By: Eva Li

As the robed members of the U.S. women’s water polo team stood single file at the pool’s edge before their match against Italy at the Paris Olympics, the rapper Flavor Flav, stood directly across from them, clapping while the announcer at the Aquatics Centre in St.-Denis, France, listed the American players’ names one by one. He made a heart gesture with his hands.

During the rest of the match, he rarely sat. Wearing a personalized water polo cap and jersey and a dessert-plate-size clock on a chain around his neck — all his garments red, white and blue — America’s newest water polo fan leaned nervously against a glass barrier and shouted encouragement.

Whenever the United States scored, he raised his wrists — both adorned with big-faced watches — and shouted gleefully. He said he does not care if the players cannot hear him. He prefers that they focus on their assignments anyway. “They know deep down in their hearts and they know way in the back of their mind that Flav is right there for us,” he said in an interview at a hospitality venue in Paris after the game.

In an Olympics in which Snoop Dogg has seemed ubiquitous, a women’s rugby player has recruited an N.F.L. super fan and Parisian fans have lost their minds. The relationship between a team of women’s water polo players and a 65-year-old rapper from Long Island might rank as just another curious pairing.

Except when it comes to water polo, Flavor Flav is quick to remind everyone that he is all in. For nearly three months, Flavor Flav, the co-founder of the pioneering rap group Public Enemy and a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, has struck an unusual partnership with the U.S. women’s team, vowing to become the program’s biggest cheerleader.

During the Olympics, Flav’s social media channels have resembled those of a team booster club. He has posed for selfies all over Paris, promoted the achievements of U.S. athletes in a variety of sports and persuaded both the film director Spike Lee and the celebrity chef Guy Fieri to attend water polo matches.

“Best hype-man in the WORLD!!” Fieri posted on social media. Flavor Flav drew praise even from the first lady, Jill Biden, who posed for a photo with him at the water polo arena one night. Leveraging his celebrity and his new fandom, he has shined an uncommonly bright spotlight on a team that, despite its having won three consecutive Olympic gold medals, has long remained in the shadows.

The goal, Flavor Flav said, is to expose the players to new audiences, capitalizing on both the Games and the current era of excitement for other women’s sports.“These girls are out there busting their butts to make the United States look good, and they want good recognition for what they are doing after they’re out of the water,” he said.

Despite the American team’s dominance in water polo, which combines elements of soccer and hockey, the sport is low on the Olympic hierarchy. It fails to receive the same sponsorship dollars as marquee sports like swimming, gymnastics or track and field, and is not showcased often in NBC’s precious prime-time slots.

The United States team’s relationship with its newest superfan traces its roots to a social media post in May by the squad’s captain, Maggie Steffens, in which she asked for support. Many players on the women’s national teamjuggle multiple jobs along with training,she said in the post. Flavor Flav’s manager showed him the post, and he was astonished by the lengths the women were going to support themselves as Olympic water polo players. He soon agreed to sponsor the team.

According to the five-year agreement, Flavor Flav, whose real name is William Drayton, will contribute an undisclosed sum to the women’s water polo program, attend events and post about the team on social media. He said after the announcement that he would also give an additional $1,000 donation to each player and provide them and their families with a cruise vacation.

His support for U.S. Olympians eventually spread to track and field, after he agreed to help pay the rent of the American discus thrower Veronica Fraley when he learned via social media that she was struggling to do so.

Flavor Flav first met the men’s and women’s water polo teams during a June event in Long Beach, Calif., and Steffens said she knew that his enthusiasm was genuine.

“You can tell by his energy and his light,” she said.This side quest for Flavor Flav, known for wearing comically large clock accessories such as glasses and necklaces, adds a point of relevance, however obscure, toward the back end of his career.

Since starting Public Enemy in the 1980s, he has starred in three seasons of a reality television show, “Flavor of Love,” in which he was courted by contestants. In 2020, he received a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys.

His frantic social media photos and videos about water polo in Paris quickly caught attention from broadcast news companies and celebrities. Lee endearingly calls Flavor Flav his “brother” and worked with him when Public Enemy created the soundtrack to Lee’s 1998 film, “He Got Game.”While already in Paris for the Games, Lee noticed an Instagram post from the rapper about the team.

“I just couldn’t put two and two together,” Lee said in a brief phone interview. Lee said he recently saw Flavor Flav at a block party in Brooklyn, where he performed the Public Enemy hit “Fight the Power,” a song linked to Lee’s 1989 film, “Do the Right Thing.” But he did not mention a budding water polo fascination.

He reached out to Flavor Flav, who invited Lee and his family to a match last Monday, after which he met with the team. He said that Flavor Flav’s involvement, though curious, aligned with his personality.

Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/world/olympics/flavor-flav-water-polo.html