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You know by now this plucky 4th grader from South Jordan's riding the wave of more than four million YouTube views of her ridiculously elusive runs through and around the boys in the SL Valley's Ute Football league.
Her dad Brent popped the cutups on YouTube just for kicks and the rest is, you know, history. Instant cyber celebrity leading to airports, flights and appearances on national television. From "Fox and Friends" to (NYC) "GMA" then (LA) The NFL Network and then San Francisco (49ers practice) then special guests of the Niners for their Monday Night Football game last week. While on the field of course ESPN's MNF coverage gushed over Sam and the 9 year old joined her dad's idol Steve Young and others on ESPN's analysts set.
All the while Sam's been casually cultivating a growing Twitter following (@sam_gordon6) from below 100 to, at last count, almost 2,800. The top of her follow list? USA Women's National Team star Abby Wambach. They've been tweeting back and forth for weeks. Abby, Alex Morgan and the rest of the Olympic Gold Medalists invited Sam to be their special guest this past weekend in Phoenix, where the USA played Ireland in an international friendly. Phoenix Stadium, the state of the art venue where the NFL's Arizona Cardinals play was the perfect backdrop for Samantha's most excellent adventure.
Weeks of trying to find downtime where Sam could spend a couple of hours with us to do an interview and shoot features for #KSL5News and SportsBeat Sunday finally led to me jumping over to Phoenix, hiring a free-lance cameraman and heading over last Friday morning. It was a quick, fun and uber busy one day turnaround. During that time I have the pleasure of meeting and chatting with this ‘midget mighty mite'. The little girl with the whirl who'd become a national media darling. I knew from her highlights she was talented, an outstanding overall athlete. I had no idea how much fun she'd be to work with. Patient, glib, thoughtful, a very deep thinker for 9. Getting to know her dad Brent was a pleasure too. Not taking this whole ride too seriously but, at the same time, savvy enough to entertain offers from national company, that could end up with Sam shooting a few commercials.
After week's of crazy travel schedules, this week Sam's back to a relatively normal existence. Her 4th grade classes at DayBreak Elementary resume. Oh she'll still have big fun later this week when she and her Gremlin league football team is guests of the Jazz, they get to go watch a Jazz practice!
I had a blast making contact, getting to know Brent then meeting and interviewing Sam. If you'd like to see how those features turned out, just click on the attached video box, you should have access to both stories I did Friday night and Sunday night.
