culture, a ceremonial role that amounts to simply existing as the most famous Longhorns fan. He’s taken a permanent residency on every Texas sideline and is guaranteed to appear on College Gameday anytime the Longhorns are involved. This absurd clip is what I remember most:
It’s still insane that McConaughey was hanging out on the end of the bench like a student manager or frustrated assistant coach. Here’s how he described the “job” with Texas:
"Really my goal, my purpose as the Minister of Culture is to have that arena be the last place any visiting basketball team wants to play and the first place that any world-class large band/act does want to play and that goes through engineering, décor, design and ergonomics of the entire joint.”
Ergonomics? Engineering? I have zero clue what he was talking about. Does it really matter? We need a vibes guy to lead us into CUSA and the bright lights of Tuesday nights on CBS Sports. What celebrities and symbols can help us find an identity? The conference already has a few: Big Red is an internet icon for WKU. FIU adopted all of Miami Vice and parked a custom Lamborghini on the field earlier this season. Richard Linklater based Everybody Wants Some!! on his time playing baseball at Sam Houston. Liberty has the Falwell family. Sorry, I meant to say William Byron from NASCAR.
Football morale has dipped this season. We need a Minister of Hooting.
The causes of the rebuilding year are well-documented: postseason ineligibility, widespread redshirting, a new offense and defense, things of that nature. What if Big Boi is part of the solution? He’s a first-ballot Atlanta HOFer and on the Tri-Cities Mount Rushmore with Andre 3000, Kenan Thompson, and Simeon Cottle. The Falcons, Hawks, and Braves all claim him as a celebrity fan, so he’s comfortable with the role at the pro level. Plus there’s nothing more Cobb County than using Atlanta’s culture when it’s convenient.
Already the nation’s preeminent owl handler, Big Boi loves to show off his four-bird squad that includes Houdini, Simon, Tula, and Hootie Hoo. Our former live mascot Sturgis disappeared years ago thanks to a contract dispute with his handler. Let’s upgrade with four new owls who are calm enough to handle the publicity. “I can sit here and smoke 10 blunts and they won’t move,” he told Rolling Stone.
The Lincoln game won’t be his first trip to campus, either. A decade ago, he blew out his knee a few weeks before he was scheduled to kick off KSU’s fall semester with a concert outside University Place. Did he bail? No, that would be unlike a future Minister of Hooting. Instead of canceling, he performed an entire show while sitting in a comically oversized chair. Lewis Preston hyped up the crowd at one point in one of his final off-court appearances as head coach for the Owls. Kennesaw was a very strange place in 2013.
Whether or not Big Boi is an Owls fan yet is irrelevant. We can get him up to speed on our limited history in a hurry. If his son Cross Patton, a fifth-year RB who has spent time at Oregon and Nevada, still has an extra COVID year of eligibility remaining, he could come home, play for the Owls, and reminisce about Reno with Coach Klenakis. We can talk about logistics later, like figuring out if the elder Patton is willing to lead the football team onto the field behind the wheel of an Escalade. There’s enough money floating around the athletic department from Fifth Third Bank, personal injury law firms, and local fast food franchisees that we can get creative.
During basketball season, imagine our Minister of Hooting recreating that Texas bench scene with Eric Holland and Chuck Stone by his side. Jacksonville State might not get off the bus if that’s what’s waiting on them inside the Convocation Center. We can even look to Outkast for a ready-made fight song when Big Boi accepts the job. The guy really does love owls. Now we just need him to love the Owls. Professionally.