Utah uses boomerangs to boost the Bogut vote

A couple of months after promoting quarterback Alex Smith for the Heisman Trophy, the University of Utah is starting a new national campaign for basketball star Andrew Bogut.

Early next week, the U. sports information department will send out more than 600 cardboard boomerangs to media around the country to promote Bogut as an all-American.

A boomerang?

That's right, or did you forget that Bogut is from Australia, the land of boomerangs?

Utah sports information director Mike Lageschulte came up with the boomerang idea to get the attention of the nation's sports writers, who are flooded with postcards, videos, CDs and notebooks promoting various players.

"We tried to think of something unique that would help people remember Andrew," Lageschulte said. "The idea is to get your attention."

The original plan was to have actual plastic boomerangs, but that was cost-prohibitive, so the boomerangs are on card stock.

On one side it says Andrew Bogut "The Awesome Aussie" with All-American Candidate, Wooden Award Candidate and Naismith Award Candidate listed underneath. The other side has a picture of Bogut with his vitals and statistics, along with a quote by basketball analyst Jimmy Dykes and the address of a Web site about Bogut (www.utahutes.com/andrewbogut).

The U. was hoping to get the boomerangs to their destinations before Monday night's game with BYU, which will be Utah's final appearance on national TV during the regular season. But problems at the printer postponed the delivery until that day.

Otherwise, having the Utes in the Top 25 will help Bogut because Utah's highlights will be on ESPN's Sportscenter more often and the Utes will be included in all the Top 25 national roundups by Associated Press.

Bogut is appreciative of the publicity but chuckled about the boomerang idea.

"I was a little wary at first because of the stereotype (of Australians and boomerangs), but it turned out real nice," he said.

Bogut said he's never even thrown one before and jokes that if he did it would probably come back and hit him in the head.

Although he is trying to dispel Australian stereotypes, some folks might have taken him seriously when he joked in the Ute media guide that he had "a pet crocodile and kangaroo."