Mr. Kraft Casually Interrupts URI Football's 8-hour Bus Trip to Towson with a Surprise Flight on Air Kraft One
For some business titans, moguls, entrepreneurs, international diplomats, philanthropists, supports of small business, crusaders for criminal reform and owners of their own private air force, an entity like a football team in the Colonial Athletic Association would barely be worth their time or attention. I can't say for sure what it's like to be insanely rich (except in spirit), but my guess when it comes to your typical self-made billionaire is that for a program to be a blip on the radar of their notice, it's Power 5 or nothing.
Fortunately for Rams football, Mr. Kraft is not the sort of common, garden-variety, run-of-the-mill self-made billionaire you run into every day.
NBC 10 - The University of Rhode Island football team is having a memorable season.
They started the season undefeated at 5-0. ...
Coach Jim Fleming told NBC 10 he kept the plane ride a secret until the team pulled into Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport in Warwick.
He said it was an act of kindness from the Kraft organization.
"When our charter fell through, I took a shot in the dark and it worked out in about an hour," said Fleming. "An incredible representation of what that organization thinks of people in Rhode Island.
Imagine the shot in the arm this was for these guys. Bracing themselves for the soul-crushing tedium of an eight hour slog down Rte 95 through New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, all the way to Townson, MD. Scrolling through their phones as their asses dig grooves in the bus seats. Only to find out at the last minute they're going to be soaring above the clouds in a state-of-the-art, customized flying stratofortress.
If you're a betting man, I don't know how you don't go hard - responsibly - on URI on this one. Just for the physical, psychological and emotional boost. Just to pay tribute to the empire builder who made this possible. The way I do every time I sit down to blog or podcast. As a way of saying thanks to my close, personal friend RKK.
Sure, I have yet to get a ride on this luxurious, precision-built flying machine. The one that made history delivered literally millions of mask to our front line workers in a time of crisis. But that's OK. My day will come, I'm sure. Not that I'm hinting or anything. I'll keep making those interminable car rides to visit my kids' schools in West Virginia and Ohio and leave the exhilarating, once-in-a-lifetime experience to those kids. After all, they've got a game to get to. I'm just proud to be close buddies with this man who's so generous with his jumbo jets. And my day will come. To repeat, not that I'm hinting. Because I'm definitely not.