Meeting A Hero

Lost in all the excitement of the CWS (that I can't even remember 60% of) is the event that happened Friday night.

I'm at the golf course, waiting for an afternoon tournament to finish up so the course will be opened back up for tee times again. I've got about a half an hour to wait, so I'm hanging out and watching the U.S. Open, with my back turned to the rest the clubhouse.

All of a sudden a hand claps me hard on the shoulder, and I hear a dude ask me in a Southern drawl, "So who's leading?" I turn around, and who do I find standing there? Emilio Estevez! The Mighty Duck guy, I swear to God. I was like, Emiliooooooo!!!!

But seriously, I turned around and about jumped out of my skin to see Bill Self standing there. Apparently it was his tournament that was taking place at the course that day. Initially I froze, and it took me literally 5 seconds of stammering and thinking before I remembered Stuart Appleby was in the lead. After choking and spitting that out, I recovered, and we went on to bullshit about golf for around 10 minutes or so. I think it went pretty well: I made him laugh a couple of times, I didn't ask him dumb basketball questions, and most of all I restrained myself from just going into Jim Nantz mode and re-announcing the last couple of minutes of the championship game (I've re-watched the game quite a few times now, and have pretty much the entire last 2:12 memorized.)

I was getting ready to see if he wanted to go pick up a 30 pack and check out the talent at The Outhouse later on, or maybe come over for Thanksgiving dinner or something like that, when all of sudden he clapped me on the shoulder again and said, "Well, buddy, have a good one." And just like that he was gone. Out of my life again.

I glanced over and saw that the girl behind the snack counter had been watching, and she laughed at my failed attempts to wipe away the grin that was encompassing my entire face. That grin stayed there for about 3 hours or so. Have I mentioned lately that I love living here?