P. J. Fleck doesn’t want to go quietly into the night. The former Western Michigan coach is now trying to bring his famous slogan to his new job, according to an ESPN report. Fleck stated he is trying to work out receiving the rights from Western Michigan after the school trademarked the phrase.
Here is what Fleck had to say regarding attaining “Row the Boat”:
“We’re working on it,” Fleck said Wednesday while in attendance for the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Award, for which Fleck was a finalist. “There’s just some things to go through, and hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to bring it with me.”
The former Broncos coach also delved into the meaning behind the phrase and what it would mean to him if it could be used at his new job:
“When we first put it out there, you had to be able to have a trademark and licensing, I think it was with the university, or you can’t sell it as a university logo through the NCAA rules,” Fleck said. “So they basically own those rights to it, and that was something that I gave them the ability to do, because I never saw a dollar from it, never saw a cent from it, but we were able to create some type of culture.
“Again, it comes from a very personal, personal tragedy in my life and that’s where ‘Row the Boat’ came from. … So, I really hope they do see that, and [that] they are willing to allow me to take that, but we’ll see as we move forward. I’m not sure what they’re going to do with it, but I really hope because of what it means, that I have the ability to at least purchase it, take it with me, and continue to change other people’s lives through tragedy, through adversity, in just a different area.”
