Day 39: Blue Heaven

With only two days to go I decided to give her a gift that I/we have been working on since the end of February. When I decided that I would be taking her to Carolina's tournament games I purchased her a Tyler Hansboro jersey that I figured that we would take with us to get the players to sign it. We were successful in get a large number of the starters and the players that would be going to the NBA. Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, Danny Green, were the main ones and even Roy Williams was gracious enough to sign it when he was in the hotel lobby after they lost to Florida State in the ACC tournament. Throughout the tournament I gained a lot of respect for

Roy Williams as a person as there was never a person that he wouldn't speak to and was always around for pictures or autographs with the fans. The one that we really needed was Tyler Hansboro as it was his jersey.

Probably the most notable person that was always around was Tyler's dad but never Tyler. We had our chance when we were sitting having a drink in the lobby at the Peabody in Memphis. It was the Saturday between games and I noticed that there was Roy Williams and a few players that were starting to come down the elevator. I told Sandra that I bet that they were going to a shoot around at the arena to prepare for Sunday's game. While she was too star struck (I couldn't believe it either) I walked up to Hansboro to ask him if he could sign it for my wife's 40th

birthday. He gave me a "pfffft" and kept on walking. I informed him that next year he will be begging for people to be asking for his autograph and that he wasn't even the best player on his own team. What made it worse is that a mother asked him to take his picture with her 4 year old son and he stood there with a look of disgust as she took the picture before he went and sat on the bus for 15 minutes. Wow, what a great guy!!! At that point I told her that I was done trying to get him to sign it. For Day 39 I presented the jersey inside a case that I had made and with mixed emotions made her a place on the wall for her Carolina things.

We also celebrated Day 39 last night with our annual fantasy football draft at the house. Her friend Monica worked the draft board and we had a living room full of people, laptop cords, finger foods, and strategy sheets. My bride even had a player agent on the phone as every time it was her time to pick she was whispering in the corner on the phone with who knows trying to figure out who to take. It turned out to be great for everyone else as she took Vick in the 10th round as well as Ricky Williams in the 8th. We had a great time and ended Day 39 in great fashion. Tomorrow is the big day and the end of the journey, but is the start of the best years of her life!!

Day 39: Blue Heaven

Friday, August 14th, 2009

Tomorrow is it...........