I interviewed Nuu Faaola when he was with the London Monarchs and also spoke to Joe Prokop and Brad Quast during World League/American Bowl stints. Faaola was a great guy, very cheerful and upbeat despite being in, essentially, the minor league. I went to Iowa University for one year when Quast was there and he was talking about the Airliner bar. He'd just injured his knee and was a bit downbeat as he sat on the treatment table, but he still took the time to speak... probably because he couldn't walk away.
Nuu Faaola was one of my favs.... how could you not love the name? Was he still sporting the Polynesian fro? I was a Hawai'i fan as a kid and when he and Rich Miano were both on the team at the same time I was so happy.
I met John Abraham on a shuttle bus after a flight from Columbia, SC. Personable. It was just after his abdomen issues. He said he was feeling OK. When I shook his hand it was as if he was wearing a baseball glove. His hands were enormous.
Ironically, I am the only Jet fan in my family and I'm about the only one NOT to have ever met a Jets player. My parents are currently neighbors to Pete Kendall (he lives in Mass.) and see him around once in a while. My wife met Bruce Harper at some resort-type place in CT. She had her picture taken with him and got his autograph.
I saw LArry Johnson coming out of a strip club with a rather buxom lass at 8 in the morning once, but no Jet players.
I've met Chad, Vilma, Chrebet, Santana, Herm, Kareem McKenzie and Terry Bradway. Bradway was actually a great guy. I kept trying to wrap up our convo because I figured he was busy and I was annoying him, but he genuinely wanted to talk and wasn't anything but a normal guy. Some Notes: -Chad is the only one of them that smiles in EVERY picture. -Santana hardly speaks english. He just kept mumbling "y'know what i'm sayin." He's also about 5'6"-5'7", nowhere near 5'9" -Herm really is one of the nicest guys in the world, but I actually felt dumber after touching him. -Chrebet may be small, but he will fuck up each and every one of us on this board. I posed for a picture with him, and you could see through his shirt just how ripped his back was.
His hair was fairly restrained when I met him, but he was just getting off a trans-Atlantic flight, so it might have livened up again later that day. I always liked Rich Miano too.
It was for First Down. I worked for them from the 1990 season through to 1992, and I was also the editor of Gridiron for a while. I was just learning my trade and we had desktop publishing installed just as I took over the mag. We had half a day's training on Quark and were then told to go and design a magazine. When I look back at those issues now I cringe at how awful they look, but we were doing our best! It was a great job. The Monarchs were a lot of fun - actually being able to talk to players and coaches and do the job properly was a great experience. Larry Kennan was a tremedous guy - really intelligent, really open and friendly.
Wow! Nice work if you can get it. I even still have some old copies of gridiron. I still buy First down , theres always something that I've missed from somewhere and still follow BAFL.
It was a total fluke. It was the off-season and I hadn't bought the paper for months. On a whim I picked up a copy and there was an advert for the job of staff writer. It was the only issue the advert appeared in!
I've met Chrebet, Martin and Pennington. All three were class acts and didn't have any problems talking with me and taking pictures.
I met Keyshawn Johnson while he was a Buccaneer... He came through my line at Walgreens, and I was stunned...Literally jaw-dropped, the man is wearing a wife-beater on his cell phone, the Saturday night before the game... I give a "Go Jets." and he says "Yeah man." and smirks, then walks away... I also met Greg Buttle at the Lions game, got a picture with him.
I met countless players in the late '80's ande arly 90's. I went to Hofstra and a guy we shared a house with in East Meqadow, also a student, was the NYJ Asst. Strength coach. He got me field passes a couple of times for practices. Meeting Kenny O'Brien was awesome. Best meet though was Dennis Byrd at the Fudruckers in East Meadow. I was wearing my Micley Shuler Jersey and he gave me the thumbs up as he walked by. Before I left I went and talked with him he asked me to sit and we talked football for about a 1/2 hour.
I went to Hofstra and worked a couple of days in the dorms that they were staying back in the mid seventies or so. Met Namath , John Riggins, David Knight, Godwin Turk ( he had this amazin van) John Schmidt, Wayne Chrebet at alumni things when he played for Hofstra and afterwards. Mike D'Amato is on one of the alumni committees with me.
And my favorite Jets experiece at Hofstra. I'm sitting by myself at breakfast one morning at a big round table. When the entire Jets offensive line comes in and one player asks me "Can we sit here?" "Sure." I answered. They have these giant trays of food and we're chatting away. One player got up and asked "Does anyone want anything?" "Can you get me some bacon, please?" I asked. Students were only given two strips. He came back and handed me a plate of 10 strips of bacon. Cool.
