As the late Paul Harvey would say, "Here's the rest of the story . . .
Connecticut dairy producer Chris Hannan provided the now famous Vanessa cow for ESPN's "Mike & Mike" show the day after the NCAA Men's Division I basketball championship. We highlighted Hannan and his cow, Vanessa, in the cow milking contest that made ESPN's Top 10 plays of the week in our April 14, 2014, edition of Hoard's Dairyman Intel.
Like most public relations events, the wheels for this project got rolling in a roundabout way. "We received a call from ESPN in mid-March," said Hannan, who farms with his brother, Todd. "In addition to our dairy farm, we have a fairly established hay business," he said. "While our primary business is horse hay, we sell some construction hay for mulch. It turns out one of the subcontractors for that construction business has a wife who works at ESPN. After some conversations with ESPN, we decided to bring a cow down to the ESPN campus for the cow milking contest," said Hannan, who is a graduate of the Young Dairy Leader's Institute and the University of Connecticut.
"We arrived on the ESPN campus about an hour before the 9 a.m. milking competition," he said, noting that the "Mike & Mike" show was taped live from 6 to 10 a.m., on East Coast time. "Greeny (Mike Greenberg) had to perform four stunts for losing the ‘Sheet of Integrity' NCAA bracket challenge. The cow milking event was the final event held that morning," said Hannan, who went on to explain that Greenberg also had his eyebrows waxed, dressed up like M.C. Hammer and sang "Ice, Ice Baby" and participated in a pizza eating contest with professional eaters.
"ESPN has a gated campus that is about 45 minutes from our Woodbury, Conn., farm," said Hannan. "The campus is like an average-size mall with about four or five buildings. The live broadcast took place between some of the buildings in a green space area," he said.
Hannan carefully selected a cow that was in mid-lactation, in part so she'd be calm and easy to milk, but not too fresh to place undo stress on the cow. That careful selection was a good thing because there were 60-plus people on the set, including executives from ESPN and the Werner Ladder Company who was a major sponsor. In addition, there were 15 to 20 ESPN camera and set people at the broadcast.
Getting Vanessa, an 85-point Sanchez 3-year-old, on the stage was a bit tricky. "The stage was elevated about 1 foot," noted Hannan. "While it was stable, the ramp to walk her up there was a bit shaky and didn't have sides. I encouraged the staff to stand on each side as we walked her up the stage."
"While we were getting ready, people asked some really intelligent questions," noted Hannan, who brought a farm employee with him. "They asked about GMOs, the difference between conventional and organic milk, and we explained to them cud chewing. It was an opportunity to explain a lot of things that were second nature to us as dairy farmers," said the Holstein breeder whose herd averages 107 BAA for type.
The entire cow-milking video took about 5 minutes to make. "I explained to Greeny how to milk the cow. He asked for gloves, and I just happened a pair of black nitrile milking gloves with me," said Hannan.
As for Greeny's reaction to Vanessa defecating on the stage?
"I think Greeny's reaction was real. He was rather put off by the professional eating contest and had asked for Purell hand sanitizer on a number of occasions. When he got cow splatter from Vanessa, who eats her TMR quite well, that was it for him that day," said Hannan, who added Greeny asked fellow staffer for a change of clothes.
Hannan would do it all over again.
"It was fun, definitely something different. Some people wanted photos with the cow. Many stayed until the show was wrapped up to talk more about dairy farming," said Hannan.
