ISSAQUAH, Wash. — For the first time ever at the Super Bowl, a courier will deliver the game ball onto the field, and that person hails from Western Washington
Zach Borland is a Seattle-Issaquah native who started his career as a courier sorting packages at a FedEx Facility in Issaquah. Now, he’s going to play a big role for the big game as he makes that special delivery for the Super Bowl -- and it all has to do with ratings.
We live in an era of ratings: you can rate a restaurant, a hotel, a haircut – you can give five stars for that Uber ride, maybe one star for that flight cancellation.
Rating your FedEx delivery normally amounts to a symbolic high five – but not for Borland, who spoke to KIRO 7 from the floor of the FedEx facility in Issaquah.
“I got told last month, that I was one of the finalists for the Super Bowl, and I’m like, ‘OK that’s cool,’” he recounted. “And last week they pulled me out and said, ‘You won, you’re going to the Super Bowl.’”
Borland has worked at FedEx for 10 years, and worked his way onto a route near Issaquah and Sammamish. In the end, it was his positive customer ratings that got him a chance to deliver one of the most important pieces of the game.
“‘You’re going to be delivering the game day ball,’ I was like, really?” he said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I’m super excited.”
Chris Collette is the operations manager at FedEx in Issaquah, and said the company does indeed keep a tally on customer ratings.
“They track all of the ratings for the past few months,” he noted.
He said it’s the first time though that they’ve used the ratings for something like this. In this case, He said couriers were whittled down over a weeks-long process. There were couriers of the month, and then after a while, a group was finalized. Borland ended up being in that group.
Collette now knows the ball that quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Brock Purdy could have in hand under center will first be in Borland’s hands thanks to his happy customers.
He also says it’s not FedEx sending Borland to the game, it’s the people he delivers to on the East Side.
“It’s absolutely the people on his route,” he said. “Other than setting up the feature, we had no part in his selection, it’s solely based on his performance reviews that his customers provided.”
Borland has never been to the Super Bowl and is hoping to not fumble the delivery of the game ball.
“They’re asking me to go to (Las) Vegas and take this ball onto the field, and that’s cool, I’m just a simple little courier here but alright,” he said.
Borland could soon become the country’s most popular courier... unless you’re in the Bay Area. Borland says he’s got a bit of a rooting interest in the game being from the Pacific Northwest.
“Nah, I’m not rooting for the 49ers,” he said.
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