Fun Facts About Me

1. Thomas Jefferson? Distant relative.

2. As a Naval Chief Petty officer, my dad was wounded in the Korean War.

3. At the Tonight Show with Jack Paar in NYC, Andy Williams went into the audience and sang to my mom.

4. My maternal great-grandfather’s farm was sold in the 1950’s. The first shopping mall in Atlanta was built there…Lenox Square.

5. Comic strip character Mark Trail was based on my uncle John Wayt. For many years his Seven Branches Farm in Cumming was the site of the Atlanta Steeplechase.

6. Before Bob Denver became Gilligan, he played airplanes with me in Macon Hospital. I was four and had pneumonia. One of my oldest memories.

7. In the mid-1960’s, my sister and I appeared on WSB-TV’s “Popeye Club” with Officer Don and Orville the Dragon.

8. Saw Namath, Unitas, Sayers, Archie Manning, Staubach, Meredith, Bart Starr, George Blanda, Len Dawson, Alcindor, Bird, Magic, Dr. J, Aaron, Mays, McCovey, Clemente, Stargell, Rose, Bench, and Bob Gibson. Collegians Michael Jordan and Joe Montana. Minor leaguers Chipper Jones and Tony Perez.

9. Walking home from school in first grade, I was hit by a car and knocked unconscious.

10. My Ninth Grade football team won a game 96 – 0.

11. Umpired Little League games with former Tech kicker Cam Bonifay, future GM of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

12. In high school Ceil regularly competed against hall-of-fame golfer Beth Daniel. Both played on the boy’s team.

13. One of my state championship football team’s leading scorers, in Georgia’s highest classification. My points were the difference in at least four games. My high school football coach later coached Herschel.

14. Befriended Steve Norman in 1977, as a freshman at Tech. Over thirty years later, our sons are best friends.

15. In the late 1970’s I entered a Steve Martin look-alike contest. With hundreds of competitors, I was the first to make legendary DJ Gary McKee laugh.

16. Saw Leno and Seinfeld perform…long before they were stars.

17. Ceil and I went to Bermuda for our honeymoon.

18. Played baseball with Joe Pepitone, Ron Santo, Bert Campaneris, and Jimmy Piersall.

19. Appeared in the Dennis Quaid movie, The Rookie.

20. There have been 14 unassisted triple plays in MLB history…the rarest feat in sports. My son Will has pulled off two.

21. For a few days in the womb, our daughter Anna had a twin.

22. Carried the Olympic torch…three times. Gold Medalist Janet Evans and I were two of a very small group to carry the 1996 torch two different times, in two different states.

23. Twenty-one Peachtree Road Races, and counting. Will has run the last five with me.

24. Seen all but one MLB team play. Visited 23 MLB ballparks, and another thirty-four college and pro football stadiums.

25. I have a list detailing every sporting event I’ve attended in my life (over 400!), a Sports Illustrated collection dating back to the early eighties, and scrapbook calendars chronicling my daily activities for the same time.