Best athlete you ever played against?

I never played against Nick Punto. But I hid in a closet until his team's bus left our high school.

 

Paging IJAG in 3... 2...

WTF were you doing the closet? So many easy jokes to be typed, but I will not do that route.

 

Wound up in a pickup game one time with Greg Grant during his senior year of college (I was only a sophomore at the time)
Grant had a 6-year NBA career. But in college (Division III) he scored 2,611 points in three seasons, including a best in the nation 1,044 (32.6 ppg) his senior year.

 

I played a pick up game of hoops the other day against the back up point gaurd for the University of Maine at Orono. Kid could flat out shoot.

 

Steve Nash, and numerous NHLers.

Played against Nash in 3 different sports, Basketball, Soccer and Rugby, he was the best player in all of them

 

Scott Vermillion. Would have been a regular on the US soccer team had he stayed away from injuries.

Championship game of the Governor's Cup in 1995, we're tied 3-3 in overtime. Vermillion takes a free kick from 25 yards out. I'm the outside man of the wall, lined up with the goalpost. Sonofabitch bends the ball at least a yard around me and into the goal. Unreal.

 

In college, I played pickup ball with Antonio Falu, a Houston high school hoops star who spent time at Valparaiso and somewhere else before flaming out. Great, great talent. Had great work ethic, good size, could shoot and score from anywhere and a great passer. Not sure what exactly went wrong for him, but, man, could that man ball.

 

I've played poker against a lot of big name pros.. Does that count?

Hey, it's on ESPN

 

I played against Jennifer Gillom (Ole Miss All-American basketball player, Olympic gold medalist) in a couple of Lady Rebel preseason scrimmage games against us male media types during Van Chancellor's tenure as coach.

 

In 1992 or so I played pickup against and with ASU's All-American point guard who was about 5-3 and a decent pickup player.

In 2003 I played with/against a 5-10 shooting guard from Indiana who was a sixth-man type as a senior.

To say the quality of play improved over 10 years is a wee bit of an understatement.

 

Basketball: played pickup ball last summer against Anthony "Ant" Atkinson, who's with the Harlem Globetrotters now. He didn't try to dominate but when he wanted to do something--score, get someone else a bucket, whatever--he did it. If he wasn't so small (as a skinny 5-9) he would have been a lock for the NBA.

Baseball: In the summer of 2004 I played against Alex White, last year's ace at Carolina and the Cleveland Indians' first-round pick in the 2009 draft. I caught him in 2006. One of my most fun games ever was catching him for 10 innings in Legion ball before his freshman year. Struck out 18 guys, 10 in a row through one stretch, hit 95 mph in the 10th. Dude is filthy. He'll be in the majors this year or next year.