Donation leaves Husky Ticket Project co-founder speechless, doubles budget
The UConn men’s basketball team isn’t the only one one reaping benefits from its National Championship win. The Husky Ticket Project received a generous pledge from the CEO of MeUndies, Jonathan Shokrian, thanks to the attention given to Dan Hurley wearing his lucky boxers in every game of the NCAA Tournament.
The Husky Ticket Project’s goal is to work with youth organizations to provide underprivileged members of the community with tickets to enjoy the UConn game-day experience and encourage the next generation of UConn Husky fans.
“I was speechless,” Kevin Solomon, CoFounder and CMO of the Husky Ticket Project told CT Insider about his first reaction to a donation of $50K from MeUndies. “Obviously, this last couple of weeks, it’s been a whirlwind in general. As you can tell, probably by the sound of my voice I was in Houston this weekend, so just an absolute whirlwind. And then to kind of top it off with this this pledge from, you know, who would have thought an underwear company?”
Sometimes the best gifts come from the most unassuming places, in this case it was Hurley’s wife, Andrea, spilling the beans on Hurley’s latest superstition.
After the Huskies beat Iona in the first round, Hurley decided to wear the exact outfit — all the way down to his lucky red dragon boxers — to UConn’s next match-up against Saint Mary’s. The team kept winning, so naturally Hurley kept wearing his navy suit, beaten up Prada shoes and his MeUndies.
Andrea first shared the intimate details her husband’s superstitions with the New York Post. When the CEO of MeUndies caught wind of it, he decided to pledge $25,000 to Hurley’s charity of choice for every game UConn would win as the team packed up for the Final Four in Houston.
“I started tweeting about it from our ticket project account and fans started retweeting it and I actually sent Andrea Hurley, Dan’s wife, a text and I said ‘wouldn’t it be awesome if we
can make something like this happen for the Husky Ticket Project’ and I think she was really the driving force behind it,” Solomon said.
“(Andrea) said ‘we knew we had to keep it in the family. There’s no better organization than you guys.’ And I was speechless, honestly, just speechless.”
In the moment, Hurley was not too pleased that the world knew of this particular superstition. But in the end Hurley won his first National Championship, and the program’s fifth, resulting in the $50,000 pledge to the Husky Ticket Project from MeUndies.
“Hurley wasn’t too happy about it at first from what Andrea says but I think you know, he’s gonna be happy about everything now, but I think we were able to turn that into an incredible cause. For us and for local kids in the area. I think he’s pretty happy that she mentioned it,” Solomon said.
Knowing that viral moments won’t come often, Solomon said that part of the organization’s plan will be to budget the pledge so that they can sustain the funds for a long period of time. But the Husky Ticket Project will use some of the donation specifically for transportation.
“We definitely can do a lot more of with helping supply the transportation for all these organizations,” Solomon said.
“We’ve been able to pick and choose like a few games here and there where we can, whether it’s a school or like a Boys and Girls Club, purchase buses and stuff for them to get to the games. We can definitely do a lot more than that. Now with this type of money, it’s just going to make the whole thing well-rounded, easier and easier for the kids to go to these games.” The Husky Ticket received $45,000 in donations last year, so this single pledge from the CEO of MeUndies will double their budget. Solomon said that the check from MeUndies is in the mail and the company has been very responsive throughout the process.
“We’ve just been kind of interacting back and forth on social media, they’ve been great, really, really responsive,” Solomon said.
“Everyone loves to see kind of that good heartedness from a company. You know, it’s funny that it’s an underwear company, but at the same time, like, it’s just such an innocent, organic, genuine moment. And so we’ve been really happy to partner with them.”
With an average ticket price ranging from $5-$15 per ticket, The Husky Ticket Project can plan for about 5,000 kids in the future to receive tickets to UConn games.
“I think about right now we’re just going to continue to grow our numbers every year,” Solomon said. “We support all of the ticket sports at UConn. So football, men’s and women’s basketball, hockey, all the ticket sports, so we’ll just continue to send more and more kids.”
Even with all the chaos of the national title game celebration, Hurley found Solomon and the two shared a special moment, knowing that there was more to the win than the trophy.
“We kind of just did it quick, obviously he was a busy man,” Solomon said. “But he just gave me a hug and he said like ‘just so happy to be able to do something like this for you guys.’ ”
“There’s something else that matters besides winning a national championship in that moment. I will forever remember that moment. I don’t know if you know it’ll cross his mind again, but it made a lasting impression on me.”