A cold email with great wishes led to the night of a lifetime for 23 members of the U.S. women’s water polo team.
“I don’t know how we’re going to get through this,” Allie Beck says over Zoom. Operations manager Beck contacted Taylor Swift’s team earlier this year, hoping to surprise the athletes with tickets to the Elas Tour.
“We’ve been preparing for the Olympics, and we were invited by France to hold a test event in Paris,” Beck says. As the team was looking for activities to do, she noticed that Swift would be starting the second year of her record-breaking tour in the French capital. So she sent an email to the singer’s team.
A few weeks later, as Beck was boarding a flight from Los Angeles to France, she received a response that gave her pause.
“That’s the screech you heard from me on the plane,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, guys.’
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Beck waited until the Wednesday before the concert to tell his team.
You can see the reaction in the video above.
“The girls just lost it,” Beck says. “From there it was like, ‘What am I going to wear?'” We were screaming in the hallway. ”
“I can’t say thank you enough”
On Friday, 15 water polo players and eight staff members crowded into a section of the VIP floor known as the “Red” lounge. Two of the team’s biggest swifties are utility outsider Dennis Mammolito, his shooter, and center Eva Johnson. Mammolito’s first concert was Swift’s second album “Fearless.”
The Hellas Tour added to an already great week for the team after rapper Flavor Fluff said he would financially support the team’s trip to Paris for the summer games.
Team captain Maggie Stephens posted the following emotional post on Instagram: “Some people may not know this, but most Olympians (myself included!) need a second (or third) job to support them in pursuing their dreams, and most ‘s teams rely on sponsors to provide travel, lodging, nutritional support, rent/accommodation, and the necessary funding for women’s sports and the lives of female athletes especially in this day and age. ”
Flavor Fluff wrote, “AYYY YOOO,,, as a father of a girl and a supporter of all women’s sports, I will personally sponsor anything you need.And I will sponsor the entire team.” My manager is in touch with your agent and it is FLAVOR FLAV’s promise to use all my relationships and resources to help you further.”
Beck couldn’t be more grateful for Swift and Flavor Fluff’s generosity and kindness.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Beck says, “to see everyone light up, enjoy Taylor’s power, see her for who she is, and see her rock the world even more.” You just have to see what you can know.”At La Defense Arena, we’re going to go for gold there in the next few months, but the amount of inspiration we were able to draw from her is on a whole other level.”
The teams play at the stadium from the end of July to the beginning of August. They are poised to defend their gold title for the third consecutive year, with London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
Swift continues the European leg of her Elas tour in Sweden this weekend before heading to Lisbon, Portugal next week.
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USA TODAY Network’s Taylor Swift reporter Brian West on Instagram, TikTok, and X as @BryanWestTV.
