Ronald Reagan, Pat Tillman, and Abe Martin

In my last year of Pop Warner football we had a special guest at the end of practice one hot Phoenix night. I didn't follow college football much so my excitement was all worked up from the excitement of everyone else. This guy was a giant and what I remember most was his shy smile as the coaches introduced him with glowing accolades.

He gave a speech that I remember nothing of because I was busy fighting between the decision to drink water first or take off my shoulder pads. In the middle of that swamp of steaming heads illuminated by flood lights I finally figured out who this behemoth was and why he was there. He wrapped it up, we took pictures, and 15 minutes later I was in the bed of a Ford Ranger cooling off on the ride home.

You can only imagine how many times that cool experience was refreshed in my memory as that man's story unfolded and lives on until today. The biggest testament to his memory for me was a few years ago catching a Cowboys vs Cardinals game when I had time the night before a delivery otr. The sea of Tillman jersey's at that home game dwarfed any other attire in attendance. It was a great experience, Cowboys won, Montell Jordan performed on a milk crate at halftime, and I wasn't too drunk to make it back to the Love's after.

You can imagine my suprise, a year or so later when I saw a guy wearing a Tillman jersey in Missouri and his reaction to my comment was the old fish face. I made the comment a million times before. It was a simple statement of fact from that Thursday night encounter. I heard the fact from the kid next to me so I know I didn't hear it wrong and I had no reason to question it.

I basically said Tillman played for the same Pop Warner team when he was young and that's why he showed up that night. 100% baloney. Unfortunately for me it took a couple of decades and a raised eyebrow to question what I took as fact. Quick search showed he grew up in California if I remember correctly. Trust but verify. Should of listened to The Gipper from the beginning.

The truth of why he was there that night was in plain sight the whole time but it took making a fool of myself to realize it. One of the assistant coaches on our team was a student at ASU and also some type of assistant for The Sun Devils at the same time. Another connection to ASU at that time was a track and field coach whose son was our running back before getting injured. Fun aside, that kids name was Jason Strahan and yes his uncle is Michael Strahan who played for the Giants at the time... according to unverified child sources.

I use this site to learn and I've lurked my entire trucking career, which only spans 10 years, but the amount of information I've been able to gleen and chew on to help me solve a whole host of problems is extensive. I don't have a personal stake in the information I come across and so if something I hold to be accurate turns out to be false I don't take it as an attack on my identity. I absolutely love debate.

Sure ignorance is bliss but I much prefer working hard and playing hard so I keep learning. Sticking my head in the sand and hoping for the best ain't my method. Everything I discuss is up for debate so Abe Martin's definition of ignorance always sticks with me, "it's not so much what a person don't know, as what he knows that ain't so."

Thanks for reading if you made it this far and I look forward to learning, not as a lurker, now that I have a tiny bit of experience.

 

Yeah, that one's a bedrock for being honest but it sure ain't always easy when emotions are involved, haha

 

Trust but verify is a quote Reagan used but its origin is actually Russian. The Gipper is a nickname for Reagan.

 

Yeah, that whole rabbit hole of the Chicago Machine is something to dive into.

First time listening to that speech, definitely a great speech, thanks for sharing!