Helped that he and I attended the same university and that we were both waiting for a copier to be freed on the third floor of Hodges Library back in the Fall of 1997. Nothing special about the conversation; he was on the phone while I was readying my materials (I believe I was copying 3-4 articles for review in my German political history class) and he has only a single page or two and he asked very politely if he could go ahead of me. I said, "sure," and that was that. Didn't ask for his autograph then (thinking it'd be a stupid thing to do), in part because I could have gotten it easily at another time if I wanted; a good friend of mine was a trainer on the team and he had gotten me a few autographs a few years before for me to give to my sister as a Christmas present.

And I've been introduced to quite a few other professional athletes, including Reggie White and Brenard Wilson (my favorite player in the early 80s), and coaches like Bobby Bowden through my dad's association with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (I used to attend their yearly summer camps for teens in the 1980s and early 1990s). After a while, it just felt almost normal to be pulled into a quick introduction to a professional athlete, it seemed. Very nice guys, I recall, perhaps because I was a kid at an event where they could relax and do the service part of being a pro athlete.

I'll leave out the email communications with authors, as that's another matter.