Joe Spivak opened Twitter on the morning of February 1 and saw “20 or 30” notifications. He refreshed and dozens more came flooding in.
“I walked out of class and my buddies were just like, ‘Dude what is happening?!’”
He hadn’t done anything of note that day — walk-ons don’t sign Letters of Intent — but Pat Fitzgerald had announced him as a preferred walk-on, and Internet fame followed. It all stemmed from a tweet that featured Spivak’s 247 Sports profile; the now-famous header photo is from his freshman year.