Best & Worst Experience Meeting An Athlete

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by rgpete

I got to meet Tony Schumacher at the NHRA Summer Nationals in Englishtown,NJ and Austin Dillon at Martinsville in the Pit Area when our son got us Pit Passes , he was a Tire Carrier for Joe Gibbs/Kyle Busch Racing Xfinity Series and Red Horse Racing. Also our daughter got to meet the 2007 U.S. Women's National Team during a practice in Zarephath NJ, she had her picture taken with each player that signed a US National Soccer Jersey for her

Thanks for posting that. Racers are almost universally awesome when it comes to interacting with fans.

I know this is a bit obscure, but one experience that really stands out to me was meeting Renaldo "Skeets" Nehemiah at a local mall when I was about 10 years old. Nehemiah was playing for the 49ers at the time, and there was no real reason to think he would draw a crowd at a mall in Pennsylvania. Almost predictably, only four or five people showed up to meet him/get an autograph. Even as a 10 year old, I knew it was a pitiful, uncomfortable turnout of fans.

But Nehemiah could not have been nicer. He asked me what sports I liked to play, spent quite a bit of time talking to me and was not outwardly angry at all about the tiny turnout.