Every woman I go out with is impressed when I name-drop foreign authors, but none of them but ever bother to find out that they're just Ikea product names.
This week, I’ll be name-dropping famous Maryland athletes from my alma mater. It all began Friday, the first night of homecoming weekend, as the Maryland basketball team had a preseason game.
Before we hit the game, we had dinner at a fancy new hotel on campus. Jake Layman, recent Maryland star and current Minnesota Timberwolf (back in town to play the Washington Wizards), came by our table. I told him I loved him.
Onto the game. I’d never been to Xfinity Center, the basketball arena built after I graduated, but it’s huge and gorgeous and a total recruiting magnet. We sat in the second row behind Walt Williams, another former Maryland player turned NBA star. (And now Maryland radio broadcaster.) Back in the day, Walt and I took a class together called “The Rhetoric of Black America.” It’s my only street-cred.
Johnny Holliday has been the play-by-play announcer of Maryland football and basketball games for 41 years. He’s a god in the DC area, and also does some announcing for the new world champion Washington Nationals. I yelled to him that the Nationals should give him a World Series ring, and he got up from his seat, came over to me, and talked to me during the entire five-minute commercial break before he had to get back on the air to do the post-game. He asked me all about my life and was the nicest man. Nothing like a legend surpassing your expectations.
7’3” freshman Chol Marial gave me the tallest peace sign I’ve ever received.
Tomorrow: I get together with another giant while offering a peak into a younger Matt Shevin’s mental state.
