Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

[ZubCat81]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

I gave Dennis Eckersly and Mike Torres a ride summer of 80 when I worked for a rent a car place at the airport. Pales in comparison though to when you kicked Iowa Hawkeyes basketball star Bobby Hansen ass in pop a shot or the time your girlfriend sweet talked Bobby Knight into letting you watch a closed Indiana practice:)

Actually, not only did Bobby Hanson play for my Iowa Hawkeyes, but he had been playing with the Utah Jazz with Dave Stockton and Karl Malone and then ended his career in 1992 when he got his NBA championship ring playing backup to Michael Jordan. I think it was the summer of 1990 when he made his appearance at the Jukebox in downtown Des Moines as I seem to remember I was 37 at the time. The Jukebox had a huge patio garden outside surrounded by an iron wrought fence so alot of sidewalk bystanders had a good view of the goings on any given night. The promotion with Bobby Hanson making his appearance and offering to give a $100 bill to anyone that could beat his score drew a pretty good crowd. Alot of sidewalk people cheering. There were over 150 people signed up, and even several players from Drake, Iowa State and even one Iowa player. Everyone got three attempts and I actually had the top two scores. Three funny things happened that night. On my last attempt there was one particular guy with his face pressed up against the fence on the sidewalk side and after my last score he went on to tell me he was a huge fan of mine which my two buddies just laughed and I told the guy I wasn't who he thought I was. As I walked away another guy walked up to me and asked if I could stop over at this table so he could introduce me to his girlfriend and his friends. Of course, my buddies are now in a roar and I look over at his table of eager friends and when I tell him I'm not Bobby Hanson, and I know I'm coming off a bit rude with my laughing, cuz he was actually offended in an embarrassing way, and said, "oh, c'mon, just for a minute". Right about that time, Bobby Hanson was coming back out onto the patio with his wife, and I motion the guy to look behind him. I said, "there's your guy". The kicker of this whole thing was shortly afterwards with the contest ending at midnight, Bobby Hanson and wife were introduced to me and his wife tells me, "you two kinda look alike". Bobby and I had a good chuckle as he's shaking my hands. Believe me, I'm looking up at him a bit. He was standing 6'6 and I'm 6'3. Then he pulls out a crisp $100 bill from his wallet and forks it over. Stupid me that I left my brains at home and didn't think of having him autograph it. Reminded myself of that broken windshield wiper I had on my 1973 Plymouth Satellite in college sounding like it was saying, dumb guy, dumb guy, dumb guy . . .

[voicefromthestands]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

Iowa Western in Council Bluffs had a baseball class that was basically 8 days on a bus traveling between different baseball communities. 8 games 8 days. Kansas City to St Louis to Chicago to Field of Dreams With several minor league clubs mixed in between the major league teams. And they vary the trip every year with the only common being a day game in Wrigley. After taking it as a class for hours to renew teaching certificate My wife and I took the trip as a vacation for several years. There were others that did the same thing. And one year a couple brought their grandson along with them. We were in Clinton Iowa watching the Lumberjacks play. Real old time lumber grandstands. This kid was running around looking for autographs when the guy sitting next to me said "That kid needs to get this guys autograph!" pointing to the gentleman at his other side. It was Jim Sundberg who was the catcher on the KC Royals when they won their first World Series. He was the director of catchers for the Texas Rangers at the time. And was in Clinton checking on one of their catchers. We explained what we were doing in Clinton so he spent an hour after the game talking and answering questions. Passed his World Series Ring around letting us all try it on. Who would have guessed that we would come across a WS ring at a class A ballpark in farm country.

[northwest missouri state]

[GrifFan]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

Ate pizza with Laker at Jake's.

Name dropper.

[ccmoney8]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

Farted on Verne Lundquist once while waiting on his table the night before a broadcast.

[Predatory Primates]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

Does Santa Claus count?

[Trenchwarfare]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

I once had an interaction with Rob Ninkovich. This was at my buddies graduation party, he had a few ties with the family and stopped by. We got to take pictures and had a few beers with him (a few too many). This was just after the patriots had won the Superbowl and we were giving him crap for not being able to take a chug out of a Grey Goose bottle during the parade..... Look up the youtube video if you have never seen it. He then proceeded to facetime Chris Long to have him join in on the fun of giving him crap. He also gave us some early insight on the fact that he was going to retire that off-season. He is a super cool guy and we had a lot of fun with him that night.

[TommyLan]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

I was not in attendance but a number of my friends on the NWMSU baseball team were there. This story came from them.

George Brett was in Maryville for the Royals Caravan back in 1976 or 1977 and he addressed the Bearcat baseball team in a small group meeting. He eventually talked about his days in Omaha playing for the Omaha Royals Triple AAA farm club and recalled a lady who did the weather on one of the local TV stations. He said, "While doing the weather, she would stand in front of California and you couldn't see Nevada."

This didn't help any of them on how to hit a curveball but left quite an impression with those in attendance.

[kccatfan]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

Heard a tale one time about Harley Race beating the **** out of my dad near the city park in Burlington Junction, MO back in the 60s. I'm sure the truth was a little different than the story told to me 45 years later. probably just had a beer with a group of friends or something.

Met Kevin Seitzer at Eugene Field Elementary school in Maryville back in 1988 or so. He was in town with another player I can't remember. Seitzer was really cool, though. He seemed to have a great time meeting the students.

[ctrabs74]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

This is more "work" related, but I had the chance to interview Earl "The Pearl" Monroe courtside at the CIAA tournament in Charlotte a few years ago. I can't really say that I've had similar interactions away from the arena/stadium per se. But, I did get to meet Andy Reid when he was the Iggles coach many moons ago during the taping of his radio show in Philly. That's about it.

[NW Normal]

Re: Personal Story About YOUR Interaction With A Big Sports Personality

While on RAGBRAI (more years ago than I care to reveal), I was passed by very, large framed guy who dwarfed his over-sized, custom bike. I thought, that guy is BIG; yet, he looks familiar. Later in the week, I was eating spaghetti supper in a church basement when the big guy walked in with a plate of pasta and sat down next to me. He was introduced as Ben Davidson former DL with the Oakland Raiders. After we ate, I introduced myself and said that I grew up north of KC and was a Chief's fan. I added that the KC Star loved to hate him. He laughed and replied in a deep, gravelly voice, "We had a good rivalry!" Remember him in the old Miller Lite commercials? RIP Big Bad Ben! With apologies in advance to BBB.:doh: