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Stories about pro-athletes you've met...

"The only other experience I've ever had with an athlete was the time Hulk Hogan stuck his hand down my pants asked to see the little Hulkamanic, but that's a story for another time."

LOL....You have to be joking about that. Anyway, funny stuff.
 
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Mr. Incredible said:
Buckeye Alley?
That doesn't sound right. From what I remember, the name sounded like the bar should have been a dance club. But it wasn't.

Dammit, Yertle. You forgot to tell your story. If he doesn't tell it soon, I'll try to see how much I remember.
 
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I have met some real down to earth pro athletes

one of my friends was roomates with Kenny Peterson in college. Last year we hung out at his apartment in easton. Nice guy, I was surprised how humble he was.

My freshman year in college a guy that lived on my floor had a brother that was team mgr for the duke basketball team. Well we went to watch a game at cameron, and afterwards we got to go into the locker room and hang out. I spent probably an hour bull shiting with Battier, and Rashad McCleod

At the golf expo this year I met Jason zubek the long drive champion got to talk to him for awhile before a crowd started to form
 
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In 1983 I was fresh out of Navy bootcamp at greatlakes flying to Norfolk, Va. to my "A" school. We board the plane in O'Hare and our seats are in the front behind first class. We are the last to board and sitting there in first class was Muhhamad Ali! I simply said, "Hi Champ" as our eyes met as I was walking past. I don't remember if he answered me, but after we were in the air he came back and talked small talk with us for 10 minutes. One hell of a nice guy.
 
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When I was a sophomore in high school, I had the pleasure of being able to watch senior Brandon Joe play running back for my alma mater, Westerville South. He was regarded as being one of the better running backs in the nation, and was heavily recruited. Through this, I started tracking his recruitment and got onto the Buckeye football recruiting scene.

Anyways, Penn State was a BIG player for Joe's services, considering Ki-Jana Carter had just had one of the best rushing seasons in Penn State history (Carter was a WSHS grad). The big game (Westerville South vs. Westerville North) was coming up, and Ohio State was to play Penn State the following day in Columbus. To show how much Penn State truley wanted Brandon Joe to play for Coach Paterno, the Penn State Nittany Lion Marching Band played at half time of the game to "practice" for the Ohio State game the next day. Their band took up the ENTIRE field and was quite impressive.

Needless to say, it was all for naught. Brandon Joe helped lead OSU to national title, much the same way that Ki-Jana did for Penn State years before. EDIT: Don't think this would be considered a recruiting violation, even by today's standards, but I don't think it would matter anyways... the players are in the locker rooms at halftime and probably can't hear it all.


Got a couple more good ones involving former OSU players that I'll save here for another post :)
 
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I posted this story over on the rumor mill awhile ago.

Thuggins should really look elsewhere. Perhaps UNLV? An ACT limit of 20 is way to high for his average recruit.

I got a quick story regarding Thuggins for some you. I was about 11 at the time (now I'm 32) and was attending the Huggins basketball camp near Sherodsville (Leesville Lake area), Ohio. For those of you who aren't familiar, Bob Huggin's father has run a basketball camp for years near Sherodsville. Larry and Harry Huggins, Bob's brothers, helped run the camp throughout the summer weeks and Bob would make appearances. Every afternoon following lunch, a guest speaker would give a talk on a special topic to all the campers in the "Barnasium". One of those afternoons Bob was the guest speaker and I think at the time he was the coach at Akron U. Everyone in the area knew who Bob was, because Bob was a rising star in the coaching ranks. Of course being from the area and having been successful, Bob was a bit of local celebrity. So there we were, me and around 200-300 other boys in the age range of 10-12. Bob was speaking and we were listening to everything he had to say. The topic that day was the fundamentals of shooting the basketball and Bob had us glued to the floor. As you know, the attention span of a kid isn't very long, so Bob only spoke for about 20 minutes or so. As Bob's talk on "The finer points of shooting a basketball" came to an end, Bob made his memorable closing statement. Bob said, "you know boys if you want to be able to shoot the basketball you need strength." At this point Bob paused and looked all around the "Barnasium". Bob was making sure, as he stated to us during the pause, that "my father isn't around to here me say this to you (a group of 10-12 year of boys) ." (Bob's father is a strict man with very rigid principle. Any nonsense would not be tolerated) Having verified that his father was not present, Bob turned back to us and continued with his closing statement. He said, "boys you need lots of strength to shoot the basketball, and shooting the ball is a lot like sex. Because if you can't GET IT UP then you can't get it in!"
PS This is not a rumor, it's a confirmed fact, I was there.

I also stood right by Sara Jessica Parker at a Broadway musical. It took me a while to realize who she was. That was before her HBO show. I got a good look at her, she's about 5'5'' and petite and not bad looking. Her husband is a fag!
 
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BuckTwenty said:
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had the pleasure of being able to watch senior Brandon Joe play running back for my alma mater, Westerville South. He was regarded as being one of the better running backs in the nation, and was heavily recruited. Through this, I started tracking his recruitment and got onto the Buckeye football recruiting scene.

Anyways, Penn State was a BIG player for Joe's services, considering Ki-Jana Carter had just had one of the best rushing seasons in Penn State history (Carter was a WSHS grad). The big game (Westerville South vs. Westerville North) was coming up, and Ohio State was to play Penn State the following day in Columbus. To show how much Penn State truley wanted Brandon Joe to play for Coach Paterno, the Penn State Nittany Lion Marching Band played at half time of the game to "practice" for the Ohio State game the next day. Their band took up the ENTIRE field and was quite impressive.

Needless to say, it was all for naught. Brandon Joe helped lead OSU to national title, much the same way that Ki-Jana did for Penn State years before. EDIT: Don't think this would be considered a recruiting violation, even by today's standards, but I don't think it would matter anyways... the players are in the locker rooms at halftime and probably can't hear it all.


Got a couple more good ones involving former OSU players that I'll save here for another post :)
Do you have any older siblings?
I graduated from Westerville South in 1994. Was a captain in the year we lost to the #8 nationally ranked Cincinnati Princeton, 13-12. To this day Coach Pentello points to that season as the turning point for the WSHS football team (Chris Kirk, Jr., Katzenmoyer, So., and many other D1 prospects- but since this is a Buckeye board I'll keep it to those two). The next year they lost to St. Ignatius in the State Championship. Another WSHS alum went to Penn State to play DE behind Courtney Brown, his name is Marc Kielmeyer. He was a sophomore (I think) my senior year. Anyway, just curious if I know anyone you're related to.
 
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BuckTwenty said:
Needless to say, it was all for naught. Brandon Joe helped lead OSU to national title, much the same way that Ki-Jana did for Penn State years before.
Penn St. went undefeated with Carter in 1994, but they finished #2 in both polls. They got dropped in one poll after Indiana scored 2 late TD's to make the final score 35-29. That was 1 week after Penn St. put up 63 on tOSU in Happy Valley.
 
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BB73 said:
Penn St. went undefeated with Carter in 1994, but they finished #2 in both polls. They got dropped in one poll after Indiana scored 2 late TD's to make the final score 35-29. That was 1 week after Penn St. put up 63 on tOSU in Happy Valley.
I was at that PSU/tOSU game and it was one of the worst days of my life...fuck that damn Nittany Lion growl on the pa :mad1:
 
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Mr. Incredible said:
Do you have any older siblings?
I graduated from Westerville South in 1994. Was a captain in the year we lost to the #8 nationally ranked Cincinnati Princeton, 13-12. To this day Coach Pentello points to that season as the turning point for the WSHS football team (Chris Kirk, Jr., Katzenmoyer, So., and many other D1 prospects- but since this is a Buckeye board I'll keep it to those two). The next year they lost to St. Ignatius in the State Championship. Another WSHS alum went to Penn State to play DE behind Courtney Brown, his name is Marc Kielmeyer. He was a sophomore (I think) my senior year. Anyway, just curious if I know anyone you're related to.
Nope. Oldest of two, and my younger brother went to North (due to us moving). I played soccer for South, and was part of the 1999-2000 team that went undefeated in the regular season before being ousted by fellow unbeaten Thomas Worthington in the regionals. We were #3 in the state before the tournament, and we were pretty damn good. Being in the locker room was something magical though... there's a board in there telling the scores of the WSHS/WNHS football games from (I believe) 1994 and on, and South has definetly won the majority of them. I DEFINETLY remember the year we lost in the championship game to Iggy, though pretty much everything before that was before I got into WSHS sports (too young!).

BB73 said:
Penn St. went undefeated with Carter in 1994, but they finished #2 in both polls. They got dropped in one poll after Indiana scored 2 late TD's to make the final score 35-29. That was 1 week after Penn St. put up 63 on tOSU in Happy Valley.
I stand corrected. I knew that they went undeated that year with Nebraska, but I could not remember if they split the NC that year with them or not. Good catch BB.
 
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I always wondered how Chris Kirk failed out.. I know he didn't play but then again I almost failed out of OSU about the same time. While we are on the same timeline...I lived down stairs in Smith Hall from Jackson and Sualua...those guys were always having a good time and one night Sualua bagged a Calvin Klein modle named Dakota that everyone was salivating over. Everyone was trying to get on her and she got on the large Samonian.
 
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Naplesbuckeye said:
I always wondered how Chris Kirk failed out.. I know he didn't play but then again I almost failed out of OSU about the same time. While we are on the same timeline...I lived down stairs in Smith Hall from Jackson and Sualua...those guys were always having a good time and one night Sualua bagged a Calvin Klein modle named Dakota that everyone was salivating over. Everyone was trying to get on her and she got on the large Samonian.
The thing about Chris is that he was slated to start that year. I know he was upset about it. Him and Paris Long left at the same time. Both great guys, I don't know any specifics though.

Did you get any pics of Ms. CK? :sneaky:
 
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This is my kind of post. I have actually been pretty lucky in the number of athletes (pro and college). For those of you who aren't from Columbus this may seem like a big Buckeye list but Columbus is a BIGsmall town.

Buckeyes
Vrabel - Panini's on campus. Asked me for dip of Kodiak and we talked a little football. A pretty nice guy.

Finkes - VC after a game, in the basement. Did a Jager shot with him.

Robert Smith - VC after game (with Finkes). I talked to him a little about his HS playing days and the whole him versus Ricky Powers thing. He made some fan he gave an autograph to but me a Miller Lite (not so bad.) He got pissed because I called him Smith, told me to call him Rob. I asked him how retirement was going and he said "it sucks".

Tom Cousinea - VC after game (with Smith and Finkes). Cool guy. He was talking about waterskiing with his wife.

Eddie George - Met him while walking back to Frat house after an evening accounting class. This was after he won the Heisman. Nice guy, told him he made Columbus proud.

Nicky Sulalua (sp?) - Oh yeah, he liked to party. I'll leave it right there.

Dan Stultz - Cool guy, nice kid. He was friend's with my roomate in Worthington and came over all the time. I scored his season ticket one year. Of course the seats were great.

Brett Bartholomew - I ran into him in UA at a wine store about 3 months ago. He was with a kid I knew that used to play on the OSU golf team. I used to work with his wife in school. Says he was going to give the NFL another shot this year.......don't know if it panned out. He's in sales.....talked about that a little.

Mark Garcia - met him at a party at the frat house. Asked him if there was going to be a QB controversy between him and Germaine. He said - just wait until next year.....seemed to very confident he was going to get a lot of PT. We all know how that ended up.

Jerry Rudzinski - Jerry is a real class act and has a very nice wife. Both are down to earth. Says he had the size but not speed to play with Browns.....if only he had that extra step.....smart kid.

Craig Krenzel - Have not talked to him personally but I was at the same bar as him when he was a Frosh. He had a John Deere hat and was very low key. Bellisari was our starter at that time and Bellisari was surrounded by women. He may have been a bad QB but he got girls.

Steve Wiznewski - B Hamptons two years ago. One of my good friends from PA played for Pitt under Harris and he was in for the Iowa game. Steve is a nice kid too.....can't remember what he is up to now?

Rex Kern - Super nice guy. The leadership of Woody is evident in this man. I went to school with one of his sons and know his other (Michael) too.

Pro

Walter Payton - Cleveland Grand Prix. My dad used to get tickets to all the races with Paddock passes (CART.) I met him several times. Just like people have read about Payton - a true gentleman with a good heart and someone that is really missed.

Max Papis - ditto.
Alex Zanardi - ditto.
David Letterman - ditto.
Jimmy Vasser - ditto.
Mario Andretti - ditto.

Greg Moore - had a pic snapped with him at the Detroit Grand Prix. This was the same year he was killed at Fontana. Very nice kid. He's missed too.

That is about it. I have seen several more of these folks up close but have had conversations with the people already mentioned. My favorite guy I ever met is still Walter Payton.




 
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I don't remeber how old I was but Dave Collins, former Red coached basketball at my high school. So we would have a celebrity game of Reds players come in and play some hoops. Well some how I don't know how I got down to the bench and was sitting there getting autographs from the players passing the program down the bench and just hanging out. Well Tom Browning comes over and sits down and asks me to get him a cup of water. Heck I was glad to get it for him. So I got up went down and got a water and I come back and somebody has taken my seat. So I look a Tom and hand him the water and ask this kid to move, he gives me some attitude, me being the smaller younger one I just look at him and then look a Mr. Browning and he looks at the kid and tells him to move because the only reason that seat was open was because he asked me to get him a water. Looking back at it now and what happened with Tom it really wasn't huge ordeal but when your a 8-12 year old kid it was pretty amazing.
 
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