Girls who are awesome and like sports are Unicorns. It’s a concept that we came up with to celebrate the wonderfulness of female sports fans. You can read more about it here.
There are unicorns among us and we want you to help us find them. If you know a girl who likes sports, plays fantasy football, and/or exhibits qualities that we are looking for in a unicorn then tweet us @BaconSports (make sure to use hashtag #imaunicorn) or shoot us an email to boom@baconsports.com. Each week the girl who sends us something that we deem the most worthy will be our Unicorn of the Week and we will profile them.
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We are proud to have Jodi Puchalski as our third Unicorn of the Week and first of 2014! You can follow her on Twitter @Thrify_Kitten and send her tweets about her awesomeness. She got our attention with one amazing photo that would make any jersey loving sports junkie’s jaw drop.
Freaking badass, right? You probably didn’t think girls like this exist but they do. She has more jersey game in her than the majority of you guys out there. I wanted to find out more about this Grant Hill Pistons jersey rocking, Red Wings, Tigers, and Lions loving student from the University of Michigan that loves the Chris Bosh -> The Land Before Time dinosaur comparisons so I asked her a bunch of questions about her sports fandom.
Q: What is your greatest sports memory?
A: I’ll never forget Magglio Ordonez’s walk-off home run in Game 4 of the 2006 ALCS that sent the Tigers to the World Series. Seriously, I hear the audio of it on the radio sometimes and I still get goosebumps.
Q: What is your biggest sports heartbreak?
A: I am a Lions fan. We (the fans) survived the 0-16 season back in 2008, so it couldn’t get any worse than that, right? Turns out it can. This should have been our year. With Jay Cutler and Aaron Rodgers injured, we should have had no problem clinching the NFC North, but we didn’t get it done. Truly depressing.
Q: On a scale of 1 – 100. How much do you like bacon?
A: I once cooked a pound of bacon to put on a grilled cheese sandwich, then cooked the sandwich in like one inch of bacon grease. So yeah…100.
Q: Select a sports video that represents you. Choose wisely.
A: I chose the The Pacers–Pistons brawl. The whole thing is ridiculous, but I love it because we act offended when anyone talks about how violent and dangerous Detroit is, yet here we are on national television being like, “You may be 6’7, but I ain’t scurred!”
Q: What is the best game you’ve ever been to live?
A: Monday Night Football Detroit Lions vs. Chicago Bears on October 10, 2011. The energy in the stands that night was electric. The Bears had six false starts in the first half because of how loud the fans were. Jahvid Best went 88 yards for a touchdown and Stafford threw a 73-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Johnson, it was such a good game. I was yelling so loud that I couldn’t talk for a whole week. Plus, we beat the Bears, enough said.
Q: Describe life as a Detroit Lions fan.
A: (this was written before Jim Schwartz got canned) What a sad and frustrating life it is being a Lions fan. The 2008 season was sad, but that team didn’t have the talent that we had this year. Most of the talk lately is about getting rid of Jim Schwartz and I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. He just can’t seem to keep the team together. How many times can we watch them blow a 4th quarter lead? His motto is always to move forward and learn from mistakes. Where’s the accountability in that? So now we just put our heads down and say, “Same old Lions,” for yet another straight year.
Q: Thoughts on Matthew Stafford? Do you think that he is capable of leading a team to a Super Bowl?
A: Stafford is a talented QB with a great arm, but he needs to be able to step up into the pocket, reset his platform and keep his eyes down the field. He makes some wild decisions under pressure and some times it works out and everyone loves him for it—like in Week 8 against the Cowboys when he faked the spike to win the game. He can lead a team to the Super Bowl, but he has a few things to work on first.
Q: What is your favorite sports movie and how many times do you think you’ve seen it?
A: The Mighty Ducks trilogy is my absolute favorite and I have probably seen all three about 25 times each. I used to dream that I was in that scene where they go to Hans’ shop and buy all the hockey gear. One of my lifelong goals was to start a Mighty Duck’s style slow quack and I accomplished that a year or two ago with a bunch of my friends inside of a restaurant. Loved it.
Q: What do you put on your hot dog?
A: Detroit style coney chili and mustard. For those who aren’t familiar, it is a bean-less meat sauce made with beef hearts that doesn’t have the tomato flavor of regular chili.
Q: What were you for Halloween?
A: I didn’t dress up this year, but last year I went as my 2nd grade school photo. I had a poster sized printout of the classic laser background strapped to a backpack that I was wearing.
Q: Ohio State fans _________
A: …have one of the most hateable and annoying fan bases I’ve ever witnessed, but I respect their organization and I look forward to our football game every year. Oh yeah, and I’m soooo happy that Michigan State beat them a few weeks ago.
Q: Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull?
A: Hahaha, no.
Q: What jersey(s) do you rock on gameday?
A: Lions: Calvin Johnson, Pistons: Grant Hill (usually my teal one), Red Wings: Brendan Shanahan.
Q: Now that the Red Wings are in the Eastern Conference do you still have a deep hatred for the Chicago Blackhawks?
A: Honestly, yes. This is a rivalry that goes back to the original six and might even be written into my DNA. But now we can think about how incredible it will be to sweep the Blackhawks in the finals. Ha! Not with the way this season is going. Maybe we can turn it around.
Q: Prince Fielder being traded to the Rangers. You OK with that? Prince didn’t seem too torn up about leaving the D.
A: At first I was a little sad, but dumping Prince Fielder’s contract gives the Tigers more flexibility moving forward to sign Max Scherzer and maybe a veteran free agent. I imagine it must have been stressful for Fielder to come play in Detroit where his father was revered.
Q: Did you play video games growing up and if so what is your favorite sports video game?
A: NBA Jam for Super NES—Detroit Pistons vs. Chicago Bulls was my favorite matchup. Plus, I read that the designer was a huge Pistons fan and he programmed the game so that the Bulls would lose if the score was close at the end.
Q: Who is your favorite athlete (past or present)?
A: Barry Sanders—in real life and in Tecmo Super Bowl. He was an exciting player to watch and arguably the greatest RB ever. I met him a few years ago at a signing and all of these grown men were gushing over him. He’s just all casual like, “Yeah, I’m Barry Sanders, but it ain’t no thang.”
Q: Who is your least favorite athlete (past or present)?
A: Brett Favre for three reasons.
1) He was such a good QB, yet when you type his name into Google, Brett Favre Penis auto-populates.
2) Barry Sanders had to share the NFL MVP award with him in 1997.
3) He just wouldn’t go away. Even up until 2013 with that talk about a comeback with the Rams. Whether that was real or not, I’m sick of hearing about his old ass… and his penis.
Q: Mustaches are _____
A: …hilarious when they connect to chest hair.
Q: Did you play fantasy football and if so what’s your team name? How’s did your team do?
A: My team’s name was Zack Attack and I ended up in 4th place, but had the best record in my league (11-3). I made a couple of dumb decisions, like benching New England defense and playing Detroit instead for week 16. Overall, I did okay.
Q: Do you have a favorite female sports anchor or sideline reporter?
A: Michele Tafoya because of that incident in 2003 during the Minnesota/Michigan game where she poured her beer on two Gophers fans.
Q: Give us three random athletes.
A: Chris Shelton, Stacey Augmon, and Bison Dele.
Q: Can you list the sports stadiums that you’ve been to.
A: Tigers Stadium, Comerica Park, Michigan Stadium, Spartan Stadium, The Silverdome, Ford Field, Soldier Field, Seoul Olympic Stadium and the Seoul World Cup Stadium in South Korea, The Fritz-Walter-Stadion in Germany (used during the 2006 World Cup).
Q: You are a baseball player. What song are you walking to the plate to?
A: Turtle Power by Partners in Kryme.
Q: Do you have any sports superstitions?
A: I’m not as bad as I used to be. During the 2005 NBA playoffs, I was convinced that the Pistons would win every time I ate pepper steak from a nearby Chinese restaurant. They made it to the Finals but lost in game 7 to the Spurs. I don’t think I have eaten pepper steak ever since.
Q: Your ringtone is ______
A: Football on Your Phone by the Manning Bros.
Q: Rank these things: Barry Sanders, Mateen Cleaves, Desmond Howard, Isiah Thomas, Euchre, Brett Favre, Urban Meyer, Miguel Cabrera
A:
1) Barry Sanders
2) Isiah Thomas
3) Miguel Cabrera
4) Desmond Howard
5) Euchre
6) Mateen Cleaves
96) George W. Bush
97) Bubonic Plague
98) Urban Meyer
99) Brett Favre
Q: Give us some last words.
A: I think that women feel they need to act a certain way to fit into the world of sports and it annoys me. It’s okay to not know everything and more so, it’s okay to still be a girl. Whether you wear a regular jersey or a pink sparkly one, you are still supporting your team and ultimately that’s what matters.
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