Q&A With Jonathan Murray: ‘Fire BC’ T-Shirt Sixers Fan

By Matt Rappa, Sports Talk Philly editor

Nearly one week has passed since the initial The Ringer report surfaced, suggesting that Bryan Colangelo, the Philadelphia 76ers' president of basketball operations, used "burner accounts" on Twitter to defend his reputation. While recent speculation suggests that Colangelo's wife could be behind the accounts, the Sixers organization is still faced with the decision on how to move forward with the 2018 NBA Draft and free agency looming not too far away.

Many fans expected the Sixers to decide Colangelo's fate on Friday, as major front office moves typically happen before the weekend hits to lessen ridicule.

That did not happen.

What did happen related to Colangelo, however, took social media by storm on ironically the same social media platform as the burner accounts. Sixers fan Jonathan Murray, of Corte Madera, California, attended the Philadelphia Phillies series opener against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park Friday evening and sat behind home plate. In what seemed to be every inning, Murray changed his shirt with a different message related to Colangelo and his "burner accounts."

The Sixers fan base did not take long to notice and discuss on Twitter.

The Phillies are playing in San Francisco and there is a Sixers fan behind home plate alternating t-shirts in-between innings.

“FIRE BC”
“WHERE IS ERIC JR?”
“91”
“I’M WITH HINKIE” pic.twitter.com/FugSkUca1N

— Lauri Bird (@pickuphoop) June 3, 2018

Three days after Murray went viral on Twitter, Sports Talk Philly talked with the Lehigh Valley native about his thoughts on Colangelo and the Sixers.

Q: What are you thoughts about the Colangelo scandal? Should he remain the GM?

Murray: I personally don't think Bryan should remain the GM — and I don't think he will. This fiasco has been an embarrassment to the organization and it appears that there was a lot of confidential information leaked over many months. But the biggest concern is that this will, without question, negatively impact Sixers business going forward. Trust has been lost, so I don't know how else the team proceeds.

The team is close to being a contender, but the Boston series exposed our weaknesses. We can't have something like this impact our ability to improve the team in this critical offseason. It'll also be tough to get the fan base on board with keeping him. Bryan added some decent secondary pieces, but his trades have been questionable at best. The transparency and reputation issues that his hiring was purported to have solved have only gotten worse.

Q: Who do you think is behind the accounts?

Murray: I haven't dug into this like some others have, but I buy into the wife theory at this point, based on the info that has come out. There's certainly a lot pointing to that. That said, I'm not 100 percent sure that all the burner accounts that were tweeting was even the same person at all times. I am sure there's more to this story than we are aware.

Q: Who do you think gave The Ringer the tip?

Murray: As Colangelo's burner accounts liked to say, I have no "inside info" here. Sixers Twitter is an impressive group who have connected a lot of the dots on this story, so I'd probably look there. There were a few people, in particular, who appear to have had ongoing interactions with these burner accounts who likely would have become suspicious of them. I wonder if it could have been one of them who tipped the Ringer, or at least got the ball rolling on this thing?

Q: How many shirts did you bring to the game? When and how did you prepare them?

Murray: I had four. Three that I made right before the game ("Fire BC," "Where is Eric Jr?" and "91"), and one that I bought online a few years ago — "I'm with Hinkie."

I didn't even know that I was going to the game until mid-afternoon Friday ET. I grabbed two seats right behind home plate and realized that I was probably going to be on TV. The fact that 5 p.m. Friday ET came and went without Colangelo getting fired was the catalyst. I started worrying they might keep him, and had the idea to put something on my T-shirt. I actually sent Spike Eskin an email, asking him for ideas for the T-shirt and he replied with the "Eric Jr" idea that I wore at the game. I called a local T-shirt shop out here thinking it wouldn't come together in time anyway. Surprisingly, they offered to turn it around within an hour, so I got three made. I didn't have a ton of time to think it all through and I really wish I would have done more. But I had no idea at the time that things would blow up like they did.

Q: Did security ever approach you about the shirts?

Murray: Security did not approach me. Everyone in that section got some standard warnings before the game: don't stand, don't talk on your phone, etc. I even asked the ushers there if they thought my shirt might be visible without me standing. During the first inning or so, someone tweeted that I was going to be handed a Giants shirt to cover that up and I realized that was probably within the realm of possibility. But no one approached me. The Giants fans around me were a ton of fun about it and all very supportive.

Q: Have the Sixers contacted/been involved with you in any way during or after last night?

Murray: I haven't heard anything from the Sixers. I went in thinking it was probably a long shot that they'd hear about it, but the T-shirts ended up being really visible and it got a lot of coverage. I'm sure they've got bigger issues on their hands right now than worrying about my T-shirt. If you work in sports, I think you have to have thick skin and try to ignore social media as best you can. You will always have critics. I just hope they get the message that this isn't going to blow over.

Q: Did you ever anticipate social media catching wind of this and the amount of popularity you’d get out of it?

Murray: I was really surprised by the amount of coverage it got. It all happened so quickly – from getting the tickets, to the idea for the shirt, to having them in hand, to the first pitch. There wasn't a long planning process where I thought about how to make something like this happen, it all just came together so quickly.

In retrospect, it makes sense that it resonated with so many people and it took off. The timing of Friday night's game was probably ideal to make that happen, because so many of us had just spent the afternoon hitting 'refresh' to see if the Sixers had made an announcement yet. It was surprising to a lot of us that the Sixers didn't took action on Friday, nor did they provide an update. So, a lot of people were probably thinking what was on my T-shirt when they sat down to watch the Phillies that night.

Q: What do you think of the current state of the Phillies? Are they playoff bound? What’s next for them?

Murray: The Phillies got off to an incredible start, and I hope they can build on it. I hope it's not fool's gold – because they had a few guys catch fire and the pitching has been far better than expected. Those things will regress to the mean. The team is very young and we should be patient and Trust the Process. It will be interesting to see if they can make any meaningful moves at the trade deadline, but I hope we don't mortgage the future. I'd love to see the Phillies continue to build a contender for the next decade and beyond.

Q&A With Jonathan Murray: ‘Fire BC’ T-Shirt Sixers Fan

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