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[RasheedsBigWhiteSpot]

Sam Perkins wore a full length mink coat.

In 1988, I was part of a cutting edge therapy program called TROT - Therapeutic Riding of Texas. As a kid with an incomplete spinal cord injury,  every Saturday I would go to the TROT farm in Dallas and ride horses. The premise was that the walking gate of a horse is similar to humans, so riding on them would , theoretically, fire the neural-pathways in kids' brains. Plus, when it came to therapy, it was cool as hell!!

Well, TROT was always looking for publicity to help gain donations to fund the program. So they linked up with Channel 5 and asked me to be in a promo.  I was a charismatic kid and, over my childhood,  I can't tell you how many commercials with actors, athletes (Mavs, Cowboys, Rangers, Tatu, Olympians) I did.  Any way, I knew this was a similar gig, I just didn't know who I was shooting it with.

So one evening I'm sitting with my mom at TROT waiting to film.  Now, as most of you can imagine, 99% of the people with TROT -- the volunteers and kids -- wore jeans, t-shirts or cowboy attire. But suddenly 7'0" Sam Perkins walked up wearing so much black leather (which looked like he was going clubbing) that he could have single handedly wiped out an entire barn of cattle. 

Sam sauntered over in that sleepy-eyed sachet that he had and said, "Hey, kid."  Now, as a monster Mavs fan, I knew exactly who he was.  At this point I could've responded, "hi" or "Hey, I'm such a fan!", but just like Ralphie in "The Christmas Story" my brain misfired and I said, "Man, you're really black!:

Sam low key laughed as my mom quickly tried to save me with, "He's talking about your clothes."  In truth, I most definitely was, but that didn't change the moment going from meeting one of my idols to 1,000% awkward. But Sam was as cool as you could imagine. 

That said, when it came time to film him walking next to me while I rode, that dude didn't know the difference between horse's head from its ass.  Either way, though, it was cool as he'll.

In fact, most all of my interactions with celebrities are athletes was great.

But Derek Harper, everytime, was a dick.