I met Ted Williams - had lunch with him at his daughter's house. His grandson was in my Company in the service. When I got out, I got a call from him one day inviting me over to his Mother's house in Five Points for lunch and to catch up. When I got over there Mr. Williams was there - he thanked me for helping to turn his Grandson around while we were in the service together and we all had lunch. Mr. Williams was not yet in a wheelchair full time, but he was close to it by that time. His mind was still sharp though. He followed the Gamecocks closely and even snuck to a few Gamecock baseball games when he had the chance.

I golf with Roman Gabriel every couple of months. We used to do it more often but the injuries are starting to catch up to Roman. Billy Ray Barnes usually plays with us as well - Mr. ACC.

When I was a young man my cousin invited me to Louisville for a week one summer. One of his best friends was Wes Unseld. Those were the days of the Black Panthers and riots and Martin Luther King, etc., but Wes was cool, we got stone just about every night at Mark's and Wes' apartment.

Some years later, at a fundraiser my wife and I were invited to attend by then Pacer's GM Donnie Walsh who we were friends with from our USC days, Wes and his wife Connie show-up and Wes remembered that week very well, asked how Mark was doing, etc. Good guy.

After I got out of the service I went to work on my MBA at Carolina, by then the mid seventies, and I got to be friends with a guy named Steve Courson, we called him "Cro," short for Cro Magnon Man. He went on to play guard for the Steelers during their heyday years. His roommate up there was Pete Harris, Franco's younger brother. So I went up there and spent a week being crazy with Cro and Pete, and Franco came by a couple of times. He was a big name already so when we would go down town we drew a lot of stares. Pete and I were both big boys so I picked-up a lot of Pittsburgh tail that week tagging along ... I think a couple of them might have thought I played ball too, but meh, they never came out and actually asked me so I just rolled with it.

Sheesh, sixties and seventies, those were the days of anything goes.