DIIRRKKKK!!!

Last week my dad called me and told me he had tickets to go to the NBA All Star Jam Session on Wednesday if I wanted them. My dad's boss is a Mavericks season ticket holder who, knowing what a fool I am for Mavericks basketball, passes on his tickets to me a couple of times a year. He was kind enough to pass on his Jam Session tickets as well and of course I jumped at the chance to go. I had planned to take my wife and some friends to the event on Thursday or Friday. I figured there'd be a better chance of there being actual All Stars on those days as opposed to Wednesday. But free tickets are free tickets. And it turned out to be an even better opportunity.

As I spoke to a friend on Tuesday about the event, he started looking for tickets to tag along with me for the Wednesday event. An iPhone internet search revealed that the Wednesday version of Jam Session was Maverick-centric and only open to "special guests" (meaning season ticket holders and anyone else who picked up a ticket at their local Minyard's Food Store). Somewhere along the line we came across a Craigslist post that mentioned that Dirk Nowitzki was going to be signing autographs. I got a little excited. Okay, a lot excited.

I love Dirk Nowitzki. Recently my sister did one of those Facebook question things that asked her, "Who would Brian Gill vote for as President?" Her answer was Dirk and she's totally right. If it was legally possible for Dirk Nowitzki to become President of the USA, I would totally vote for him (which is a perfect example of why not everyone should be allowed to vote). He's a top 7 player in the game today and has been for years despite being possibly the most underappreciated superstar in the history of the league. (Call me a homer, I don't care. I know basketball better than you do and Dirk gets nowhere near the respect he deserves.) Having grown up a Mavs fan, I have been through the absolute worst that any franchise could ask their fans to go through. My first indoctrination into Mavdom was an 11 win season, followed by a 13 win season in which my favorite player was traded. It didn't get much better until Dirk came along. Dirk owns a 40% share in the "Reasons the Mavericks Don't Suck Anymore" pie graph I have in my head (33% Mark Cuban, 8% Don Nelson, 8% Steve Nash, 5% Michael Finley, and 6% assorted others). Without Dirk this franchise would still be the joke that it was for most of my youth.

Dirk is my second favorite Maverick (and NBA player overall) of all time, having recently overcome Finley in my personal rankings and trailing only Derek Harper. “What? Still behind Harper? What's that about?" you might say. Consider that Derek Harper was my idol (in the "American" sense, not the Biblical sense of course) growing up. When everyone else wanted to be Michael Jordan, I wanted to be Derek Harper. If in 20 years I have a son who leaves Duke after one championship season and is drafted by the Mavericks, he still might only rank as my second favorite Maverick of all time. The fact that Dirk has gotten that close to Harper Territory should serve to illustrate how big a Dirk fan I am. The guy has carried the team through thick and thin without the kind of support other superstars have gotten across the league. And he has been the consummate professional through it all. The most unique player in the game, he is an absolute treat to watch night in and night out, despite not being the type of player who throws out Sportscenter highlight plays every night.

I digress. Some digging revealed that Dirk Nowitzki would indeed be signing autographs and so my uncle and I found ourselves in line to get into the Convention Center about an hour before it opened. He got in line while I ran to the “Absurdly Priced Pro Shop That Doesn’t Sell Anything You Actually Want and Charges You Way More Than Any Human Should Ever Pay for a Replica Basketball Jersey” to get something to be signed. (Security wouldn’t allow basketballs to be brought in. Everything else was good to go, just not basketballs, which was the one thing I had brought to be signed.) When I got back, my uncle told me a security guard had come by and told us Dirk would only sign for an hour and we probably would not make it up there before the hour was up. As a consolation, however, we would be close to the front of the line for Erick Dampier. Erick Dampier! Going from Dirk to Damp would have been a huge kick to the Gortats, no offense to Damp. As we waited, another employee came up and told the others that at some point they were going to have Security Guard X (who looked like a shorter version of Mr. Echo from “Lost”) jump into the line facing the crowd and anyone after him wouldn’t be able to meet Dirk. I would not have liked to have been the first person exiled by Mr. Echo.
Dirk arrived and started signing autographs. Every five minutes a lady would yell, “One item per person! No pictures!” Usually I hate these types of policies at signings like this but since I was so far back, I was happy to hear these instructions. The guy behind us started counting and figured that each person was on stage for about 10 seconds. After 15 minutes or so, the line had moved considerably and we felt pretty good about our chances. The line kept moving at a reasonable place and with the exception of the occasional long-talker taking upwards of 20 seconds to get off stage, everyone played by the rules. In one of the crazier moments of the day, a twentysomething girl asked if she could have the empty water bottle Dirk had just finished off. He gave her a weird look and said, “You want the bottle? Um, okay.” She ran off giggling like he’d given her the keys to his car. Ah, the power of the star athlete.

Finally it was my turn. I walked up on stage. I handed my criminally overpriced basketball to the security guard and told him where I wanted the ball signed. He pushed the ball over to Dirk who obliged. While he signed I motioned to my uncle to take my picture standing next to my German Hero, only just as he started to take the picture one of the guards brought this kid in a wheel chair onto the stage and it turned into an awkward moment of my uncle and I both trying to determine if this kid was going to cut through the picture while at the same time knowing we had approximately four seconds to get this thing done before security threw me off stage. This resulted in a truly terrible picture for which I apologize. Dirk handed the ball back to me and I forced him into a handshake because, get real, how am I NOT going to shake Dirk’s hand? I had thought about what I would say in this moment (gay, I know) but seriously, how do you sum up your appreciation for one of your heroes in 1.2 seconds? I stumbled through something like, “Um, thanks for being awesome” as we shook hands and then made my exit to stage left, my life forever having been changed.

It’s always a tricky situation when you meet a personal hero. You’re not quite yourself, naturally, and while you’ll jump at the chance to have the experience, there’s always the chance that the guy will turn out to be a toolbag. When I met Derek Harper in the 8th grade, he was the coolest guy in the world. He signed every single thing I brought to the table and sat around talking basketball with me and my buddy for a solid 30 minutes. On the flip side of that, I also met Chris Arnold, a radio personality from my favorite station, in the 8th grade and was amazed at what a jerk he was. The Harper meeting was iconic and edifying; not only did I meet him but he was a heck of a guy and that left me feeling like I’d made a good choice in a role model (as weird as that may sound). Meeting Arnold on the other hand was embarrassing and somewhat crushing. I listed to that guy every day! I even risked detention listening on a walkman during Texas History and yet he had no time for a young fan. I’m happy to report that the Dirk Experience falls into the Harper category, only further deepening my hero worship of the guy. Dirk was fantastic with everyone, especially the little kids who probably couldn’t figure out why this giant was writing on their clothing. He was a true professional and I will be forever thankful for the opportunity to have those 10 seconds of awesomeness.

-BG