Share a time you met a famous athlete...

[steve B]

I've really only met a couple big names, and played softaball with a sort of star from another sport

Bob Feller was pitching a home run derby in the minor league park near where I lived in Jr High. Dad took me to see him. H was still pretty fast.
After, he came up in the stands with a stack of 8 1/2x11 picture/stat sheets that he signed. Being shy I was pretty much the last kid in line. which meant that when he asked about baseball, I got to sit with him a while. Other kids came for more autographs, which mostly ended up as paper planes being thrown all over. I asked if that bothered him, and he just said kids usually did that stuff and as long as they had fun he was happy.
Then the 2nd game started, and he explained the pitchers strategy etc, for maybe 2 innings before he had to go talk with the boring grownups.

It was years later that I realized just how cool that was.

Brooks Robinson I met at a Sports Illustrated hospitality suite when I was 13. He asked if I wasn't a little young for the hospitality suite and thought it was cool that dad had brought me there, we talked baseball for a couple minuets, and when one of the semi drunk adults complained about holding up the line he gut up and loudly said "hey! I'm talking to a kid about baseball, you can wait"
So I didn't make the big deal, but he sort of did. He had backup from the two football players SI also had there.
(cool setup, three sports figures, they gave you a special picture sheet with all three, and you could get their autographs and talk to them for a bit.
From what dad said about the other times, after the initial rush they circulated around the room. (except for one of the football guys one year who basically sat in a recliner drinking and being grumpy. )

The one I played softball with was a gold medal winner in womens hockey. I never really thought of it as a big deal she was a teammate, and a fantastic player even outside her best sport. One of those players that makes everyone better just being there.
The things that just don't sink in as being sort of a big deal until much later...