Best stories of meeting UofM personalities

I work at a certain UM museum which had a huge gala for its reopening and got to give Mary Sue a tour of the museum store. She was probably the nicest customer I've ever had, and was genuinely interested in the stuff I was saying. Also, being a freshman girl in Markley last year, I met Mike Cox and Kenny Demens... and so did the rest of my hall, even though my roommate and I were the only ones who knew who they were.

My fiance's dad told me this story the other day. He had a paper route with his cousin in 1969. One of the guys on his was Jim Young(was it Jim, i don't remember his first name for sure) the defensive coordinater under Bo. anyways, Mr. Young asked him what he wanted for christmas. Being a quick thinker, he responded, how about tickets to the Rose Bowl?(remember that this was the year of the epic upset of OSU) Mr. Young says, "I'll see what I can do" A week later, he calls him back and lets him know that he had a couple tickets for him...on the 50 yard line....20 rows up. So yeah, his paper boy christmas tip was two outstanding tickets for the 69 rosebowl.

I met C Webb at a basketball camp I went to the summer of the olympics when Laettner made the team and he didn't. The Camp of Champs and he came and spoke to us and starting pulling random kids out of the crowd for various competitions. He pulled a buddy of mine to for a best of ten free throw shoot out and lost. My buddy still loves telling the story. Anyway, he signed my jersey and upon arriving home my brother dragged me off to play some three on three with some friends so my bag sat in the laundry room and when my mom gets home she does what moms do and washes the laundry. I can still see the autograph but it is an extremely light pink as opposed to a bright red. In addition, during the Q&A at the camp someone asked him if he was upset that Laettner made the team instead of him(this is the reason I remember this) and he said no way. He went on to point out the Laettner was now wearing the shoes the Fab5 did(Air Huarache) http://www.kicksguide.com/images/Nike/huarache/huarache_rear2.jpg and had recently pierced his ear and made a bad joke about Laettner trying to be him.

but my dad has had a couple of sports-related happenings. One story he has is that he was on a business trip and he was boarding the plane. He finds his seat and it just so happens to be right next to Bo Schembechler. I guess he and Bo talked for the whole plane ride and my dad got a signature at the end to bring home. I believe he gave it to my brother (Son of A Bitch!) and it's framed in my bro's room. My dad also met Bo Jackson one time a while back. Bo was retired at this point, I think, and I guess Bo was kind of a dick. My dad said that Bo went to this bar every night and just sat and drank all night then left. He got kind of annoyed by people that bugged him, but my dad said "hey." EDIT: For me personally, I haven't had too much. I did go to the Rose Bowl game against Texas a few years ago, and while I was there me and my brother met Chad Henne's younger brother. We sat in a hot tub with him for a good hour to find out that Chad and Braylon Edwards were just at the hotel and in the hot tub 10 minutes before we got there. I was kind of pissed, but it was cool to hang out with Henne's brother and play some catch in the pool. Non-Michigan related, on a plane ride back from that same Rose Bowl, I got to sit in first class because two of my dad's tickets got bumped up and he was letting me sit with him. We sat right across the aisle from some football players and they told us they were from Maryland. They were some big dudes all with dread locks. Pretty cool dudes, as I recall.

Justin Boren hit me with his snow plow during the WQ/SQ snowball fight.

I haven't met anyone outside media day yet, it always seems that everyone in my family meets someone except me. My dad met Shaq at the magic kingdom while i was at epcot, my parents met lloyd twice at the art fair, and my uncle, aunt, and cousin were at the same hotel in montana as Tom Brady and they played catch in the pool! But in 04 i think, I had a broken arm when i went to media day, and i got steve breastons autograph, he asked what happened, i told him, and he said "i broke my thumb 3 times when i was little." Yeah. not that great. I'm still waiting for something cool. edit: and Tom Brady was not a dick

I have met Coach Beilein and around campus and saw Desmond at the Titletown filming last year. I have actually seen Beilein twice: first time I was picking up my paycheck from Weidenbach (I work for the Athletic Dept) and he was walking through the lobby as I walked in. He said how's it going to me. At first, I didn't even realize that it was him. I had to do a double take. The second time I saw Beilein was during the past spring semester. I went up to A2 for a day to take care of some things for classes and to visit a friend. We were walking to my friend's apartment after coming out of Angell. On the Diag, I saw Beilein walking towards me with what looked like a recruit and his family. He once again said hello to me and this time I responded with Hey Coach. Desmond was really cool at the Titletown filming. Before everything started, he met with the small group of the band that attended. Afterwards, Desmond stuck around to sign autographs and talk to fans. I didn't have anything for him to sign so I ran into the Grad to get a piece of paper. I kind of snuck my way up to the front of the group of people around Desmond. I got up to him and asked him to sign my slip of paper as a reporter from the Daily? asked him if it was a hard decision to come back to Ann Arbor the filming. Of course, he says that there was no doubt that he wanted to do that and that he loved the fans.

This thread makes me cry, because I've never met any U-M players

Not that I'm doubting you guys, but it seems odd to me that everyone and their cat has met Bo Schembechler.

As a Christmas present two years ago I got front row seats to a home basketball game vs UCLA. We were winning at half time, so we were pretty excited as we got up to go buy some pop. As we were waiting to go up the stairs, I heard someone say "hello" right next to me. I turned, and was extremely surprised to see Lloyd standing next to me. He talked to us for a second, and then we got a picture with him(as seen in avatar). I don't remember what we talked about, but I rememberhim being really friendly. After we got back to our seats we noticed Mike Hart sitting a few rows behind Lloyd. We tried to say hello after the game, but someone called for him and he got up and walked down the tunnel.

-Eating candy and playing football all afternoon at a Victors Club luncheon before the 1996 hockey season with John Madden and Blake Sloan. Two really, really nice guys. -Hanging out on the field at Michigan Stadium with Nick Lachey and Bo when they were filming a GameDay segment, Labor Day ?2005? One of the weirdest experiences of my life, but both of them were really cool about the whole thing. Bo was downright hilarious, cracking jokes the whole time. I'd met him a bunch of times before that, but never in a situation where we had time to just kind of shoot the breeze. Nick Lachey is really, really short. -1997 Michigan Football Bust. My buddy and I were sitting at our table during dinner, both of us really excited to be there and wanting autographs. We notice Brian Griese goes to the bathroom, and us being shameless 11 year old kids, decide this would be a great time to try to get his autograph. So we both grab our posters or whatever we had with us, and went and waited outside the bathroom. He was really gracious about the whole thing, and even made a joke about it in his M Ring speech a half hour later. Later on that evening, I got an autograph from a quiet-looking redshirt freshman who assured me I didn't really want his autograph because he didn't play that season. I got it anyway. 11 years later, he has a handful of Super Bowl rings and is married to a model. Go figure. -I took a class my junior year that was chock full of athletes. 3 of the starting 5 basketball players, most of the softball team, the entire starting defensive secondary, and a bunch of offensive skill players. Leon Hall was in my discussion section. Anyways, I'm sitting in class one day reading MGoBlog on my laptop. Some posting with a picture of Mike Hart. All of the sudden a guy comes in late and sits next to me. I look over, and it's Mike Hart. I said hi and closed that window as fast as I could. -I was in the hockey band in school. On NCAA trips we usually stayed in the same hotel as the team. I got to hang out with Jack Johnson's family in North Dakota in 2006, played mini-hockey and arcade games all day before the game with his little brother. His parents are incredibly nice people. We sat around the lobby in Denver in 2007 and watched him and his dad come in and out of the computer center negotiating his NHL contract, too. After the Frozen Four loss to Notre Dame in 2008, I was in the elevator with Aaron Palushaj and Max Pacioretty and a couple band kids. We're chatting a little bit, (Aaron asked us why we "weren't out boozin'" after a game like that) and this woman gets on the elevator. She notices they're wearing their Michigan warmup suits and asks them how the game went. Aaron: We blew it. Woman: Oh, that's too bad. Well, there's always the game tomorrow. Aaron: There is no game tomorrow. Woman: Oh... um... (silence) Pretty damn awkward to say the least.

Last year I lost my roommate after one semester and ended up getting Anthony LaLota as a replacement. I set up all my stuff in my room and come back later that night to find him chilling with Tate Forcier and Will Campbell on my couch. I guess both had been told they were going to room with one another before getting to school, and while they were not, Tate refused to go live in his own room and instead lived on my couch for the next week. He was kind of a d bag. He would stay on the phone until 2 in the morning and play video games instead of going out with the rest of the guys on Friday nights. I ended up giving him the room and moving two doors down into Vincent Smith's old room, and got 4 field passes to the game of my choice for my troubles.

I have a bunch of pretty good stories (and one pretty bad one) since I've met with many of the Michigan football legends of the last five decades due to my work with the Maloy Scholarship Auction (see my sig below for further details). That said, my most interesting encounter happened when I was a senior in high school. I had been admitted to Michigan and I was walking around New York City with my father and wearing a Michigan t-shirt when an older African-American gentlemen crossed the street and said he liked my t-shirt and asked me if I was a student. I told him I was enrolling in the fall. In this deep deep distinguished voice that I couldn't quite pinpoint he said "the University of Michigan is the greatest institution of higher learning on this earth. You've been earned an opportunity hundreds of thousands of your peers would kill for. Make the most of it and do the University, and yourself proud. I was told the same thing over forty years ago when I was a freshman and no words were ever more true. Go Blue!" I knew I recognized the voice but couldn't place it until he walked away and my father told me that I had just been addressed by James Earl Jones.