Do I Hear One Auctioneer?

Most of the auctions Michael Wolf ’23 (CAHNR) calls are swanky affairs where he might sell two early-1900s cavalry swords for $11,000 to benefit a fencing group or a Taylor Swift Eras tour experience for more than $10,000 to benefit an organization that helps the disabled. But the auctions that tug most at his heartstrings are the live cattle and horse auctions he runs to benefit UConn clubs, such as Block and Bridle for students who are — or could become — interested in animal agriculture professions. He also loves calling benefits for 4-H clubs, where he has found himself sweet-talking and guilt-tripping attendees into spending more than $1,000 for one apple pie. True story. Charming wheedling is more important than expert patter, insists Wolf, but he takes the patter seriously, practicing his chant (the signature “I’m at a one dollar bid, now two, would you give me two,” and so on). “Every auctioneer is constantly working on their chant,” he says. But there’s also this go-to auctioneer tongue-twister practice — try saying this over and over extremely fast: “Betty Botter bought some butter. ‘But,’ she said, ‘the butter’s bitter! If I put it in my batter it will make my batter bitter.’ So she bought some better butter; better than the bitter butter. And she put it in her batter, and her batter was not bitter. So ’twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.”