DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Close Encounters of the Browns Kind

As I mentioned in the Muni Lot thread my daughter and her fiancée are attending the game today. My son ended up going as well. This trip was a Christmas present from my daughter for her boyfriend and they stayed at the Hyatt Regency at The Arcade. They didn't realize that this is apparently the hotel that the players stay at before home games. Some of the staff at the hotel told them this and let them know where they could see the players leaving before the game today. That's kinda cool and they were of course looking forward to it ........

..... and then they boarded an elevator last night.....

....and on walks Peyton. Yeah, our punishment dispensing, 1,000 yard rushing, TD scoring and leaping defenses in a single bound hero. The namesake of the my daughter's 7 year old daughter's jersey. My daughter then asks, "Are you a football player?" as my other two "kids" are dumbfounded. He modestly (of course) replies, "Yes, I'm Peyton Hillis" (likely not verbatim, but close.... my daughter did say he was kinda quite, hence the modesty). Needless to say they were thrilled. I'm a little surprised that they did not initially recognize him, but I think they were a bit star struck.

I found this out when she called me from her cell phone after Peyton reached his destination. As she is telling me about this Kenyon Coleman then boards the elevator that they are still on. Again with the "Are you a football player?" which I can hear over the phone and I also heard the reply from Kenyon. Now I'm a bit beside myself and thinking that this is really cool for them to experience. After the second encounter they decided that they going are spend the rest of their evening (this was at about 10:30 - 11:00 or so) camping the elevator to see whom else they might meet ..... kinda of self appointed elevator door people ... he he. My favorite "meet and greet" that my daughter told me about was Shaun Rogers .... all 6'4", 350 lbs of him. Again, I don't know how she cannot recognize Shaun, but she asks if he plays football and my son exclaims, "It's SHAUN ROGERS!!". With that Shaun laughed. My son told me he literally rubbed shoulders with Shaun and Peyton and the hoodie he was wearing will never get washed. The final player they shared an elevator with was Brain Sanford and he informed them that curfew was at midnight (it was nearing midnight then).

It was, of course, an absolute thrill for them, even for my future son-in-law, who is a Steelers fan. They sounded like little kids on Christmas each time they called me with an update.

Gameday CBS udpate: My daughter and her boyfriend are at the stadium and at the wall to the field (their seats are about 30 rows up). She is amongst a hoard of Steeler fans as the their team is coming out. Polamalu comes out to the squeals of his faithful and I can hear her on the phone booing as loud as she can with a "Here we go Brownies, here we go" as an exclamation point.

Gosh darn I raised her right.

maddog...not that is cool stuff...what a great experience this must be for your family members...something they will never forget.

Thanks mac. Yes, very cool.

Definitely a cool experience.

They got home just a bit ago .... left at halftime (who can blame them )

Their stories are hilarious, including a ride with Phil Dawson this morning. I would love to have elevator security cam footage of their exploits. Great memories for them other than the abysmal showing by our Brownies today.

They did ask Shaun if they could take a photo, but he declined. Shaun was chilling in a wife beater T and I can understand why he wouldn't want to allow it.

The kids are already planning a return to the Hyatt next year. Beware of the volunteer elevator operators.