As the team captured the nation’s heart on the court, Zach Seidel ’12, M.S. ’15, captivated Twitter with his snarky-yet-respectful play-by-play of the game. And as the team found themselves the subject of interviews and memes, so did Seidel, as he playfully shut down Sharpie-wielding haters while simultaneously inviting the world to join #RetrieverNation.
Here, Seidel talks with his dad, fellow alum and sports writer Jeff Seidel ’85, about what those first days were like.
Jeff: Did you realize what was going on nationally?
Zach: No, not until there were about three or four minutes left in the game when Tim Hall showed me that another athletic director had texted him a screenshot of one of the tweets and said it was funny. That made me realize we had something going on.
Jeff: And then around midnight, you texted your mom and I and said that the New York Times, ESPN and CBS all wanted to interview you. We didn’t know what the hell you were talking about.
Zach: Yeah, you didn’t believe me.
Jeff: I didn’t know what was going on but then your mom and I saw a big thing on ESPN and started getting texts and links to articles, and then you called around 3:30 a.m. It was a crazy night that we sure enjoyed.
Zach: You guys kept calling me while they were interviewing me, but I had no way of telling you what was going on. My computer was freaking out so much that I couldn’t even send you an iMessage. Everything was going crazy.
Jeff: The whole weekend, I was getting calls, emails, texts asking either if I knew what you had been doing or could I connect them to you for an interview.
Zach: The whole weekend, my phone was buzzing. It just would not stop. I was doing interviews until 4:30 a.m. that first night. And it never stopped the whole weekend. It was an experience I’ll never forget but it wouldn’t have happened if the guys hadn’t pulled off such an upset.
Follow Zach on Twitter at @UMBCAthletics.
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