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Parody rap tells story of leading OSU receiver.
October 25, 2005
On the radio, the Internet and all around campus, the Mike Hass rap song is leaving its mark.
The song, a parody of rapper Mike Jones' song "Back Then," was written by two staffers of Portland's 1080 The Fan sports radio station.
The parody lyrics trace the saga of Hass, a former walk-on but current star receiver on OSU's football team.
"I had [Jones'] CD and I was driving around a couple Saturday's ago, right before the Cal game," said host Gavin Dawson, who came up with the idea and wrote the first draft. "It popped into my head."
Dawson, who hosts a weekend show about college football, said he enjoys making up parody lyrics and is a fan of "Weird Al" Yankovic, perhaps the best-known name in parody music.
Dawson said it only took about 30 minutes to write the song, titled "Pac-10 Mike Hass."
"There's a formula to it," he said.
Once the lyrics were finalized, a production house in New York City laid down the track. The entire process took about a week and a half.
Since it hit the airwaves and the Web on Tuesday, Oct. 18, more than 1,600 people have downloaded the song from www.kfxx.com, said Jason Peterson, a producer for the station.
"It's been crazy," said Peterson, who helped write the final version. "People love it."
And they're singing it, too. Peterson said said his brother overheard someone singing the song at a Portland party over the weekend.
"It was really amazing — from the first time we played it — how many people enjoyed it. How many people temporarily suspended their dislike of Hip Hop music for this song," Dawson said. "To find some Hip Hop fans out of people in their 50 and 60s ... that was really neat."
Hass, a senior from Portland's Jesuit High School, is reportedly a fan as well. An interview with Hass aired on the station on Saturday morning, and OSU Director of Sports Information Steve Fenk burned a copy of the song to give to Hass.
Peterson said Hass spoke well of the song during the interview, which was taped on Wednesday.
"I sent the song to Steve Fenk, on the first day we ran it ... he wrote me an e-mail back and said he liked it," Peterson said.
There is talk behind the scenes of playing the song during a Beaver football game, Fenk said. But it's too early to know if that will happen.
The song opens with the lyric: "Pac-10 didn't want me, now I'm hot they can't stop me."
It continues, "Befo I came up in the game the coaches didn't show me love / They see me in the zone but used to treat me like a scrub / The wouldn't holla cause my 40 wasn't good enough / I bet they change they mind when that 28 come rollin up."
Eligibility question
Late last week, there was a hold-up to the song's success. Mark Rountree, OSU's athletic's eligibility coordinator, asked the station on Thursday to remove the song and stop playing it for 24 hours until it could be confirmed that no NCAA rules were being broken.
"It was just to make sure that the song [did not] do anything that jeopardized Mike's eligibility," Rountree said.
The rule is question states that a student athlete's name or picture cannot be used to promote a commercial product, Rountree said.
As long as the station doesn't go too far — for example, by making T-shirts featuring Hass' photo — there will be no problem, Fenk said.
By Friday, the song was back on the Web site and on the air.
"We always want to watch this kind of stuff," Fenk said, "We don't want anybody to become ineligible."
Source: Barometer.orst.edu
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