your brush with greatness

[Dirtbag]

since the bills are toast and there are only so many times i can read about andrew luck, i'm curious to hear about your encounters with bills past and present. here's mine:

 

around ’87-‘88 my friend, sarks, his dad and I went to see jim kelly at some boat dealership on grand island. the appearance must not have been heavily promoted because the place was empty. jim was leaning against a boat, talking shop with some of the employees. The salespeople sighed as we entered – our zubaz and bills sweatshirts made it abundantly clear we weren’t there for a boat.

 

i was around 12 at the time and jimbo was my hero. I had only seen him on tv before so this was like meeting a god. he seemed impossibly tall, towering over all of us. he wasn’t as muscular as i expected but the dude certainly carried an air of gravitas. maybe it was his acid washed jeans. maybe it was his perfectly feathered mini-mullet. he just had it.

 

we were silent as we approached him, too nervous to speak. jim smiled and, still leaning against the boat, did a sorta playful roundhouse kick into my chest, accompanied with a friendly “hiya, buddy!” unsure how to react, I just held onto his foot, thinking, “this is jim kelly’s foot and i’m holding it.” I also remember thinking, “i wonder if jim likes the karate kid?” it was an auspicious beginning.

 

i guess the boat folks were embarrassed by the low turnout because no one wanted us to leave. The salesmen had apparently run out of stuff to say to jim since they just started asking us about school. i remember grimacing a little when sarks told jim that he was his favorite player. It was an outright lie. sarks’ favorite player was montana and favorite team the 49ers – he was there strictly for the autograph. sarks’ mom was expecting at the time and jim talked to us a long time about that. he even signed a couple of magazines for “baby bill” (his words, not mine). the baby turned out to be a girl and wasn’t named “bill.”

 

we ended up just hanging out for like half an hour, during which time no one else entered the store. The highlight was when jim started tossing the ball around with us (sarks had brought along a football). i’m not sure if the boat folks approved of a couple kids running out patterns in their store, juking out bayliners, lunds and monteray sport boats like hapless db’s, but who were they to argue with jim? sadly, the fun ended when i pass rushed sarks and his errant toss smashed into one of the boats. a salesperson snagged the ball and handed it over to sarks’ dad saying, “you know, that’s a $15,000 boat.”

 

we took our leave, piling into the car and heading back to the falls. as we made our way across the grand island bridge i remember being overwhelmed – real life jim had far exceeded my high expectations. i knew with all my heart that a super bowl victory would soon be ours.

 

[epilogue: many years later after the final dallas super bowl loss, I would cross paths with jim again. at that time i worked summers as a waiter at the niagara falls country club. jim was there as a guest of a member. as part of our service, we would always place a basket of popcorn and chips on the table. as I approached the table with the snacks, jim called out “keep that stuff away from me! i’m on a diet!” he then ordered a light beer and chicken sandwich.

 

it already seemed too late though. this wasn’t the same jim as before. his hair was in fast recession, his stomach a little fuller, he carried a more wearied air. as i delivered his chicken sandwich (sans cheese and mayo), i knew our super bowl run was over. my childhood hero was diminished.]

Edited January 5, 2011 by Dirtbag

[BUFFALOTONE]

Cool story.

 

I got a Jimbo story but it didn't happen to me. My sister works for a head hunter and Jim was a motivational speaker at one of their company functions. They had Gruden one year and some Olympian who's name escapes me. Anyway she was pregnant with my nephew at the time and this goes back about 10 years ago. After the event was over a dozen or so execs had dinner with Jim. He sat at the head of the table and was very nice to everyone telling stories and answering questions. My sister bought a real NFL football and wanted him to sign it for her son. She was too nervous to ask him at dinner so one of her co-workers yells out "hey Jim this girl is from Buffalo and is a huge fan, will you sign her ball for her son?" Kelly stands up and motions for my sister to come over and sit with him, they chat about Buffalo briefly and he signs the ball"To Jack one great young kid" Jim Kelly. he still has it in his case over his bed today. Very cool.

[Erik]

I have an interesting one - I was at a bar in Boston some years back having a few drinks with a few friends. We were standing near a stairwell and who comes stumbling down the stairs in a drunken stupor but Patriots safety Lawyer Milloy! Anyway after he gathered himself he started flashing his Super Bowl ring around. I was curious to see what a Super Bowl ring looked like in person so I approached him to take a look. When I get up to him my buddy is already there checking it out and he tells Milloy that I am a Buffalo Bills fan. At that point he refused to show me his ring. I didn't take it personally at the time because the guy was absolutely loaded. Anyway the funny part of the story was that this must have been in June or July the September before he signed with us a few days before the season started.

[Beerball]

I once met Fabio, but that was a long long time ago & I'm still not ready to go into details.

[thebug]

Daily when I look in the mirror.

[Beerball]

Daily when I look in the mirror.

So, you still have that Erik Estrada poster?

[Wayne Fontes]

Daily when I look in the mirror.

Ok Kafka.

[jimmy10]

Not as cool as most stories, but I get a kick out of it:

 

A good friend of mine here at work, he worked for one of the big trading card companies back in the late 80s/early 90s. He got to go to the 1991 Pro Bowl and spent a good amount of time with Jim Kelly, apparently he had some kind of promotional deal with my friend's company.

 

Anyway, Jimbo gave my buddy the ugly-ass neon green Pro Bowl cap he received in his schwag bag. My buddy, a Giants fan (ugh), in turn gave it to me because he thought I would enjoy it more. So it sits here on my shelf at work. Not autographed or anything, but I still think it's pretty cool.

Edited January 5, 2011 by jimmyo

[Hammered a Lot]

Years ago,I just pulled in to a parking lot. Before I get out of my ride a car pulls in next to me. The football player pulls out a huge bag of white stuff and snorts some up. I think it might have been Goodies headache powder he snorted.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Hammered a Lot

[DC Tom]

Was at the first Hunter's Hope Ball. Met lots of current (at the time) and former Bills - Marcellus Wiley was a very funny guy, we yukked it up a little bit. Steve Christie was wearing a formal kilt, which was cool. Jim Kelly was very friendly and pleasant (literally went out of his way to be nice to me - I've met him three times in my life, over a span of maybe 15 years from when he first got to Buffalo, and it's been very interesting and pleasant to watch him mature in that time).

 

But the coolest, mind-blowingest part of the evening was being walked around the crowd by Cindy (our #89 here, for you bozos who don't know) and introduced around. One guy she's introducing me to, Cindy walks up behind and surprises with a BIG hug. Guy turns around, sees her and says something to the effect of "Hey, Cindy, how ya doin'?" And she introduced me, and I may have shook his hand and said something coherent, but really I was probably in gibbering-idiotville for the next five minutes, saying to myself "Holy !@#$ing ****, she just surprise-hugged Hall-of-Famer James Lofton!!!"

[Just Jack]

But the coolest, mind-blowingest part of the evening was being walked around the crowd by Cindy ...

Another story from that same evening, before we ran into you. When we first arrived, Cindy saw Alex Van Pelt (or it might have been Tasker, I can't remember) and started talking to him for several minutes. He eventually excused himself because he had to get up to the VIP reception upstairs. After he walked away, one of the security/bouncers comes up to us and asks if we're ready to head upstairs to the VIP reception also. Of course we said yes. That was also the year Olympic wrestler Rulon Gardner was a guest. I had a picture taken with him putting me in a head lock.

[The Avenger]

Not a Bills story, but something that happened to me in WNY....

 

IN the late 80s Niagara Falls had a single-A baseball club called the Rapids. For games you sat on bleachers a la a high school game and I'd be suprised if attenance topped more than a few hundred. A buddy of mine asks me if I want to go to a ballgame and I agreed - we went to see the Rapids take on the Welland, Ontario Pirates. We sat on the third base line and because we were there we decided we'd razz the Welland 3rd baseman, a guy named Tim Wakefield. All game long we just yelled "Hey, Wakefiled.....WAKEFIELD". After the game was over and we were walking through the parking lot to the car a visibly pissed Tim Wakefield is waiting for us and challenges us to a fight. Told him I wasn't interested and he should get back on the school bus and go back to Canada. Years later I see they guy has not only made it to the majors, he's stuck with the bigs and now has a very nice career playing for my team, the Boston Red Sox. People are talking about what a great guy he is in the community and all I can think is "that d%*ckhead?" I saw a breakdown of his career and we caught him at his lowest - he was almost out of baseball, not cutting it as a utility infielder when the coach decided to give him a shot throwing the knuckleball he screwed around with at practice - and a career was born. As I think about it now, we could have picked on just about anybody else on the field that day and those guys all went on to pump gas within 3-4 years of playing - we managed to pick on the one guy who made it all the way and had a major league career, and now I have to root for him!

[Phlegm Alley]

A friend of mine bought his house in Manassas, VA from Scott Norwood, who works as a realtor in the area.

 

Another friend of mine attended a Jim Kelly football camp during Kelly's prime. Afterwards, someone came up to my friend and asked a group of 3 kids if they could stick around for a little while. They did and were rewarded with a photo shoot with Jim Kelly. The photos were for a local advertising campaign that featured these photographs on billboards and busses accross the WNY area. My buddy has one of the ads from a bus....its huge, like 12 feet long, 4 feet high. Pretty hysterical considering how lucky he was.

[Astrobot]

Another Non-Bills story:

I was at a Dicks Sporting Goods shoot because my wife was business manager for their advertising company at the time, and she had to issue the checks for the actors. They were making one of their commercials with Terry Bradshaw, and in between takes, Terry would throw me the football he'd picked up from the aisles. Every pass was on the money, and I caught every one. I still say that I've caught every pass from an NFL quarterback.

 

Astro

[Dirtbag]

Thus started my dislike of Scott Norwood, which of course reached new heights when Karma caught up to him two years later during the Super Bowl.

 

to this point, i also encountered moose johnston while working as a waiter at the country club. this was after the super bowl losses and i despised the dude not only because he was a cowboy, but because i also viewed him as the ultimate traitor (since he grew up in youngstown, yet for some inexplicable reason wasn't a bills fan).

 

to my annoyance, he turned out to be a great guy. super nice.

[The Avenger]

to this point, i also encountered moose johnston while working as a waiter at the country club. this was after the super bowl losses and i despised the dude not only because he was a cowboy, but because i also viewed him as the ultimate traitor (since he grew up in youngstown, yet for some inexplicable reason wasn't a bills fan).

 

to my annoyance, he turned out to be a great guy. super nice.

'

That's OK - I went to HS with his brother and the brother was a tool.......

[BuffaloBillsSD]

Met Marcus Jones at Callahans right after he signed but was still hurt. Tried to buy him a shot instead he bought 100 for the bar. Next weekend he did the same thing. Seemed like a decent guy but never did squat for the Bills.

 

Russell Copeland was my grandmothers neighbor after he was drafted. He would come over if we were there and talk football. My gram baby sat his kid from time to time and he gave her a game ball that the coaches awarded him.

 

Not exactly the greatest Bills ever but they were pretty nice.

[plenzmd1]

Two quick Bills related stories.

 

1st story. In a little BBQ joint in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC night before Thanksging the year the Bills played the Lions the next day. He was at the bar with his wife, same as I, and we were only people in the place. I wanted to say something to him, but wifey poo was all "just leave him be" . I happened to have an NU Swimming jacket, and said fine, I will put this on and walk to the head, and if he says something, he says something.

 

No sooner had I pulled the thing on than ole Timmy was like"hey, did you go to Niagara". I said no, but grew up in the Falls, and BTW, loved the Bills. And away we went for an hour chat on the Bills, DirectTV, (I had the ticket, he was still going into the NBC studios to watch the games), etc, all the while both wives saying what dorks we were!!! Having three beers with Tim Russert talking Bills.. wow

 

BTW, just in the Tim Russert replica office in the Newseum..kids totally got why I had tears in my eyes!!

 

@nd story When the Bills had camp at Niagara, my sister worked at the front desk in a hotel in Niagara Falls. Long story short, she got asked out by Isiah Robertson, and went. It was not to late on a friday night when they got home, and Isiah came in and had a piece of cheesecake..in my friggen home!!!! But cause it was a date, the old man would not let me and the brother sit down with them..remember my sister was worried the old man would blow a gasket with her going on a date with a black dude, but he was way more progressive than we thought and was totally cool, was more worried bout the age difference..like 11 years.

Edited January 5, 2011 by plenzmd1

[Bills99999]

The first day I had my learner's permit, I just missed running over Congressman Jack Kemp in front of Main Place Mall

 

I saw Bruce Smith in a ghetto supermarket

 

OJ Simpson came to one of our football practices the day after we lost a big game. Nobody was in a mood to talk to him

 

I know Donnie Green's ex-wife and daughter

 

I met Joe D when he was the tight ends coach at Duke and they were (not aggressively) recruiting my son. They did not offer

 

Tom Day signed the cast on my broken leg when i was 9

 

I beat up Aaron Maybin yesterday with one hand tied behind my back

 

 

Non Bills- When I was a security guard at Children's Hospital ((working with Pertino in Albany) I found Mitch Miller roaming around in front at 3 am. He was there to visit a relative

 

I worked as a body guard one day for Charlton Heston

 

I saw James Garner in a Mexican restaurant

 

I met Bob Hoffman at his York Barbell Company

 

I played against Phil McConkey

 

I played against Bill Hurley

Edited January 5, 2011 by Bills99999

[marauderswr80]

back when Ruben Brown was on the team, I was at a local store may have been Topps can't remember but was in check out line, Ruben was in front of my dad and I, he let out the biggest fart I've ever heard and he didn't even flinch nor care. At that same moment my dad says hey Ruben you may wanna wipe after that one. Ruben just smirked and says those Fing wings!!!!