My strange but awesome weekend

A little background....I am the Director Of Marketing for Damon's Grill in Canton, Ohio. Whatever I can do to raise sales, I do. It's my job, and frankly, I love it. During football season, it meant that I got to turn the place into a sea of scarlet and gray...who wouldn't love getting paid to do that?

Recently, I have been anxiously awaiting March Madness so we can return the clubhouse to Ohio State Central. But then this weekend came, and I got lucky.

Saturday afternoon around 430, I noticed a few people in Ohio State jackets walking in. Having attended OSU, I recognized the jackets as lettermen coats. Holy crap, that's James Laurinaitis!

So there I am, fighting a serious bout of hero worship, when I finally manage to figure out who the entire crew is;

Little Animal Laurinaitis
Brian Robiskie
Malcolm Jenkins
T.J. Downing
Kirk Barton
Brian Hartline
Mike Hartline (Freshman QB at Kentucky)

Nice bunch of guys, and obviously they provided me with a ton of good times this fall, so I was proud to have them in my restaurant. I bought Downing a beer since he was the only one no longer bound by NCAA standards. The rest of the guys we had to leave alone...couldn't even send them out an appetizer. But they were great (the Hartline prothers and Robiskie seemed to be the most "into" the attention they were getting from fans). But all of them were great guys.

And I even got to slip a copy of all of my YouTube videos to Andy Logan, who was accompanying them (they had just come from an autograph session at Logan Sports). He promised to show it to the guys, so hopefully they appreciate it.

The very next day, I managed to track down Antonio Pittman, who signed a LARGE poster we have hanging in the restaurant (the picture is of him running away from the UM defense this year). I think Donte Whitner was with him, but I'm not positive...he offered to buy the aforementioned poster from me and introduced himself only as "Donte". I should have asked....

So my restaurant now has seven autographs in it that weren't there Saturday morning. I'm liking the way the place is looking now.....

By the way, if I may pat myself on the back....my friend Janessa bartends there and was way too busy to walk down to the table and introduce herself to the 6 Bucks that came in to Damon's. She's the 2nd-biggest OSU fan in the restaurant (behind me), but never got to meet them. I got an autographed t-shirt for myself that day, but when I learned that Janessa missed out, I gave it to her. Damn my heart of gold. She would have loved to meet them (and vice-versa, I'm sure. Janessa has the nicest ummm, errr, ahhhh...."tracks of land"...I've ever seen)