The best you ever had?

67YAZ

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Just for fun and out of curiosity as the European season winds down - who is the best player you ever shared a pitch with?

For a few years, I played over-30s 7-a-side with Dino Melitas. His was a true Americans Abroad tale - at least before Americans became top-flight stars and UCL winners. Dino played 4 years of Div I college, but his youtube skills videos caught the eye of an agent, who nabbed him a Nike and Red Bull sponsorship. That got him a contract to join Southampton's U23s for a year, where he played with Gareth Bale. Dino had some great stories about playing with Bale, who led the team in scoring as a 16-year-old left back. Dino didn't catch on at Soton, but he had a Greek passport by virtue of his immigrant parents. So he started his journey through Greece, Cyprus, and the English pyramid, ending his career with Bromsgrove Rovers before blowing out his knee and coming back stateside to go to medical school.

Anyway, Dino has the sickest touch I've ever seen in person - didn't matter how hot the ball was coming in or how high, he'd give it a calm touch and turn right into space with it. He also loved to nutmeg dudes. Once he a dribbled over to the touchline and rolled a pass back to me in support. Then he gave me a wink and a nod, so I ping it right back. Dino one-touch megged the guy next to him causing the defender to stumble a couple steps before falling on his ass. It was hilarious and heartbreaking all at once. And when opponents decided to get physical to try to slow him down, Dino would screw up his face, isolate a target for his ire, and torture the poor fool with any number of skills designed to embarrass.

We won a lot of games and a couple trophies before he took a fellowship in Michigan. We've won significantly fewer since then.
 
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Section30

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He wasn't on my team but I played against him 4 times when he was at the University of Portland. The illustrious Kasey Keller. We only got one goal past him in the four games. You could see his quality as every time we attempted a shot he was standing in exactly the right place to make every stop look easy.
 

Tangled Up In Red

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Best player I faced was Chris Henderson and to a slightly lesser extent, his younger brother, Sean. Both could really do everything on the pitch.

Most capped (and highest scoring) player I ever faced, albeit only in training was Tiffany Milbrett. She was such a level above her contemporaries and had amazing work rate and instincts.
 

Zososoxfan

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I'm probably not alone on this, but I had to tangle with Charlie Davies while he was at Brooks Academy. There were lots of other MLS-quality players in the ISL in the early 2000s, including on my team, but Charlie was on another level.
 

Titans Bastard

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I'm pretty sure I was on a U-little team with or against Chris Tierney, but it's a hazy memory.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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I've told these stories before so sorry if I'm boring anybody.

This doesn't really count as "shared a pitch with" but still too good not to mention. I started playing club soccer at the end of 8th grade and got to be friends with the son of the coach. He was a Polish guy connected to European soccer so he hatched this idea that his son and I could go to a soccer camp in France the next summer (August 1992 I believe). It was called Caps Girondins and affiliated with FC Bordeaux. Toward the end of camp, they brought a few of the younger players from FC Bordeaux down to run some drills with us, probably some kind of contractual obligation as it was obvious they didn't really want to be there. There was a really short stocky bearded guy and a tall prematurely balding guy. Being 15 and American, if you didn't play in Italia 90 or didn't show up in my English soccer magazines I had no idea who you were so it was cool but whatever. The two guys turned out to be Bixente Lizarazu and...Zinedine Zidane.

In terms of actual games, I played a number of times against Jay Heaps in my club soccer years. He was a year older but the way the age groups worked we would sometimes end up in the same division. We were both center midfielders so we'd go head-to-head when we played. He absolutely smoked me.
 
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67YAZ

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Lizarazu and...Zinedine Zidane.
:oops:

When I was 11 or 12 or so I went to a camp at Merrimack College, and a couple Boston Bolts guys showed up for a morning session. I thought the was amazing. Got my ball autographed and everything.
 
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SocrManiac

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My U13 team was selected as ball boys at Giants Stadium for Italy/Ireland. We got to pass a ball around with some of the guys. Beppe Signori stands out in my mind.

Wasn’t exactly a competitive match, but one of the best memories of my life. Even at that age, the absolute grace of the ball as it magnetically attached itself to world class players has stuck with me to this day.

I’ve played with some talented guys, including some post-retirement MLS grads. Some of my teammates may have been faster and one in particular could hit the ball harder and more accurately than some of the pros. What makes a pro a pro is the way you could hit them with the ball almost anywhere on their bodies and it would just drop to their feet, totally in control. It wasn’t the speed, power, footskill, or accuracy. It was the total command they had over the ball.

God I miss playing.
 

Kliq

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Sharlie Joseph came to our practice once and ran us through drills. Cool guy.

Played on the same team once with Miles Robinson, who I believe was playing an age range up.
 

Tangled Up In Red

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What makes a pro a pro is the way you could hit them with the ball almost anywhere on their bodies and it would just drop to their feet, totally in control. It wasn’t the speed, power, footskill, or accuracy. It was the total command they had over the ball.
Except Moussa Sissoko ;)

God I miss playing.
Amen. Even if just getting back out to my 7-ish a-side, spanish language, small goal pick-up games.
 
When I lived in London, I used to play Sunday League football in goal out on the famed Hackney Marshes for a club wonderfully called Surreal Madrid. We were half decent, at that level, and I was half decent, at that level. (All of my English and Scottish teammates called me "Brad" for some reason; maybe partly because of Brad Friedel, but I think more because they thought was the quintessential American name.) I never played against anyone memorable in that context, but in May 2002 my wife won a charity auction on my behalf for a place in a Football Aid match at Highbury - I think we paid something like £400 or £500 to charity, and for that I got to play 90 minutes in goal in a match against other Arsenal fans as well as one ex-Arsenal player in each team. One of my then colleagues at State Street was such an Arsenal fan that he had season tickets at Highbury despite living in Boston, and when I alerted him to the existence of this charity and the match I was playing in, he won a bid for a 45-minute place in the team and was out there on the pitch with me after having flown across the Atlantic and arrived in London that morning.

The ex-Arsenal players I partnered and faced were so fringey that I don't remember who they were - I didn't even really recognize their names at the time, and I was bummed because people like Bobby Charlton were involved in the equivalent match that year at Manchester United - but it was still an awesome experience, changing in the dressing room and coming out through the tunnel and so on. It was even more awesome because Arsenal had won the double a week or two earlier, and both the FA Cup and the Premiership trophy were on the pitch before the match for us to touch! And I had a cracking game, making a couple of great stops and even saving a penalty (which unfortunately was banged into the net on the rebound); I was named the man of the match for the side wearing Arsenal's home kit even though the final score was 7-7, which will tell you something about the overall quality of play and the sorts of chances I was facing. Anyway, if that sort of experience sounds like your cup of tea, https://www.footballaid.com is the website - you should file that link away and get involved once COVID is gone and these matches can get up and running again.
 

steeplechase3k

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Brain Gant was one of my PE teachers in middle and high school. This was at least a decade after he'd retired, but he was still so good. I remember we'd be playing full filed soccer games with several balls on the field (and ~30 total people) at once. He would stand at midfield and if the ball bounced to him, he'd look up and drive the ball 60 yards and it would bounce a foot in front of someone, and he did it over and over again.
 

IdiotKicker

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I'm probably not alone on this, but I had to tangle with Charlie Davies while he was at Brooks Academy. There were lots of other MLS-quality players in the ISL in the early 2000s, including on my team, but Charlie was on another level.
My sophomore year, he lit us up for 5 goals. My single greatest soccer accomplishment was holding him to a single goal on a free kick the following year when our coach had me literally trail him around the field. That whole Bolts club team was by far the most dominant US youth club team I’ve ever seen. I’m sure there are better teams out there now because the overall quality of US soccer has gone up, but that team was just loaded. In addition to Davies, that team also had Mike Videira who was a 3-time Hermann Award finalist and ACC Rookie of the Year in 2004 before spending a few seasons bouncing around MLS, Mike Fucito who was the Ivy League Rookie of the year and spent some time in MLS, Tierney, and a few other guys who sniffed around the MLS for a couple seasons. The ironic thing is that if you had asked me who I thought would end up with the best career aside from Davies, I don’t think Tierney would have been in my top 5 at the time from that team. That’s how good they were at the U16-18 level.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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When I lived in London, I used to play Sunday League football in goal out on the famed Hackney Marshes for a club wonderfully called Surreal Madrid. We were half decent, at that level, and I was half decent, at that level. (All of my English and Scottish teammates called me "Brad" for some reason; maybe partly because of Brad Friedel, but I think more because they thought was the quintessential American name.) I never played against anyone memorable in that context, but in May 2002 my wife won a charity auction on my behalf for a place in a Football Aid match at Highbury - I think we paid something like £400 or £500 to charity, and for that I got to play 90 minutes in goal in a match against other Arsenal fans as well as one ex-Arsenal player in each team. One of my then colleagues at State Street was such an Arsenal fan that he had season tickets at Highbury despite living in Boston, and when I alerted him to the existence of this charity and the match I was playing in, he won a bid for a 45-minute place in the team and was out there on the pitch with me after having flown across the Atlantic and arrived in London that morning.

The ex-Arsenal players I partnered and faced were so fringey that I don't remember who they were - I didn't even really recognize their names at the time, and I was bummed because people like Bobby Charlton were involved in the equivalent match that year at Manchester United - but it was still an awesome experience, changing in the dressing room and coming out through the tunnel and so on. It was even more awesome because Arsenal had won the double a week or two earlier, and both the FA Cup and the Premiership trophy were on the pitch before the match for us to touch! And I had a cracking game, making a couple of great stops and even saving a penalty (which unfortunately was banged into the net on the rebound); I was named the man of the match for the side wearing Arsenal's home kit even though the final score was 7-7, which will tell you something about the overall quality of play and the sorts of chances I was facing. Anyway, if that sort of experience sounds like your cup of tea, https://www.footballaid.com is the website - you should file that link away and get involved once COVID is gone and these matches can get up and running again.
That is amazing! Very jealous.
 

ernieshore

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Just some lower-level pros and Division 1 college players for me. But in 1996, the Italian Track & Field team was training at my college before the Atlanta Olympics. I was playing pick up with a few friends and about 5 of the men's team members came over and joined in. We played with them for about 45 minutes and it was a blast. Not the Italian soccer team, but they obviously ran circles around us and were still excellent - especially compared to us.

And they were definitely the best looking group of guys I've played with.
 

Tangled Up In Red

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I asked an old teammate if my recollections were correct and the only name he added was Jorge Salcedo, who bossed the west region (along with the Hendersons) in the late 80s and is now going to prison in the college bribery scandal (was a UCLA coach).
 

67YAZ

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When I lived in London, I used to play Sunday League football in goal out on the famed Hackney Marshes for a club wonderfully called Surreal Madrid. We were half decent, at that level, and I was half decent, at that level. (All of my English and Scottish teammates called me "Brad" for some reason; maybe partly because of Brad Friedel, but I think more because they thought was the quintessential American name.) I never played against anyone memorable in that context, but in May 2002 my wife won a charity auction on my behalf for a place in a Football Aid match at Highbury - I think we paid something like £400 or £500 to charity, and for that I got to play 90 minutes in goal in a match against other Arsenal fans as well as one ex-Arsenal player in each team. One of my then colleagues at State Street was such an Arsenal fan that he had season tickets at Highbury despite living in Boston, and when I alerted him to the existence of this charity and the match I was playing in, he won a bid for a 45-minute place in the team and was out there on the pitch with me after having flown across the Atlantic and arrived in London that morning.

The ex-Arsenal players I partnered and faced were so fringey that I don't remember who they were - I didn't even really recognize their names at the time, and I was bummed because people like Bobby Charlton were involved in the equivalent match that year at Manchester United - but it was still an awesome experience, changing in the dressing room and coming out through the tunnel and so on. It was even more awesome because Arsenal had won the double a week or two earlier, and both the FA Cup and the Premiership trophy were on the pitch before the match for us to touch! And I had a cracking game, making a couple of great stops and even saving a penalty (which unfortunately was banged into the net on the rebound); I was named the man of the match for the side wearing Arsenal's home kit even though the final score was 7-7, which will tell you something about the overall quality of play and the sorts of chances I was facing. Anyway, if that sort of experience sounds like your cup of tea, https://www.footballaid.com is the website - you should file that link away and get involved once COVID is gone and these matches can get up and running again.
Signed up. Still 2 open positions for next Monday at Anfield....
 

bosox4283

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As someone that never played soccer beyond 6th grade, the best I can do is that I once went to a bachelor party with Kyle Martino.
 

Section30

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My friend Rick has an all time story. He moved to West Virginia in 1993 and joined pretty good club team that had about 7 or 8 German players on it. When the World Cup came around in 94 the team went to watch the German National team practice. Evidently the players on his team came from a couple of the same hometowns in Germany and were yelling out to the players through out the practice. Next thing he knew he was on the field playing 8X8 with the team. They repeated no tackles/ no sliding/ no contact about 10 times. He said he was a cone on the field they went by him so fast. He has video and a team shot with Klinsman, Matthaus, Khan, Voller, Berthold and others.
 

scott bankheadcase

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Did he pick up the tab?
I really only remember one thing about the night — the other guys in the bar made sure we knew that Tab was a great guy and you could literally say anything to him, except don’t even think about bringing up Escobar.

We hadn’t even come close to that topic (nor do I think we would have) but it was made clear to us when Tab wasn’t around.
 

Catcher Block

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I'm probably not alone on this, but I had to tangle with Charlie Davies while he was at Brooks Academy. There were lots of other MLS-quality players in the ISL in the early 2000s, including on my team, but Charlie was on another level.
Yuuuup. As a fullback, not getting completely embarrassed by Charlie Davies my Junior and Senior year at GDA is among my career highlights. We even ruined their perfect season one year, if I recall correctly. Davies had a forward partner on that team, too, who I think also played D1. I can't remember his name. They were nightmarish together.

Edit: Just read it up above. Fucito. They were on another planet from the rest of us.

Played against Tierney as well. Very vividly remember our goalie in 2002 or 2003 getting too agressive and handling the ball outside the box early in a game and got sent off for it. Our backup was a good friend, and he had no business being in there. Tierney ripped a free kick over the wall and into the side netting from 20 yards that rivaled any professional attempt I'd seen live before. The hilarious look on my friend's face is burned in my memory.
 
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Titans Bastard

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I really only remember one thing about the night — the other guys in the bar made sure we knew that Tab was a great guy and you could literally say anything to him, except don’t even think about bringing up Escobar.

We hadn’t even come close to that topic (nor do I think we would have) but it was made clear to us when Tab wasn’t around.
Did you get his thoughts on Leonardo, at least?
 

The Raccoon

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~ 12 years ago I played informal indoor soccer (5 vs 5 or 6 vs 6 if I remember correctly) with Matthias Zimmermann twice, who was a friend of a friend and now has 89 games (3 goals) in Bundesliga and 100+ games in 2. Bundesliga (Germanys 2nd highest league) to his name.

The first time he played exclusivly in goal I think (he's not a goalie), but the 2nd time he made the rest of us look like we were competing in a different sport, even though he was ~16 years old back then and at least 5+ years younger than most of the other guys.

Really nice kid...!
 

candylandriots

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As someone that never played soccer beyond 6th grade, the best I can do is that I once went to a bachelor party with Kyle Martino.
That’s where I’m at too. So…

I mentioned this somewhere else, but Patrick Weiser lives in my building. He played about 300 games between the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, and managed Wolves for a time.

His son, Mitchell, who plays for Leverkusen is apparently there once in a while too. (Edit: just saw him as I was playing with my dog in my Union Berlin sandals.)
 
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Dummy Hoy

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Not nearly as impressive of a story as some of you guys but I grew up playing with a bunch of kids who played D1...one of whom was in NT camp circles at the U15(?) Level. He was a USA Today top 25 senior in the nation our senior year, played 4 years at BC including captain, and was drafted in the old A League (2nd tier) even though he made it clear he wasn't going to play.

It was kind of crazy that in the mid 90s from our D2 E. Mass HS team our goalie played D2 college, our 3 CB played D3, 2 of our MF played D1, as did our striker. Our 3rd MF turned down D1 offers too as he wanted to focus on school (he's now head of the state senate in the state he went to college in). I played RFB/WB and picked up a lot of yellow cards...
 

Zososoxfan

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My sophomore year, he lit us up for 5 goals. My single greatest soccer accomplishment was holding him to a single goal on a free kick the following year when our coach had me literally trail him around the field. That whole Bolts club team was by far the most dominant US youth club team I’ve ever seen. I’m sure there are better teams out there now because the overall quality of US soccer has gone up, but that team was just loaded. In addition to Davies, that team also had Mike Videira who was a 3-time Hermann Award finalist and ACC Rookie of the Year in 2004 before spending a few seasons bouncing around MLS, Mike Fucito who was the Ivy League Rookie of the year and spent some time in MLS, Tierney, and a few other guys who sniffed around the MLS for a couple seasons. The ironic thing is that if you had asked me who I thought would end up with the best career aside from Davies, I don’t think Tierney would have been in my top 5 at the time from that team. That’s how good they were at the U16-18 level.
Yup, I played ball with or against Davies, Fucito, Tierney, Videira, etc. Some of those Bolts players also played in the DCL where I got to play against the remainder of the squad. Wayland had one Bolts players who kicked my shin so hard it permanently affected the appearance of my foot--it's basically perpetually a bit swollen. Not good times.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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Not nearly as impressive of a story as some of you guys but I grew up playing with a bunch of kids who played D1...one of whom was in NT camp circles at the U15(?) Level. He was a USA Today top 25 senior in the nation our senior year, played 4 years at BC including captain, and was drafted in the old A League (2nd tier) even though he made it clear he wasn't going to play.
Do you remember his name? I think I also played against this kid circa 1992-1995 but I can't remember the name. He played on a club soccer team called Charles River United and then all their players eventually left to join a club team formed by Ed Kelly, at that point the relatively new coach at BC. And then many of the best players went on to play for Kelly in college. Kelly essentially created this local funnel to his college program. But there was one kid who I played against at club level and who was known as being the best in the state in his age group and making at least the Region 1 team (can't remember if he was in NT camp or not but might have been). As I type all this out, some part of my brain now wants to say his last name was McDonald but I may be just making that up.

Edit: Google is the best. Keith McDonald.
 

Zomp

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I never played against anyone famous. Maybe some really good college players.

However, in my early 20's I signed up for the New England Revolution's annual FIFA tournament fundraiser and was paired with Lee Ngyuen in the first round. He was Barcelona, I was Dortmund, and I beat him 3-0.

Taylor Twellman was also there and I got to play him after the tournament for charity. He was a cool guy and enjoyed hanging with my friends and I.
 

Dummy Hoy

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Do you remember his name? I think I also played against this kid circa 1992-1995 but I can't remember the name. He played on a club soccer team called Charles River United and then all their players eventually left to join a club team formed by Ed Kelly, at that point the relatively new coach at BC. And then many of the best players went on to play for Kelly in college. Kelly essentially created this local funnel to his college program. But there was one kid who I played against at club level and who was known as being the best in the state in his age group and making at least the Region 1 team (can't remember if he was in NT camp or not but might have been). As I type all this out, some part of my brain now wants to say his last name was McDonald but I may be just making that up.

Edit: Google is the best. Keith McDonald.
Correct. I grew up with Keith and graduated with him. His older borther Andy walked on at Providence and was later a captain there. Incredible athletes.
 

biollante

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The Hartford Insurance/ Industrial B league never had any big names as far as I know. Some guy who trained with either AC Milan or Juventas played against us once, unless we blocked it, all of his shots would go in. Our highlight was beating Dunkin Donuts for the Championship one year.
 

SocrManiac

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The Hartford Insurance/ Industrial B league never had any big names as far as I know. Some guy who trained with either AC Milan or Juventas played against us once, unless we blocked it, all of his shots would go in. Our highlight was beating Dunkin Donuts for the Championship one year.
Kwadwo Asamoah's cousin was playing in the area for a few years, probably in the 2016-2018 time frame. He joined us one winter for indoor. He visited Italy from time to time and probably "trained" at the facility. He was a bit of a bullshitter, though.
 

pedro1918

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I played high school soccer against a future Hall of Famer. Of course he is a baseball HoFer. Jeff Bagwell. I have no recollection of his actual soccer playing abilities.
 

67YAZ

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A friend just told me his daughter is on the same youth travel team as Mike Magee's daughter. Apparently, the kid is pretty good, too.
 
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Plantiers Wart

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I grew up in the 1970's soccer hotbed of Westport, CT Moved out after my sophomore year, but played JV with a bunch of guys who played D1. One kid is now the head coach at Clemson. But the HS produced a ton of talent in the early 70s, including brothers Paul and Tim Hunter, who starred at UConn and both played NASL - Paul for the NY Cosmos, Tim for the Boston Minutemen. They were very active in the town youth soccer programs, ran camps, etc. One camp, a bunch of 15 and 16 year olds got
to scrimmage with one brother on either side. They took it easy, but Jesus - They were absolutely ridiculously skilled.
 

Gunca

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Nice - sounds like y'all left @Gunca at home that day?
I was there in the flesh. Taylor and I hit it off, and he actually sent me some concussion helmets to test out. I let @Zomp borrow them. He wears them when he has to punch out of the trees when we golf to protect that beautiful cranium of his.

As for players I’ve shared the pitch with, Geoff Cameron and Ryan Moduro. Geoff is the higher profile of the two, but Maduro was no slouch. All American at PC and played in the MLS and overseas in Iceland.