LOS ANGELES — March 31 felt like a pretty normal Minnesota spring day to Greg Flugaur. He took care of his elderly parents who live with him. It was cold, but not frigid by the standards of his northern tribe, so as night fell he went to a gas station to vacuum the inside of his 14-year-old dark grey Toyota Prius, the annual seasonal cleanse.
As the vacuum gobbled up the long winter, Flugaur's phone buzzed. When he saw who was calling, he quickly stopped and answered.
It was his friend, the man he calls Big Ten Man — BTM for short. In recent years, BTM had become a benefactor of sorts for the 54-year-old Flugaur. The way it went, BTM, a big-moneyed University of Minnesota booster, would call Flugaur with information about the Golden Gophers and direct him to put it out there. Often that meant a message board post from Flugaur's account on GopherIllustrated.com, the 247Sports.com-affiliated website for Minnesota fans, but these days, it also meant a tweet from Flugaur's increasingly influential Twitter account, @flugempire.
