Reflections From the Red Carpet

Pringle and Anne as faux celebs at the 2014 NFL Draft

“YOU’RE A ROCK STAR!” MY FRIENDS TEXTED ME. 

By Pringle Pipkin Franklin
Perhaps I had always wanted to be the Watermelon Queen.

In one of life’s unforeseen moments, on Thurs., May 8 at 6:18 p.m., my sister Anne and I found ourselves on the legendary red carpet in New York City, posing as celebrities as we sashayed into Radio City Music Hall for the opening round of the 2014 NFL Draft.

During our fleeting but unforgettable 75 seconds along the walk of fame, we were surrounded by herds of wide-eyed television cameras – each unblinking eye swiveling to follow us in our Carolina Panther promenade. Mobs of excited NFL fans strained behind their sidewalk cordons, hoping by brute force to push closer to the main event, which, in that instant, seemed to be us.

We were the warm-up Sister Act before thirty of the nation’s top NFL draft prospects rumbled down the red carpet with their gridiron dreams and their glittering mothers in tow. Ironically, we were not dolled up. The NFL provided a special Draft Day jersey for my opening night outfit to show off my Panthers spirit. (While the first-round picks would receive jerseys with the No. 1, the VIP fans wore No. 14 for 2014 draft.) Judging by the salivating crowd and ravenous camera crews, clearly people thought we were famous or, at least, more important than my 18-year-old son perceives: every afternoon he reminds me that my most important job is to make his dinner.

Finally, someone had recognized my star quality!

Let me tell you, my first instinct was to seize the moment like any good Southern girl worth her salt. Below the Mason-Dixon line, every county seat or historic crossroads has its Peach Queen, its Cotton Princess, or its Swamp Royalty. My native training kicked in as natural as breathing.

Smile. Wave. Turn this way and that. Above all, ham it up while showing off the coveted object that shouts your status – instead of roses or a tiara, my iconic object was a custom-made Carolina Panthers baseball cap. The NFL had placed this pristine cap in a Plexiglas cube with a plastic handle to keep my sweaty fingers from smudging the display box. No human hands would compromise the purity of the cap until around 11 p.m. when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would announce the name of the Panthers’ first round selection.

No hands shall touch this cap

At that point, the blessed player would receive this holy cap and a priceless Panthers jersey featuring his last name and the numeral one. As in, No. 1 draft day stud. Rarely does one get such an inside look at glory.

How did all of this good fortune happen to fall upon us, you might ask?

It all began when our daddy, John Benton Pipkin II, purchased four terrific seats on the 50-yard line back in 1995 when the Carolina Panthers opened as the League’s 29th franchise. Sadly, our father upgraded his seats from Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte to the

with Daddy in 1995

clouds of heaven in 2000; since then, my sister and I have shared the family tickets each season. Anne lives in Charlotte, and we commute four hours from Charleston, S.C. for games. A few months ago, Anne responded to a Panthers email about some contest to win a trip to the 2014 NFL Draft. What a surprise when the Panthers called in late April to say she had won the four-day trip to Manhattan and could bring along the guest of her choice!

Before I knew what was happening, I was standing in the bustling lobby of the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, wearing an oversized black and turquoise Panthers jersey. Of the 25 fan winners, 22 were guys. With my androgynous name, perhaps the NFL thought I was a man, because I had received a male jersey while the other two female winners – Dolphins and Ravens – sported female jerseys. Getting guy wear was better because my youngest son had already called dibs on the jersey after the draft.

The lucky VIP fans & guests at Radio City

Our colorful ensemble resembled a box of crayons featuring:

• the cute blonde Dolphins lady in white platforms from Miami (coral and aqua)

• the ear-splitting Saints fanatic from New Orleans (black and gold) whose surgically-implanted mouth whistle actually hurts at close range. I would not want to sit in front of the whistle dude at a game.

• the young mom and petite Ravens gal from Baltimore (purple and black) whose parents had given her season tickets as a wedding present. She brought her mother to the draft as her special guest, and her mother-in-law was back in the hotel room babysitting

• the hobbling Broncos fan in a medical boot from Denver (navy, orange, and white) who’d had his season tickets almost as long as I’ve been alive.

I kept scanning for the Cheesehead in the group because I always enjoy meeting the down-to-earth types from Wisconsin, but for some reason, the Green Bay Packers were among the seven clubs who did not send a fan. All I can say is, thank you Jesus (remember, this is actually a Christian blog) that the Carolina Panthers decided to participate!

Back home in Charleston, my friend Sarah Marshall is perhaps the biggest professional sports fan I know. When I told her that the NFL and the Panthers were whisking away little ol’ me to the draft, her face turned bright red. All she could say was, “Jesus loves you more than he loves me!”

In all, 25 lucky fans from around the country flew to New York with a guest, stayed at the Marriott, and received the VIP treatment while enjoying an insider’s view of the draft. Technically, the Grand Prize Winner was scheduled to walk the red carpet solo while his companion applauded from behind the cordons with the peasants.

My sister was the official winner, but she very kindly told the Panthers to make me the Chosen One. To be honest, we both wanted to plunge into the spotlight, but neither wanted to snatch the glittering prize away from the other. If only our beloved daddy had been alive, there would be no question: John Pipkin was a natural showman. He would have carried the Panthers flag proudly and waved it with vigor. But alas, without him, how could we choose only one sister?

Luckily, Laura Lefton of the NFL allowed us to call an audible. When I asked Laura if Anne and I might share the red carpet experience, she was sympathetic. Honestly, the entire weekend, all of the NFL staffers did whatever they could to make the winning fans feel as special and important as possible. An hour later, Laura told me discreetly that she had made it happen. Anne and I would co-reign as Watermelon – I mean, Panthers Queens. It helps to have friends in high places.

Pringle & Anne with Roger Goodell

Laura is working on a fabulous NFL project called The Membership Club, which basically ramps up the perks and bennies to season ticket holders like us. Any NFL season ticket holder is automatically enrolled in The Membership Club, and this spring was the inauguration of The Membership Club Draft Experience. Laura and other NFL marketing staffers are thinking up more ways to bring these football patrons into personal contact with the players, the coaches, the glamour, and hoopla of their beloved team and the League itself.

For example, as soon as we had checked into the Marriott, my sister and I each received goodie bags from Panthers staffers Kalen Rearden and Chrystal Rowe. Draft pins, draft caps, a NFL gift card, Panthers t-shirts, Panthers koozies, Panthers lanyards, Panthers bumper stickers, and of course the Panthers Draft Day jersey were soon displayed on our bed as we surveyed the loot.

Are you impressed? Listen to this! Miami Dolphin Sue told us she’d won an SUV and a Super Bowl trip from her team before landing this draft trip. Sue calls it her Dolphin karma. That coral and aqua karma must have cranked into overtime, because at the draft, our group had the best seats in the house.

Apparently the Commish had directed his minions to create our VIP section. The NFL cordoned us away with an impressive display of theater ropes and ushers. We were close enough to touch the stage and get neck cramps. We needed to be easy to find because, just before each club went “on the clock” for 10 minutes, an NFL staffer would escort that team’s fan from the seats through a labyrinth of backstage rabbit holes until we magically ended up inside the top-secret jersey pressing room. This No. 1 jersey is newly-minted behind the velvet theater curtains with the player’s name only a few moments before the grand announcement.

The top secret pressing room

(You are not allowed to take your cell phone into the jersey pressing room. The NFL knows how tempting it would be for the fan to tweet the draftee’s identity just before Goodell announces it on television. However, the fan still savors the privilege of being among the first on the planet to find out which talented rookie is going to his or her team.)

What’s more, the fan was then invited to venture in from stage right and hand the jersey to the Commish. When the truimphant recruit bounded in from stage left, Goodell would present him with the No. 1 jersey. The beaming guy would hold it up, showing off his name on the back while a million crazed fans snapped pictures.

Despite several frantic trades among the clubs, the Panthers stuck to their 28th slot, so we had about three hours to wait and wonder: whom will they select?

S. Watkins of Clemson

Of course my Palmetto State’s two superstars, Jadeveon Clowney of South Carolina and Sammy Watkins of Clemson, were snatched up by the fourth selection. I knew they weren’t going to stay in the Carolinas, so my biggest concern was for our war room gurus to pick one of the remaining prospective players who were actually cloistered with their families offstage at Radio City. Naturally I wanted the honor of seeing his name pressed into the jersey before anyone else and carrying the Panthers shirt out to Goodell at the podium.

J. Clowney of USC

“Don’t trip,” the Commish had quipped to our group that morning during our rehearsal. Thanks for the suggestion – not!

Naturally we were all eager to be part of the action during our team’s dramatic moment, but there was one potential spoiler. If your club drafted a player who had not been invited to attend, the Nike representative whipped your team’s impersonalized jersey off the presser and moved on to the next club. In our case, that would be the New England Patriots, and their eager and nervous fan was also in the tiny Nike pressing station, poised and ready for the starting gun to send his team onto the clock.

After several suspenseful moments, an official with a radio headset whispered the word: our Panthers had chosen wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin of Florida State. A surprising yet brilliant choice, but sadly, the 6’5’’ Benjamin was not in the house, eliminating my personal moment of glory. If I had truly been a Watermelon Queen, this would have been the time to cry through my mascara. There would be no jersey handoff. As I watched, the Patriots game shirt was already being fitted onto the presser.

As consolation, my sister and I were allowed to walk on stage to greet the most powerful man in professional sports. I waved my Panther blue fashion scarf in lieu of walking out empty-handed and cheered for our team’s pick. I hope Benjamin saw that on TV. In an odd twist dating back to her first husband, my sister actually knows Goodell – whom she calls Roger – so he wrapped her up in a big warm hug.

Even so, I was a touch disappointed not to lay my eyes on our first round draft pick.

In the end, we managed to meet one of the new Panthers players while sitting in LaGuardia Airport Saturday for the flight back to Charlotte. A hulking young guy with a diamond stud earring was seated next to a scrawny friend sporting a brand new Panthers cap.

“Do you think he was drafted?” I whispered to my sister.

Just then, the big guy answered his cell phone. “Thank you very much,” he said into his phone. “Yeah, it feels great.”

Yes, my sister nodded, shooting up her eyebrows.

I sprang from my seat and introduced myself as soon as the unsuspecting guy had finished his call. When Kony Ealy stood up to speak, at 6’4’’ and 273 pounds, he was more massive than he’d appeared while slumped into his chair. Ealy, a defensive end from the University of Missouri, went to the Panthers in the second round as the 60th player. He was good-natured as my sister and I fussed over him and peppered him with questions. He said he was flying to Charlotte to meet a Realtor and find a place to live. He seemed a bit nervous about it all; he’d never even been to the Carolinas, and he’d left his mother back home in St. Louis because she was under the weather. That was too bad!

“Don’t worry, the people are very friendly in Charlotte,” I assured him.

“That’s good,” Ealy said. “I like friendly people.”

“What’s more, we Southern women like to look after folks. Now that you’re playing for the Panthers, you’ve got about 5,000 new mothers,” I said.

Kony Ealy with his new fans

Ealy laughed and affably agreed to pose for cell phone photos with us. Of course I tweeted them and mentioned in less than 140 characters that Ealy and his buddy were flying first class.

Clearly, the entire bonanza was a first class experience for all. As we say in Panthers Stadium, “Roar!”