Bill, I saw your photos on Facebook earlier today. I was stunned to see your son in a wheelchair and saddened that I didn't know he was confined to one. I'm happy to know that's not a permanent disability. That was pretty nice of Shelley Meyers to do all that. I think we've got a great coaches' wife too!! Couldn't you get a better photo of your wife than looking down at her orange shoes? :-)
Oliver Barry, CRS, GRI Real Estate Broker Halo Realty, LLC 700 E. Main St. Hendersonville TN 37075 [email protected] office: 615-822-3509 fax: 615-822-7741 mobile: 615-972-4239 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Hileman Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2008 1:22 PM To: GatorTalk Subject: [gatortalk] Our Day with the Gators! I don't know if this will work or not, I'm getting mixed feedback from others. It might only work if you have a FaceBook account and are logged-in on that account, but the link from FaceBook says it's supposed to be publicly available... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66146&l=a122a&id=599441781 Yesterday, my family met the Gators in person! It all started over a year ago. I was at work, listening to Steve Russell's Sports Scene radio show, and he had Shelley Meyer on. The news had recently been out about the Meyer's hosting a dinner in their home for anyone who donated $1 million. I thought I'd call in and make a "funny." "Thought" being the key word here. From memory, it went something like this: Me: Hi, Shelley! Shelley: Hi, Bill! Me: I've heard about this have dinner with the Meyer's thing if you can donate $1 million to the Athletic Association. I don't happen to have a spare million at the moment, but would you consider meeting me and my family at one of the local McDonald's, and I'll spring for Happy Meals for everyone! <dead silence> Shelley: Um... I don't know what to say. Me: Oh, well, it was worth a try. I e-mailed Steve Russell that afternoon and begged him to pass on my sincere apologies to Shelley for putting her on the spot like that, and explained it was a very lame attempt at humor. Steve passed my e-mail on to Shelley and the next day she e-mailed me back. She was very gracious about it, and even offered for my whole family to come to one of the Thursday night "family" practices to meet the team. For various reasons, I never was able to go last year, though Shelley and I kept corresponding back and forth periodically. This year we were able to attend. We were going to attend the Citadel game, since that was the lowest pressure of all the games, but that was the week Shelley had to go to Georgia Tech for her daughter's VB scholarship stuff, so we agreed to do it during a bowl practice night. Last night was it. As a bonus, we also got to meet Lou Holtz. He was very gracious as well. Nobody called him over, he just saw us (I'm sure Dustin in the wheelchair had a little to do with it) and autographed the helmets Shelley gave us and took pictures with both my boys. Much later, when it came Urban's turn, and we handed him the mini-helmets, he immediately noticed Lou's signature on the helmets and looked at Shelley almost admonishingly and asked her about it. She explained that Lou came over to us on his own, he wasn't asked. I'm guessing Urban wanted Lou's full input on the practice and might have been upset if he was called over for that. We met many other players during the practice that we didn't get to take pictures of because the practice was still going on and we wanted to respect the "no cameras" rule. We met Louis Murphy and Carl Moore first, later we met Percy Harvin. I told Percy "Dude, I am SO glad you picked UF to play at!" He grinned and said "Me, too, man. Me too." We got signatures from every player who stopped by. By the way, Dustin is in a wheelchair because he recently had corrective orthopedic surgery on December 9th by Dr. Woo of the UF Sports Medicine complex. Dustin had severe in-toeing that hasn't corrected itself and needed surgery. He had both femurs undergo a "controlled fracture" (OUCH) and re-aligned with titanium rods in place. He can stand on them but it hurts. He'll be undergoing physical therapy starting this week but will probably be confined to a wheelchair for a few more weeks. Shelley was a very gracious host, and spent almost the entire time with us. I just can't say enough about her. We also met Tim's father and brother, Pete (in one of the pics). Also, Tim was the last one we met, and he spent a very generous amount of time with us. I think I shook his hands three times. Later, Dustin said to me "Daddy, Timmy was SWEATY!" Heh, I noticed, he put his arm around my shoulder for the pic, and I didn't mind in the least. My other son, Dylan, later said to me "Dad, I want to join the Gators now because they're the best!" Also, after Tim left, Shelley noticed he had dropped his hand towel near us and asked me if I'd like to keep it. DUH! I only wish I could now get him to autograph that! Even when you never attended UF as a student, IT'S GREAT TO BE A FLORIDA GATOR!!!!!!!! Go Gators! Whoop the Sooners! Bill Hileman, MCP, CPD, BCIP Programmer/Analyst, DASI DASI Home Page http://www.dasi-software.com The Bondsman http://www.bailbondprogram.com FTP Site http://www.dasi-software.com/download --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
