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From volunteer to Super Bowl... with Katy Perry and Huggy Bear along the way!

  • Writer: Ken Walters
    Ken Walters
  • Nov 17, 2020
  • 9 min read

Updated: Oct 4, 2023

A few years ago, I was working for a great little creative agency on the outskirts of London that had aspirations to become a proper ‘London’ agency. I’m very proud of my contribution as Sales and Marketing Director in helping them achieve their goals – but, when the time came to acquire a Soho address, I felt it wasn’t right for me. I was midlands based at that time, with a young family and, for a number of reasons, I felt my time there had come to an end and I pursued opportunities nearer home.


Over the next few years, I found myself in something of a wilderness. Not wishing to be critical of other places I’d worked, but I never found the passion and commitment when I left the team in London. From living and breathing creativity; being with clients almost 24/7; going to work with your passport in case you need to jump on a plane – to finishing at a ‘reasonable’ hour feeling underwhelmed at what had been produced just didn’t cut it for me.


The upside was, because of the lack of commute and long hours networking and entertaining, I found I had a lot of time on my hands. It was around this time, I started to spend more time in the USA – eventually, buying a home in Florida. I was also fortunate enough to be able to take a sabbatical and undertake some volunteer work and help to establish an American Football team here in the UK.


After almost a year, I was approached by the adult competitions association to undertake the Media and Marketing director role. When in the role, it soon became clear that the National Governing Body (NGB) lacked cohesiveness and had no ‘business plan’. After some meetings and discussions, I took it upon myself to construct a rudimentary plan that focused on the participants' pathways and something I could hang my work off. This was adopted by the NGB and, with it, we pursued membership with the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR – now Sport and Recreation Alliance (S&RA)). We were successful and a career change had evolved. I was now performing a contractual ‘client-side’ role and my newly established company, Endzone (the scoring area on an American football field) was created to provide the services.


My first task was a twelve months stakeholder engagement project to derive a business plan for the sport called a ‘Whole Sport Plan’. Meetings were arranged with numerous groups across the country. Coaches, officials, volunteer groups, participants – young persons, adults, students at universities etc. and an enormous amount of research material was gathered. The last month of the contract was spent hidden away at home in the USA where I started to pull all this material together into a cohesive document – and it was presented to the CCPR at the national championships at Don Valley Stadium, Sheffield that September.


Work undertaken by Jake Wilson at Deloitte on governance and structure was a great influence and a change management project reflecting his work for the NGB was one of the first outcomes of the plan to be instigated.


All this came at a time when there was a lot of interest in the sport here in the UK. The NFL had just closed down their European venture and started focusing on the international series at Wembley – and there was more live American Football on terrestrial TV than Premier League football. After a while, I began to realise that we needed to harness this energy and I used my agency background to create a campaign to promote participation and signpost to where this could be undertaken – be it playing, coaching, volunteering, officiating or just being a fan.


Get into American Football – the campaign to signpost and grow participation

The campaign, ‘Get into American Football’, did exactly what it said on the tin. People participated in the sport as a player, referee, coach, volunteer or as a fan – and these became the five pillars of the campaign. With a standout identity, website and enthusiasm (and little else), the campaign was promoted.


I begged, borrowed and stole space in the programme and the large screens at the Dolphins/Giants at Wembley. ‘Get into American Football’ was exposed to millions – not only in the UK, but globally. I’d also built up a relationship with the team at Sunset and Vine (who produced the Channel 5 NFL show) to help promote the domestic game with features and appearances – which led to regular appearances on the show.

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We also held the first ever National Governing Body convention at Loughborough University where all members were invited to attend a three-day event. At the convention, we recorded material for a TV documentary and more features for the Channel 5 NFL show.


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Sport and Recreation Alliance (CCPR) membership and advocacy

Increasingly, the team at the S&RA were supporting my efforts. In return, I was asked to support them as a representative of my sport and some 300+ other small less recognised sports in lobbying the EU and British parliament on topics like the points based visa system and disparity of child welfare in sport across European countries. Some success in these areas led to me being invited to contribute on the Equality Human Right Commission first ‘Strategy for Sport’ with Dame Kelly Holmes, Garth Crooks, Nigel Owens and a few others.


Working with the team at the S&RA was always a pleasure. Long, but enjoyable hours with a very bright young team who had lots of enthusiasm. It’s great to see that they’ve all gone on to have great careers!


“Don't look round... Huggy Bear has just walked in”

At a national championships event in Sheffield one year, the compere (now Radio 2 presenter, OJ Borg) recognised a face in the crowd – Antonio Fargas. Antonio was the original ‘Huggy Bear’ from the TV show, Starsky and Hutch. His son, Justin was, at that time, a player with Oakland Raiders. OJ and I went over and introduced ourselves. Antonio was working in theatre in Manchester at the time. He’d heard a promotional feature I’d done on the radio; hired a car; drove to Sheffield; bought a ticket and was watching the game. He was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the event for an amatuer sport (apart from the attendance figures, it had been likened to NFL Europe games by the team from their London office – which was a great compliment). I asked if he’d be able to support us in any capacity in the future and he agreed that, if the opportunity arose and he was able to, he would. We exchanged telephone numbers and we kept in touch.


A year or so passed and the S&RA were working on a TV show project that would generate funds for their members – NGBs. I was contacted by them and asked if our sport could contribute in some capacity – maybe even provide a celebrity? I reflected on a few names like Vernion Kaye (ex-Manchester player) and Dermot O’Leary (ex-Colchester player) and a few others that I knew would support. But I also wondered if Antonio would be in the country around the time of the filming and would help. I put a call into him at his home in Las Vegas and explained what the show was about and asked if he’d do some volunteer promotional work for the sport. He listened intently and said, “hold on – let me check my diary”. He came back to the phone and said, “I’m free that week. Book me a flight and meet me at the airport. I’ll need to be back by that weekend, you’ve got me for five days – make me busy”. Delighted at the response, I started calling round and arranging TV and radio appearances/interviews, photo opportunities and, of course, scheduled all his activity for the fund-raising TV show.


When the time arrived to collect Antonio from the airport, I’d got a very busy schedule arranged for him. Every day he was on radio shows or doing features on TV, photo opportunities. Start times were a very early breakfast with him and some TV appearances had us working very late into the evening/early morning.


He worked immensely hard and was the consummate professional throughout – always steering the conversations round to the work the NGB was doing in the UK and how he greatly supported us. In addition, I was astonished how frequently he was recognised – particularly by the black community who thanked him for his great blaxploitation movie work in the early 70’s.

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My short time with Antonio was truly inspirational and I’m forever grateful for his support. The term, ‘legend’ has, in recent times, been down-valued to describe someone who returns from the kitchen with crisps. Antonio is a legend in the truest sense of the word.


Katy Perry and the MTV Europe awards

In the autumn of 2008, I got a call from people who were working with Katy Perry. Katy was to present the MTV Europe awards in Liverpool. Her opening performance was to be the song “I Kissed A Girl” and she wanted to be dressed as an American Football player. Her team had been given my number by the NFL London office. After a few minutes, it was clear that her wardrobe team were unfamiliar with the sport and needed some guidance. We discussed the protective wear and I recommended the upper body items that would allow the greatest movement. I also advised not to use the pads in the game pants as they would not be flattering. With regards to a helmet, I took her measurements and provided one that would be a generous fit so she could remove it with ease. Her team had the pleasure of covering it in sequins. When it came to the design of the game shirt, they were considering using any shirt available – so long as it was red. I suggested we design and make a traditional style game shirt and, when it came to naming and numbering, we use ‘08’ for the year and ‘Perry’ (for obvious reasons). All was agreed and I contacted a company that had been making replicas and non-contact sport version shirts. When it came to costs, we had a handshake agreement – namely, my time was paid for by the NGB; the equipment was to be supplied at cost; I asked for some ‘promotion’ of our campaign – Get into American Football at the event in some way. With nothing more than an exchange of a few emails, the deal was done. A volunteer in the sport who lived near the event had a backstage pass and dressed Katy for the show. We got a few mentions and a ‘special thanks’ in the credits – all of which helped spread the word!


EFAF, IFAF and the road to the Super Bowl. With the campaign proving to be a success and the ambassadorial and advocacy work generating publicity, my work drew the attention of the international bodies for the sport EFAF (the European Federation of American Football) and IFAF (the International Federation of American Football) and opportunities to work with them presented themselves to me.


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My first IFAF assignment was at the World Championships in Canton, Ohio. I used the trip as an opportunity to visit friends in Ohio for a few days before and then travel on to Florida afterwards where I’d arranged to meet up with Patrick Steenberge (ex-College football star) whose company, Global Football provided events and training camps for officials, coaches and players. We agreed to meet at the Miami Dolphins stadium and, whilst there, he introduced me to the Super Bowl team as he was putting on some events at the upcoming Super Bowl. Conversations led me to supporting the team at the Dolphins stadium with volunteer workforce development programmes. And so, I actually got to invoice the Miami Dolphins – the team I had been a fan of since the early seventies. It’s amazing to think that ‘the greatest show on earth’ – the Super Bowl – relies on a volunteer and low-paid workforce to put on their event!


The advice I’ve provided in other ‘Accidental Disruptor’ articles remains the same – namely:

  1. Be brave – have the courage of your convictions. My volunteer work grew into a career change!

  2. Start small – It all started when I responded to a fly poster in a local sport shop. I offered to help with some marketing at a local level.

  3. Aim high – I always pushed the envelope and tried to get a bit extra for my members – either at the club, nationally or internationally.

  4. Question everything – there is no harm in asking someone for something – just get your pitch right. The worst reply you can get is a ‘no’... but at least you know where you stand.

  5. Make mistakes – Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. Acknowledge it; learn from it; brush it off (don’t dwell); move on quickly a little bit wiser!

Accidental disruption started by responding to a fly poster and working as a volunteer. It was a career change and an amazing journey that resulted in advising on volunteering at one of the biggest sports event in the world!

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