It is 5:15 AM here in Cleveland, Ohio. I just arrived at the airport after a marathon signing with Syracuse legend Jim Brown. I landed here less than a day ago and spent my first six hours in Ohio setting up equipment for the great running back to sign. I finally connected with Brown at a little after 9:30 last night. Jim started signing shortly after that and finally completed the session a little before 1:00 AM. While Brown is a Hall of Fame NFL player this signing was completely focused on his time at Syracuse. As I discussed last week (after the Donovan McNabb signing) we are extremely excited about our partnership with SU. Over the course of the three and a half hour signing Jim signed a strong variety of items including 'Cuse helmets, minis, footballs and a sick assortment of photos. Not only was Brown an All American football player he also was a bona fide lacrosse star and quite a basketball player in his own right. Aside from autographing some amazing football shot Jim also signed a spectacular lacrosse photo as well as one basketball shot. Over the course of the signing one could really see that he takes pride in signing his name and cares about pen quality and where he is signing. There is one awesome image where we tried a few different spots (first in blue, then silver). Once we decided on the perfect location Jim carefully stayed between the lines so as the silver signature remained exactly in the black part of his opponents uniform (that does not happen very often...most signers would just fly through it without putting too much thought into my he is signing in that area...very cool) Aside from being an expert autographer Jim is incredibly interesting to talk to. He is very smart and well-read and, as we all know, extremely opinionated. I really enjoyed talking mid-east politics and religion with him for the better part of two hours. Once the signing was finally complete I was back to work on shipping the incredible product back to our office. I finished the last box at about 3:00 AM. That brings us to now as I am typing this in the airport terminal waiting to board the flight back to LaGuardia. Once we land I am headed right over to the Steiner Sports Store where we have an appearance with Jets hero Joe Namath.
Check back for a recap.