DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Ever play sports with/against anyone famous?

Since we're fully ensconced (spelling?) in the college basketball season I was thinkin about this summer where I was playing ball with the whole UB(uffalo) basketball team this summer, and it got me thinkin.

Anyone here played any sports with or against anyone famous, or became famous, or not even really famous, just maybe played at the top level or near it?


I've played basketball with

-all of this years UB(uffalo) team
-Edmund Saunders, Souleymane Wane, and Taliek Brown of UCONN
-Nick Billings (The Alaskan Assassin...hahaha, thats what they called him, but I've played ball against him in a summer league after he graduated from Binghamton University and chumped out of about 6 NBA D-league teams...dude is 7'0 though and dunked on/over/around me...it was embarassing, but hes got a foot on me so, not much i can do)
-Jimmy Evans (Nazareth University grad that played 3 years in Denmark, and is now the head coach of his local community college...BCC in NY)

-I didnt play against but have met, Jim Calhoun, Rip Hamilton, Rick Mahorn, Clarence Witherspoon, Jalen Rose, DePaul Coach Jerry Wainwright (amazing speaker by the way), Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Sean Elliot, Coach Greg Popovich, Muggsy Bogues (awesome, i was taller than him), Dan Marino, and Lawrence Moten while he was still at Syracuse

not an overly star studded list, but some real athletes. Who have you guys played sports against? anyone famous?

I know a buddy who played football against Mike Hart
and some kids that played ball against Johnny Flynn and Paul Harris of Syracuse

I had to block former OSU/Cincinnati Bengal Steve Tovar in HS. I handled him.

My junior year in high school at a summer football camp, I was playing tight end and was covered bye Tim Fox and the next day bye Felix Wright...

At the same camp during Def. practice I was a outside LB, & has to rush the QB with Doug Dieken playing LT.....needless to say I was kept yards away from the QB, another play Old Bengal Glen Busnick (SP) was playing guard and knocked me on my behind.

My roommate at this camp was a QB and about 8:00 we were getting ready to go down to the bowling ally to check out the girls tennis camp when somebody knocked on the door, it was Spider Lockhart for the NY Giants & Pete Johnson OSU, they wanted to know if we wanted to toss around the football, ya ok....great guys, Johnson was a rock, I still to this day dont know how he ever got tackled he was solid & quick.

That camp was a dream week, i'll never forget....it was in Granville @ Dennison college...back in the summer of 1980

I played basketball against Shawn Kemp - just summer, pick up games, when I was in college and he was in high school.

My high school football team included Troy Smith and Alex Boone was on the JV team. I never thought Boone would be as good as he has become, same with Troy Smith. Boone had terrible feet, but apparently he corrected it his final to years at Eds.

When I was a freshman, Rodney Bailey was a stud at my HS.

Steve Logan played at Cinci with Kenyon Martin.

That’s about it….

Ken Griffey Jr (struck him out twice) in a tourny
O.J. McDufee - Hell of a RB at Hawken High school back in his day, ran for almost 300 yards against us he ran over me a few times and one time still baffles me to this day. Somehow, he was able to leave cleat marks underneath the chest portion of my shoulder pads.

Struck him out a few times as well, but I got some revenge, the first pitch I threw to him in that game I beamed him, and yes on purpose.

Played and ran track with George White, who's done quite well for himself in the CFL.

Ran track against Kim Herring, Chris Chambers, and Pepe Pearson.

I played ball with Keith McLeod, who I believe is with the Golden State Warriors, just a couple years ago at the Y when he was home for the All-Star break. He played at about 8% and simply schooled everybody.

One summer while I was at Kent, I played a lot of pickup games at the rec center and usually played against a lot of the guys who were on the Kent basketball team when they were having a lot of success. I think it was only a couple years before they went to the Elite 8.

It's football, not basketball, but it's a good story.

In High school, I was a Junoir FS and Roman Pfieffer was a Senior RB, we played a pretty damn good game agianst each other.

Towards the end of the game, as he was getting up off of me ( ), he looked down, with his hands on my chest to help him up, and said, "you tackle pretty good for a white boy"

Was one of the proudest days of my short football career.

Before people get in an uproar, he said it with a smile and he had been running threw us all day. When your FS leads the team in tackles for a game, it's a BAD day for the defense.

I was one year away from playing against Jake Plummer in High School. He went to a cross town High School in Boise, and he was a senior when I was JV. Other than that, Idaho isn't exactly an athletic factory.

When I was on the varsity squad though, I played Tight End next to a guy that played Tackle and wound up being on a couple of NFL teams breifly. I was pretty much a scrawny receiver that was hastely converted to TE after some injuries. One game he got beat by an outside pass rusher, and I was back in max protect. I ended up blocking the guy with a perfect (and lucky might I add) text-book form block. We went back to the huddle, and he was like, "Man! Look at you out there pass blocking!" I was always hoping he'd make it big in the pros, so I could be like, "Yeah, I used to pick up his missed blocks in high school".

I played football and ran track with Dimitrious Stanley in middle school. That guy was huge, even in the 8th grade.

I don't know if he is at celebrity status, but OSU fans will remember him..

I played football in my front yard as a very young boy with Jim Mandich(1972 Dolphins) he was playing for the Dolphins during that time but I don't remember the year.He was dating my sister at the time.

I shot pool with Eric Metcalf and Webster Slaughter at that huge game room/bar down in the flats.

Basketball with and against Antonio Daniels at BG.

Several others in high school (football and basketball).

j/c

I played golf with Mike Gartner (former NHL player) in a outing in D.C. when he played with the Capitals. The four people on this board who follow hockey MIGHT know who he is. Nice guy and we had a blast.

Sort of.

Most hockey fans here probably know who Doug Gilmour is... I played in a charity golf tournament a few years ago & he was the headline attraction.
Gilmour is one of my all-time favourite Leaf players, and was in the group behind me on the golf course.

Those golf scrambles usually see groups getting backed up, so I had lots of chances to talk to Doug when his group arrived at the tee my group was waiting at.

Very down-to-earth guy. My nickname is Lampy, and after awhile, Gilmour started callin' me Lampy and started talking during my backswing just for a joke.

It was too cool.

I played Basketball with Arsenio Hall when I was a Sophmore in High School. He was already a fairly big star with his show and all, and he came back to John Adams to give back to his school and all. He's a really nice guy and had a hell of a 20' jump shot.

In the early 90's when I was out at Baldwin-Wallace, the Browns players would come over and shoot some hoops with some students. My dorm was right across the street from the training facility and we'd hang out on Wednesdays and shoot some. Some of them really stunk up the place, but Eric Metcalf was crazy, he'd shoot from anywhere and he hit quite a few that shouldn't have gone in.

I got ran over by Robert Smith when he was at Euclid, when he ran me over though we were playing in a All Star game. I was playing Strong Side Defensive End and they ran a sweep around right end, I shed the block of the TE and took two steps to my left to pursue him and he turned upfield, dropped his shoulder and just blasted me. It was like running into a brick wall. He ran right through me. I did mange to hold onto his ankle and bring him down after about 5 yards and a LB came and helped.

A couple years later in the same game, I was a senior and Pepe Pearson was a soph, I think. Almost same play, same situation, Pepe tried to juke me instead of running me over and I ran right through him and dropped him for a two yard loss.

Ricky Powers was on my team for that first game, he went on to scUM.

I sat with John Cooper and watched game film when he came to my school recruting a RB we had called Alan Fletcher, it was last class of day and instead of going to study hall I used to go to the head coaches classroom and watch game film, or go get a head start on getting dressed for practice. I was in the class when there was a knock on the door, I open the door and there is John Cooper standing there. The coach had me set up the film he wanted to see an when it was done he asked to see film on me. he gave me some advice on things I could do to help my chances of going to Ohio State.He was actually a very nice guy.


KING

I have not, but a buddy of mine in Pharmacy school with me played a pick-up football game against Adrian Peterson. The good one, not the one on the Bears. He likes to brag that he stopped him too.

Of course, he was 18 at the time, and Peterson was 14. But still.

I've always liked John Cooper, personally. As the coach at OSU, well...

Anyway, one year, I worked for the Columbus Dispatch and my friend was in Events/Marketing. She scored us sideline passes to the Scarlet and Gray Spring Game. We had a flippin' blast! Talked to some of the guys (but mostly let them concentrate on the game, even if it was just an exhibition game). After the game, we had pics taken with several of the guys. Coach came through and we asked for a quick pic with him. He said "ladies, I'd love to, but I have to go talk to the press right now. Grab me when I come back out and I'll take pictures with you" He was true to his word. After the presser, he came back out, we asked for his picture again, he said "Yes, afterall, I did promise you, didn't I?"

Just a good guy...

None of the people that I played sports with ever went on to big things like that. And I played a lot of sports growing up (swimming, soccer, hockey, basketball, softball, volleyball etc)

Pepe Pearson was the best high school football player I've ever seen in person.

Oh yeah I forgot.

I played hockey with Jack Lambert. Hes a real peterhead. This would have to be back around 96 when the Lumberjacks were still in Cleveland. They had a team of quasi celebs from Pittsburgh play a group of local quasi celebs in a charity game at the Gund before the Jacks game on a Sunday.Well the Pitt guys came into town on Saturday and after dinner and all that ,the guy who owned the roller hockey rink I worked at ,was also a part owner of the Jacks. So he brought them up to the rink and after we shut down for the night, we locked the doors, filled the coolers with beer and played pick up roller hockey till about 4 in the morning. We were all out there screwing around, no helemts or equipment to speak of excepts for gloves, sticks and skates. Well heres Lambert with full gear on, shoulder pads and all, playing like it is game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Dude was actually cussing and yelling and daring people to drop gloves everytime someone beat him to the puck , or took it from him. Which wasnt hard with his no skating ass, I was not a good skater by any stretch of the imagination and even I could skate circles around him. After we got a little drunk we kind of started messing with him by just toying with him, little stupid stuff like show him the puck and then when he went for it bounce it off the boards and skate around him as he grasped at air or smacking him on the shin pads with our sticks as we went by him. he got really pissed , he stopped playing about a half our before we did and went and got dressed. We were kind of scared to come off the floor because we thought he would kick our behinds. With no skates on he had our numbers for sure. Fortunately he got dressed and stomped off to the van they had outside waiting to take them back to the hotel.Everyone was kind of snickering about him.

I have played with a few other IHL/AHL borderline NHL guys. The Harkins brothers, Chris Tamer, Dave Michayluk, Jock Callander.

KING

Played basketball regularly against Dequean Cook. And beat them regularly, too

Played against Greg Oden twice, too. And lost to them twice lol.

Back in the day when I was at OSU, I went to a Browns Bungles MNF game.. stayed up in town then came back Tuesday. Tuesday nite I went out to an old campus bar on High Street called the Travel Agency.

I was playing pool when Pete Johnson (I can't remember if he was serving a suspension for coke or out of football) came up and challenged me to a few games. I had fun trash talking the bungles and dropped him 2 out of three games on the table.. he was cool and gracious about it. I never mentioned the coke thing tho.

I played against, and completely shut down Freddy Adu.

... and he was playing Tennis.

Remember, I'm only 23, not that much older than him. He was getting national press at the time. It was almost right after he went to try out for an MLS team....LA I think? The one where he was schooling everyone there. So I think he was 15 or 16 at the time. It was fun seeing him school everyone on the MLS team and then do jack against us. He was getting really mad.

Lambert sounds like a tool, king. Cool story though.

Post deleted by Referee1

When I was really young (like Elementary School young) I played football with Charles Woodson. He was in high school at the time and he lived a few streets down from me.

Let's see, at Maryland I played intramural basketball against some players on the football team that were drafted.. Ferrel Edmonds was probably the most famous, he played TE for the Dolphins for a while but got hurt.

In high school I played a pick up basketball game with David Wingate on my team.. he was already pretty famous at Georgetown at the time.

I played golf with Russ Grimm and Joe Jacoby when they were still playing OL for the Skins, neither of whom are very good and neither of whom can hit it all that far for being incredibly huge. I was a scrawny 17 year old at the time and could hit it farther than both of them...

I played football with Paul Wilder who was a first round draft pick by the first year Tampa Bay Devil Rays. My younger brother played QB at the Middle School level with Josh Hamilton, (Reds OF). My brother beat him out.

My younger brother also played football with Scott Kooistra who is a current Guard and Tackle for the Bengals.

All the great athletes in my area were all 3-4 years behind me ha, ha.

I wasn't really thinking of college athletes. I went to high school and talked regularly with Marcus Freeman. I still talk to him from time to time when he's home and I see him out. He's always at the Frickers here when he's in town. He used to be really short and fat lol. If I can dig out an old elementary school yearbook, I'll post an old pic of him lol.

Oh yeah, while I never played with him, I knew D'Qwell Jackson in high school, we were in several of the same classes. He still remembers me too

I've also probably played against a lot of other big soccer players and was unaware of it. I know I've played against Chad James. I don't think he ever caught on beyond indoor soccer here but I never could understand how he made it on the Crunch/Force. He wasn't that impressive. But I'm sure I've probably played with a lot more. I trained for a few years at the National Teams Developmental Facilities in Brandonton, FL.

If you want to get into coaching, I've had coaches from all around the world. Two of them have been on the Canada National Team, one of with the Yugoslavia national team, one played professionally in Brazil and came over to the states with Pele, and several played for the Force/Crunch/Newer Force, lol.

I've also played overseas so who knows who I've played against over there.

My senior year was 1995-1996. I was in the old GCC conference. In the GCC, I covered Bedford's Chris Chambers- covered him pretty well, tackled him several times.
I played against Euclid's Tony Fisher- tackled him several times, and he flew right be me once- caught up with him 20 yards downfield.
For our out of conference games, we played 3 teams from the old CVC conference, I played against Kenston's Tyson Walter.- He was an O-lineman, I was a Strong Safety, so we didn't see too much of each other.

-All 3 of those dudes had great college careers and all 3 went on to start for NFL teams. I know Chambers is still playing, I think Tony Fisher is also, as for Tyson Walter, last I checked he was with the Dallas Cowboys, I don't know if he retired yet though.

I played football against Greg Paulus, who is now the PG for Duke. That's about it, I think.

When I was in junior high, I played dodge ball with OJ McDuffie in gym class- does that count?!? We also ran hurdles together on the track during recess until I tripped, fell and busted my face, lol, good times. We went to Taft Middle School together in Marion until he moved to his Aunt's in Cleveland in 1985.

Although we didn't play sports together, I also sat at a table with Eddie George and his family at the Japanese Steakhouse in Columbus the first year he played for Tennessee; he's a wonderful and kind man. He treated his mother like royalty, putting on her coat, pulling out chairs for her, etc. I'll never forget looking at his legs and comparing them to mine and one of his legs were the same size as two of mine- and my legs aren't small as it is. The man is huge, looks like he's been carved out of stone.