I’m a Buffalo Bills fan.  I’ve been a Bills fan since my Dad lived in Buffalo, off Delaware Ave on Avery St in the late 70′s, early 80′s.  There’s been a lot of happy times, particularly in the late 80′s and early 90′s.  One of my favorite players during that period was Andre Reed.  Before football became a big money business, I remember going to see the Buffalo Bills off-season touring basketball team at Hobart College in Geneva, NY.  One player stuck out in my mind, Andre Reed.  What an athlete.  The guy was all over the basketball court, dunking and smiling the whole time, having a great time.  Real friendly with the fans too.

I joined the Navy in 1989 and was deployed to the Persian Gulf in ’91 – ’92.  Yeah, go figure, I join the Navy for 6 years and the Bills go to 4 Super Bowls in a row.  It was a real challenge to watch those games overseas on delayed and compressed video.   The Redskins Super Bowl was particularly awful.  Anyway, at some point during the ’91-’92 season my Step Father heard of an autograph session and got Andre to sign “I Like Ike” and sent it to me.  I was on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and the ship motto was “I Like Ike”!  It was really cool to get that picture with a personal message.

The reason that it’s coming up today is that Andre (@Andre_Reed83) tweeted today that he’s headed to the Middle East to visit the troops.  Just wanted to give a shout out to Andre about the difference he made 20+ years ago when I was deployed in the Middle East.  Thanks Andre.