Whalen's Gophers make scholarship 'offer' to Arya Stark

In case you're wondering how much of a foothold Game of Thrones has over our culture right now …

Gophers women's basketball coach Lindsay Whalen made a scholarship offer to Arya Stark, a fictional character from the show. (And no, I don't think NCAA recruiting violation rules extend to coaches talking about fiction). Perhaps more importantly: As someone who has never watched a minute of the show, I still knew exactly what Whalen was talking about because of how much GoT dominates my Twitter feed.

Stark, per Wiki, is "the third child and second daughter ofLordEddard Starkand his wife, LadyCatelyn Stark. After narrowly escaping the persecution ofHouse StarkbyHouse Lannister, Arya is trained as aFaceless Manat theHouse of Black and WhiteinBraavos, and uses her new skills to bring those who have wronged her family to justice."

Sounds like Whalen's kind of player, to be honest.

Whalen's tweet has been "liked" more than 1,000 times and drew the interest of Business Insider. That's some savvy recruiting P.R. right there — all for a tweet about a fictional character.