Who is the coolest athlete you have met?
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by user Manny Stiles
Throughout my life I have had the weird fortune/luck to have met many pro athletes under sometimes odd circumstances, sometimes just by randomness... I also had several (at the time) future pro athletes in my college classes and dorms.
There's a weird phenomenon that occurs when you see someone famous and you know them inside and out in your head, they look at you and they have NO IDEA who you are, but they realize you recognize them...if you never had this happen to you (I get people come up to me all the time because I'm so famous on the internet, hee hee)- it's very awkward. Sometimes I feel bad for famous people. They have to put up with some strange individuals who get geeked up just by being near them. They get their privacy intruded upon, dinners interupted and so forth... (TV News people - who aren't even really that famous - probably get it the worst because SO many people feel like they're a part of their family)
Now I know some of you will say, 'but they're paid handsomely by fans who pay their salaries' - regardless, they are still humans. More importantly, they are JUST humans. With the super-hero worship the marketers shove down our throats, people are brainwashed into thinking famous people are better than the rest of us...
When I was a kid, I seeked out autographs. One day, after getting Will Clark's autograph at a baseball card show, I hung around after most everyone had left and so did 'The Thrill'. Here I was a 14 year old 6'4" punk kid with my 11 year-old buddy Jerm and he just started talking to us like we were his pals at the bar or something. We were stunned! This was unfathomable. Dude was cool and didn't need to be...
He told us stories of inside the clubhouse, about the interaction of players during the game, of how groupies would ask for autographs on their 'performance enhanced breasteses' (my words, not his...). That was when I learned Will loved hunting and fishing. Wow! So did I!!! I could've just chucked that autographed '86 DonRuss 'The Rookies' card in the trash right there! I had something more valuable than any sharpie scribble. (I sold it to a slimy scumbag middle-aged, fat baseball card dealer shortly thereafter)
It was then I realized autographs are stupid and it's much more interesting to just talk to the famous person as merely a person. I've noticed MOST famous people REALLY appreciate being treated like a regular person and not fawned over... So I am comprising my list of cool athlete encounters - Again, these are glowing, positive esperiences only... NOW I will name drop!
No particular order, but Eddie Jones, Memphis Grizzlies goes first since I went to school with him and he is a world-class classy dude. Aaron McKie, same thing. Fred McGriff - outSTANDING dude, Jim Abbott - his is the only autograph I have kept, Will Clark - for reasons explained above, Seth Joyner (who I seem to see everywhere I go, in Philly where I am originally from, and Phoenix where I live now, even on a plane from PHX to PHL - he's probably sick of my tall ass), Joe Frazier - I met when I was 6 and let my dad take a picture of me punching/low-blow him), Ozzie Canseco, Mark Grace, Shawn Bradley - nice dude who enjoyed my "I can dunk on you" comment, former Phillies coach John Vukovich - who told me the funniest dirty joke I ever heard, Dan Majerle Lance Johnstone (from the dorms) Nolan Harrison Bobby Higginson (from my college baseball days, before he was a Tiger)
My wife's off-the-cuff list (she is a famous person magnet, it seems) -
her #1 Dan Majerle - they're both Traverse City natives and bought her a drink on her birthday,
Mike Powell - SO nice,
Ken Griffey - down to earth, not cocky, normal guy,
Scotty Bowman - chewed her ear off, he was so nice,
Darren McCarty,
Sergei Federov was VERY friendly (By far the friendliest Red Wing at the time),
Luis Gonzales - very approachable and real,
she also says Joe Frazier was super cool when she met him
That being said -
Who is the coolest pro athlete you have ever met? (By 'met', I mean had enough of an interaction to form an opinion of...)
THIS LIST IS NOT FOR JERKS, A$$HOLES AND BAD EXPERIENCES - that list comes later...this is for positive experiences ONLY. I know one person may have a good experience with an athlete, while another person could think the exact opposite... this happens alot with Charles Barkley, it seems. Also, try to keep it to First Hand experiences, not what you've heard from other people...thanks
Submit YOUR cool athletes!!!
Date
Sun 07/02/06, 6:26 am EST
