One of my Notre Dame Autographed Helmets for sale still?
A good friend of mine tweeted this to me last night that he came across on eBay and it brought back crazy memories of signing like 50 of these for people after games as I was trying to leave the stadium to go spend precious hours with my family while they were in town before they headed back out to Houston.
I often wondered what happend to all those helmets, shirts, jerseys, hats, footballs, shoes, arms, faces, posters, wheelchairs, trucks, vans, dogs that I signed. (no joke, some guy had me sign every article of Irish Apparel his Jack Russell named Rudy was wearing, he was hilarious to me but SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK about me signing all the stuff)
Sometimes people swore up and down there weren't going to sell the stuff to make money while others were wanting them signed to specific people or charities.
I remember these sorts of post-game convo's:
"will you sign this to my grandpa, his name is ______, who's in the hospital and loves Notre Dame so much and he won't be able to make a game this year so would you sign this for him?"
"Will you sign this hat, t-shirt, jersey, etc. to my son (who would be standing next to them to shy to ask for himself) his name is _____." (Because I love kids I would usually try to conjure up some conversation with him involving some high fives and 'roughin him up a lil' then I would look him in the eyes and say something from my heart. I love the dreams you can see in the eye of kids when you get down on their level and look them in the eyes........BEWARE PREACHER MOMENT COMING: Why do we lose that childlike dreamland and wonderland when we get older! Gosh we could learn so much from kids! OK PREACHER MOMENT OVER!)
"I am your biggest fan (usually wearing my jersey), you spoke at my school (insert date)...will you sign this please?" (I secretly wondered...."are you really my biggest fan? If so, what does that even mean!")
This was a lady in her mid 40's probably and she met me as soon as I exited the gates of the stadium. At least 500-1000 people are at this entrance, people are pushing forward to take pics and get autographs, and here's the conversation: "Can you take me into the locker room? Me: No, and definitely not right now anyway the guys are still getting dressed and stuff maybe they'll do a tour tomorrow" (I said that knowing there likely wasn't a tour 'tomorrow'). Her: "I know, but I'd rather go in right now while everyone is still in there getting dressed." Me: Nope can't do that sorry, ok bye! (then I quickly turned my back and started signing autographs looking over people to find my family and Brooke - we were dating at the time!)
"Could you get the team to sign this, we want to auction this off and give it to our charity for _______"
It's all crazy to think about now but when you're in the moment the thing that comes to mind most is I can't believe they want me to sign this stuff. Followed by thoughts of "did they see me miss those two tackles today?" Followed by "I hope they remember this because I don't know if I will because there are still 12 games left this season and I'll have 1,000 more of these exact same conversations. I hope this moment was meaningful for them." and THAT was usually followed by "I'M STARVING WHERE CAN WE GET FOOD!"
Note: I'm not selling this helmet or any of my helmets or stuff which is why I'm not linking to this on ebay, just thought it was curious to see stuff still being sold in different places years removed from my time at ND.
....but seriously!
