Rodriquez Goes Viral Video

TACOMA, Wash. — Pacific Lutheran University baseball student-athlete Stevan Rodriquez won the talent show at the annual PLU Athletics Welcome Back Event in September. The junior infielder brought the house down with his rendition of the dance scene from the 2004 comedy movie Napoleon Dynamite. While he won over the hearts of the judges and crowd, he didn't expect his dance to catch fire on social media and go viral.
 
Three days after the event Rodriquez posted a 90-second video of his dance taken from the audience by Head Coach Nolan Soete to Tik Tok. 
 
The Yakima, Washington native didn't expect much from the video but was extremely surprised to see that it had received over 200,000 views overnight. From there the video skyrocketed and has been picked up by multiple accounts on two different platforms. Barstool Sports picked up the video and reposted it on September 16th. Ten days later as of September 26th, it had 4.1 million views with over 300,000 likes.  On top of that, it had close to 1,000 comments and 20,000 shares. 
 
Instagram account answeredthatforyou posted the video as well where it has garnered close to 200,000 views. Rodriquez's account has received a fair amount of traffic as well. His initial video has over 3.5 million views with over 525,000 likes. On top of that Rodriquez posted a couple of follow-up videos showing the lead up to the performance as well as when he was announced as the winner. All in all, the video has totaled over eight million views, almost 850,000 likes, 2,500 comments, and 54,000 shares. Not bad for an impromptu act at a talent show. 
 
While it was a performance of the ages for Rodriquez, it almost didn't happen.
 
"The talent show was coming around and we (the baseball team) needed an act. I was talking about it with my housemates and we thought it would be really funny so I decided to do it."  

The two-plus minute dance from the film is no small feat to memorize.  
 
"We had initially started talking about it on Friday night and then I agreed to it on Saturday.  You know we had a long practice on Saturday and I was exhausted, so I didn't end up practicing it (the dance) that day.  Sunday morning when I woke up, it was go time.  I practiced the dance for hours."
 
Luckily for Rodriquez, learning the choreography was not a completely new experience.  His cousin did the dance for a talent show in high school and did a good job with it.  He said he was able to take some reflections from the videos he saw and work it into his rendition.  
 
"The dance itself is iconic," said Rodriquez.  

He watched the movie a couple of times growing up and felt a connection to the dry humor which he mentioned is his style.  All of this culminated in what he thought would be a great opportunity to impress the judges at the talent show. 
 
In its third year in 2023, Rodriquez delivered the baseball team its first ever talent show title. Men's basketball won the inaugural event in 2001 with a WWE inspired skit while last fall football stole the show with an opera performance from lineman Cooper Perez. 
 
Rodriquez was stunned and grateful for all of the attention he received on his videos but didn't read too much into it.
 
"I had a great time learning the dance and performing it at the talent show. It will be a great memory to look back on and talk about later in life."