Best athlete you played with or against

I beat a kid that played at North Carolina and UCLA - Brian Morrison, though he may not really have played - in three-on-three in gym class in high school. Granted, he was a sophomore and I was a senior. But I have never seen a white kid jump higher than he did.

 

I played a rec center pickup game with two Salukis who played in the NBA. They were great, but they had nothing on their teammate, Marcelo da Silva, a 7-foot European kid who was the team's sixth man. da Silva walked into the gym one day and played 21. He was so long I couldn't get a hand in his face, and he simply popped in threes and free throws. In 20 minutes, he had won three straight games. He thanked us for the games and walked away.

 

Marcum was a super athlete in high school -- all-state football, state champ in wrestling and all-state in baseball, I believe.

I wouldn't put him in Steve Nebraska category. Marcum was as good of a high school athlete as you'd expect most Major Leaguers to be.

 

I played against Denver Broncos linebacker Al Wilson in high school. A teammate and I had a chance to tackle him behind the line of scrimmage on a trap play when he was running the ball. Instead, he just paused while we ran into each other then my other nine teammates had shots at him. He bounced off all of them and ran for a 75-yard touchdown.
Former Bears and Dolphins running back Marlon Barnes once scored five touchdowns in a half against my team (four rushing and one interception or three rushing, an interception and a return. I can't remember exactly.)
Former Bengals/Vikings/Jaguars defensive lineman Tony Williams pinned me in a pivotal heavyweight match during a key district dual meet with our rivals. I was a sophomore backup, and our starter was "sick." We think he was just scared to face Williams. I shot after his leg on the opening whistle, and he wrapped a big meathook around my head and threw me to the mat. I think it took 13 seconds, and we finished the dual meet in a tie (technically lost on a tiebreaker.) I also played against him in football that fall.

 

Although my uncles apparently played minor hockey against Mark Messier growing up in St. Albert, my athletic feats are pretty limited. The closest I came to a brush with playing with/against a pro athlete was 'coaching' a local media team (made up mostly of junior hockey players, and really I was only behind the bench to give the team some actual media representation) against one of those Hockey Legends teams made up of former NHLers. I took it as an honour when Tiger Williams called me "the worst God Damn coach he's ever seen!" He was pretty serious about it.

I think I may have played against Jeff Woywitka (A former first round pick of the Philadelphia flyers, traded to Edmonton in the Mike Comrie deal, then flipped to St. louis in the Chris Pronger trade a couple of years later. has had a couple of cups of coffee in the NHL. I think he may have recentlly just got called back up to the Blues) in minor hockey at some point when he was playing in Vermilion and I in Kitsocty, Alberta. But I'm not even sure if we did cross paths. For me it was a bigger deal to lay out our MLA's kid who played for Mannville.

 

I didn't actually get in the game, but I watched from the sideline as future 49ers running back Keith Henderson bullied my high school team. I played college baseball against Warren Newsom, who was an absolute beast.

 

Barbaro.

 

I played against Jennifer Gillom (1986 SEC Female Athlete of the Year, U.S. Olympian and WNBA star) and the Ole Miss women's basketball team.

Now how does a flat-footed, 5-foot-8 no-talent guy like me get to do that?

In the early '80s, then-Lady Rebel coach Van Chancellor would organize a full-scale scrimmage every preseason, pitting his team against male media and Ole Miss athletic department personnel. I played in two of those games. Also on the Lady Rebs at that time was Alisha Scott, an All-SEC guard who's now known more as Sheryl Swoopes' partner.

Male scribes who bitch and moan about women's basketball ought to suit up and play against a Top 20 team like I did. The Lady Rebs worked us over. Gillom elbowed me when I got a little to close to her in the lane. Aftewards, she was typical Jennifer - apologizing over and over for getting rough with me. Hell, I considered it a honor to play against her.

I played junior high basketball and youth baseball with Terry Catledge - the former NBA'er who was an original member of the Magic and who didn't give up his number to Shaq. We were in the same high school graduating class. When Terry was one of the state's top high school basketball players, I was covering him for the local weekly paper.

The best males I competed against were brothers Dave and Louis Clark. Dave went on to a journeyman major league baseball career. You might remember, he was the one who almost broke his neck in a game a few years back. I believe he's managing in the Astros' chain. Louis now works in the Jaguars front office.

 

I played Little League baseball against former MLB'er Scott Pose and former NBA player Matt Bullard. That league also had a at least one future Big 8 basketball player and two future Big 10 football players that I remember. I played on the same team with one of the football players when we were 9.

Pose was fast as shit at that age (10-12). He was clearly one of the better kids in our league at that time but I don't think anyone thought he'd make it to the Majors when he got older.

Don't remember what position he played defensively but Bullard pitched a little bit too. He was already tall for his age at that time and from 45 feet away he looked like he was standing on top of you when he let go of the ball.

Bullard won an NBA title with the Rockets and Pose's biggest claim to fame is that he was the starting CF and lead-off hitter for the Florida Marlins on their first Opening Day.

I worked with a guy at one time who counts giving up a tape-measure shot to Ken Griffey Jr. in a high school game as one of the highlights of his athletic career.

 

He started on the team that went 8-20 the season after Joe Forte left. One of the worst teams in UNC history.

 

Courtney Vance.