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An Open Letter to Our Former Coach

So, our old coach isn't great at these twitter machines. Out of kindness, I decide to help him out.

By Andrew Rosin
Was there any chance that this wasn't going to be the picture?
Was there any chance that this wasn't going to be the picture?
Wesley Hitt

I am excellent at twitter.

It's not me being cocky or arrogant, okay maybe a little of both, but the fact is that you follow me, and unless your sensibilities are so offended by my preponderance for using caps lock? You won't regret it.

And this is why the story of our former coach amuses me so much. You all remember how it went down, and how close to something dark and scary taking its place (Brad Childress is a name that sports fathers will use for the next decade to make their sports children do their homework and eat their vegetables). So it goes without saying there's going to be some acrimony between the man all the other Big Tenners called Bert, and Badger fans.

But because of the internet, these hot sports takes can skip the middleman and go directly to the source. And sometimes, sometimes magic happens and you get a response. This is a story of that magic.

For you see? There was a moment, the day after the Rose Bowl? This gentleman who I assume is named after Corn, came at that bro.

Now, Mr. Corn has an elaborate way of spelling traitor. But it touched something off.

It didn't happen every day, but occasionally a Badger fan would come at Bielema with textual fury. And then Bielema would respond.

It didn't really get cute until Sunday Night. See, Tom Oates cracked wise about the old clock management bugaboo. And that led to old Bret Bielema looking like a moron. A hilarious, delightful moron. See, his wife popped up and made a comment about how he was wrong.

And as such? We got such tremendous bon mots as this.

And the delightful retort?

Now it's not impossible that Bret Bielema's feeling embarrassed today. But, as I am an expert who built himself an empire of over 1200 twitter followers on the will of me being tremendous? I have some advice for our former coach. A way to be interesting on twitter, and not make yourself come off as something of a cosmic joke.

Consider this my gift to you, Bert.

1) If you have the followers, use them to your advantage.

The internet can be a crazy place. People can get attention with joke book jokes and a claim that you are a fake Will Ferrell. But here's the thing. If you're someone of a reasonable level of fame and followers? Someone's bound to jump up and want to save their hero from that mean dude with 20 followers.

You can use the new retweet function to get the more rabid of your followers to troll the troll, if you have been so hurt by the one who can't manage to get their follower count above twenty? You can delegate the trolljitsu.

I mean, even with a response, someone rose to defend the beloved coach Bert.

2) The Franken Technique

The best defense if you must engage is frustrating those who would wish to frustrate you. Former comedian Al Franken had the best idea to respond to it. A tangential response where it sounds much like a form letter in regards to how busy you are because you can't respond to everyone.

Now if Bret Bielema did something along the lines of a "Thanks for the mention! 1-0 #wps." He would have amused his fanbase, frustrated the more dastardly of the Badgers fans on twitter, and he would not have been near the delightful moron that he was.

In fact, five words work most of all. I'm sorry. I love you. No one will attack you if that's your response.

3) The block button.

I believe it was Nada Surf who said that there's still a feeling of rejection when someone says she prefers the company of others to your exclusive company. And unlike Gary Andersen, Bret wasn't honest and direct and made a flowery emotional speech. There wasn't any straight forward manner in which he made his decision. People were hurt.

And when someone's hurt? They're not gonna be won back over. Twitter has a feature for that. You're famous enough to learn it, and to a lesser extent live it and love it Bert.

4) If all else fails?

Be boring. Nobody's going to pay attention to someone talking standard coach platitudes.

Or use Caps Lock.

I do.

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