Sixers hire fan behind mascots' Twitter

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Like a lot of recent college graduates, Jerry Rizzo needed a job. He started a website. He went on interviews. He called people. He hustled. He went on more interviews. Its an unfortunate but familiar tale. Smart kid. Bad job market. No luck.

Until recently. Until the Sixers went looking for a new mascot and found Rizzo in the process.

When the Sixers announced a voting contest to replace Hip-Hop, who was mercifully forced into retirement, the 23-year-old Rizzo set up Twitter accounts for two of the candidatesB. Franklin Dogg and Phil E. Moose. Rizzo thought it would be fun, and beside that it made sense considering his passion for Philly sports and his academic background. Hes a big Sixers fan and a self-professed social media sponge who graduated from Penn State in May with a degree in public relations and advertising.

Rizzo came up with hastags and other strategies on how the mascots should interact and then enlisted a buddy from college, Hunter Coleman, to help post some tweets. The Sixers noticedpartly because the organization hadnt thought to scoop up the Twitter handles first, partly because Rizzo had used trademarked images and photos from Sixers.com without authorization. A front office official for the team contacted Rizzo and asked him to turn over the Twitter accounts. He complied and was given Sixers tickets in exchange (see story).

It was a smart PR move by the Sixerslocal fan gets free seats instead of cease-and-desist notice from angry attorneys. Thats where the story could have ended. Except theres more: The Sixers hired Rizzo on Monday. On Tuesday, at 9 a.m., hell report to his new job as the organizations social media coordinator.

Its surreal, Rizzo said.

Uh, yeah.

At Sixers practice last week, CEO Adam Aron was asked if the organization had considered taking legal action against Rizzo. Aron said no, that he actually thought the person behind the accounts was clever. Then Aron told me that he wanted his people to hire Rizzo. I thought he was kidding. He wasnt.

From the moment we took over, I knew it would be highly advantageous to increase our use of social medianot just Twitter and Facebook, Aron said. When I saw Phil E. Moose and B. Franklin Dogg, I knew that whatever fan was behind it was clever and creative. And in watching what he did over the course of a couple of weeks, it was clear he was very clever and very creative. He started this web site to help prove his case in the job search process coming out of college. Its very impressive for a young man to put all this together. If you look at what hes done, he writes very well and hes very personal. The whole thing was somewhat ingenious.

Aron sent Rizzo an e-mail saying as much. Then the two talked on the phone. That led to an invitation that Rizzo still cant believe: Would Rizzo mind coming down to the Sixers offices to meet Aron and some other people?

He said I think we might have something here for you, Rizzo said. I thought maybe he meant freelance work or something like that. I had no idea he meant a full-time job. We were sitting in his office, and he said welcome to the organization.

Rizzowho will be in charge of improving the Sixers presence across various social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Google , Linkedin and Tumblrfirst called his brother in Finland to tell him the good news. After that, he notified the rest of his family. He said theyre all proud of him, even if they arent quite sure what it is that I do on the internet.

Everyone is kind of in shock, Rizzo, who lives in Media, said. When I started the mascot accounts, I wanted to keep it clean and professional but I wasnt looking to get anything out of it. The tickets were a nice offer. The job is obviously a lot better. Im grateful and excited.

E-mail John Gonzalez at jgonzalez@comcastsportsnet.com

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