$130,000 raised for Big Brothers/Sisters and a second place finish!
‘little’ and I are fairly involved with the the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, outside of being matched together of course. We try to attend many group activities together and meet other matches, have a good time, and support the organization! Because of our close involvement we get a lot of ‘extra’s’ from them. One of these particular extra’s happened to be the other day. A wonderful group of people called the Arby’s Foundation, the charitable branch of Arby’s restaurants, puts on a wonderful charitable golfing event that supports Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities. This was their 19th annual event and it was held at Tartan Park golf course out in Lake Elmo, MN. It turned out the week before the event there were a few tickets that had been allocated to the BBBS group. It just so happened that these tickets floated down through the ranks and made it to me. There was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity to take a Monday off of work and hit the links for a good cause! My game certainly wasn’t in any shape to brag about it, but that certainly wasn’t the point. I wasn’t disappointed that I jumped all over this opportunity. Plus what a great opportunity to get plugged into more people that are off the same mind as I am, in wanting to make a difference in our community.
Right when I arrived before I even got out of my car, there was a golf cart there to pick up my clubs for me, and bring them to the cart I’d be using. I went down to sign up and got a dozen golf balls, a nice Adidas Golf shirt, and a complimentary breakfast with delicious coffee. I asked my old college roommate to join me so when he arrived we met up and hit the green for a putting competition. Apparently I wasn’t warmed up yet, because I wasn’t even close to the cup!! After the competition I ran into some of the BBBS folks that I’m pretty close with, and they told me I was in for a great surprise. When I headed to my cart to get ready for the shot gun start with my old buddy, in the cart next to us was Matt Blair, an ex-Minnesota Viking. Turned out that we were slated to hit balls with Matt Blair, and Joey Browner (also an ex-Viking) all day. Joey ended up not being able to make it so it was just a three some. Matt couldn’t have been a more gracious fun golf partner, not to mention a super skilled player as well. Just watching him swing the golf club elevated my own game way more than I could imagine. As we carted out to our tee, literally through the morning mist which couldn’t have made for a more picturesque setting, the day only kept getting better.
The format for the tourament was each group took the best shot off of the tee then played our own ball for the rest of the hole. Obviously because Matt was on our team we had a substantial safety net, and could take some pretty solid swings at the ball. I was so happy that 3 of mine, and 3 of my buddies drives were the best out of 18 holes, and the rest were Matt’s. I couldn’t believe it because this has never happened before, but my game was on!! Of course I had a few duffs here and there, but my fairway woods felt great, my short pitch game was accurate but most fun of all, my putting was spot on. Oh it was so exciting. I made at least 5 one putts that were 10 feet plus from the hole. I was dropping em out of no where. The coolest part of it was that I had a 6 time pro bowler, super bowl participant, football phenom overjoyed for my putts going in. Matt was so elated whenever I dropped a long ball! It was, as was the whole day, such a surreal experience. Funny after thought, I think I felt like ‘little’ when I Matt was congratulating me. Here’s is this far superior athlete, entrepreneur, philathropist giving me a a little snip it of his attention! He made me feel like a million bucks. It just became apparent to me that there is no one who couldn’t use a little mentoring in their lives! hmmm
The tournament was so well run also. Every third hole there were three coolers of soda, Gatorade, juice, water and beer. There was a longest drive, closest to the pin, and longest putt competition. We could purchase a couple mulligans at the beginning of the round for $25 which I thought was hilarious as well as useful!! FOUR!!! We had Arby’s delicious sandwiches and pasta salad placed in our carts before we even started. I was super impressed. Everything came together for this special day too! The weather couldn’t have been warmer or cooler, just perfect. There was a gentle breeze that was nothing but soothing and I had two of the best golfing partners a guy could ask for!
My phone was ringing off the hook from work, apparently something was going down. It was just to bad that I accidently pushed the power button and had to enjoy silence for the rest of the day!! Shhhhhh…..
At the end of the round we headed into the clubhouse for the 19th hole reception where we had some dinner and and sat in for the award ceremony I couldn’t contain my surprise when our team was awarded the overall second place prize! I really had felt like I played the game of my life but to even be in contention would have been great! We got some hardware to take home with us, a nice picture with Matt Blair, the Arby’s folks, and Gloria the Big Brothers Big Sisters CEO. Pretty good company if I do say so myself. I had to continue to remind myself to keep my chin off of the floor because of my surprise for our placement.
Me and Matt Blair
Really the coolest part about the whole night was that Arby’s ended up raising $113,00 for BBBS. That means that 1,000 matches will be funded for 1 whole year. That means that 1,000 bigs will have the opportunity to make a difference in a kids life in their community. That means that 1,000 kids will be much better prepaired for college, or the work force, self confident in themselves and their abilities, and hopefully will one day come back to give back to their community! Even though, I skipped out on work on Monday, and had a pile of papers waiting for me on my return, I felt so accomplished and fulfiled about my experience. Life is about helping other people out when you can, and getting through this together, and if that means I have to spend more Monday’s out in nature, then heck, I’ll take one for the team!
The point of this blog isn’t to raise funds for the orgnaization, it’s to let you know about my experience, and through that know that there are people like the good folks at BBBS, that are making a difference, and setting up opportunities for guys like me to participate in helping others out. I hope that someone reading this will get it in their head that they too can make a difference by volunteering, and have a blast doing it by the way, but I know that we are all busy in our own particular efforts and often can’t find the time for another activity. Of course if you don’t have the time but would like to help out events like this where we raise awareness, or would like to support a match with any amount of donation, I know everyone affected would appreciate it. Here’s the link to donate to a worthy cause!!
http://bit.ly/9Lzm5
Thanks anyone reading this, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities, Arby’s Foundation, Matt Blair, Tartan Park managment and Staff, Cargil, 3M, and any other donors to this great cause!
A True Fisherman!!
Big Brothers Big Sisters does a fantastic job both organizing and alerting bigs about upcoming events. This one in particular event went off with out a hitch and took so many pieces to go off right. 3M, the scotch tape and post-it note people, also a major company here in Minnesota that has been around for years, has an anglers club that sponsors an exclusive event with @BBBSGTC (Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities on twitter) where big’s and little’s together team up with an experienced fisher and have a day on the lake to learn and show off our skills, or lack there of. Thus the adventure begins.
I usually get to hang out with ‘little’ about once a week but the week before last I was SUPER busy. I had a wedding to go to, friends that were coming into town, and work was really taking off on a few projects. I wasn’t able to see him for almost 2 weeks. I didn’t realize how much I missed hanging out. I called ‘little’ four days before the event and let him know, he was surprisingly upset with me that I hadn’t called in a while . I definitly got the feeling that he was feeling neglected, almost that I had robbed him of our time together. I wasn’t sure if he’d want to go because we had to be at the lake by 7:00 in the morning and it was a little bit outside the cities. That meant I’d have to pick him up by 6:10 in the AM to ensure we get there with plenty of time. He had no problem accepting that. I was up a little longer than I probably should have been the night before and needed a double dose of coffee that morning to get going. When I arrived at his house 5 minutes ahead of time he was sitting on the side of the curb waiting patiently. He didn’t seem fazed at all about the time, and acted as if it was noon. He was super excited. It was such a pleasure to see his enthusiasm. Honestly, I feed off of his energy so much! I guess I don’t realize that most kids his age are probably in bed by 9:30 or 10:00 or so. Maybe he’s not really at that stage where he stays out to all hours hanging out with his friends. I have so much to learn about youth ha ha. I feel like I was never one.
We drove over to beautiful Stillwater, a somewhat historic city right on the Minnesota/Wisconsin boarder and then drove 20 minutes or so north on the St. Croix River. We drove past a couple Marina’s with some REALLY nice boats. The mist was just coming off of the road and the river, it made for an extremely scenic drive. We arrived at the lake, Big Carnilian, and the crew was ready and waiting or us. I’d say there were probably about 12-15 other matches there with us, and about 8-9 boats to accommodate us. The boat we were riding in that day was a Ranger with a 225 horse motor on the back. It was an incredible boat with a ton of power! I don’t know my boats that well but I bet this one was upwards of $100 grand. It was such a smooth ride. To be honest I was a little bummed. I don’t want ‘little’ to get spoiled with these great experiences and then be bummed if the next time he doesn’t have access to these great resources… (WHEN DID I BECOME MY PARRENTS?? ha ha) Of course I’m not complaining by ANY means. As the sun was just cresting we took off on the lake. We really couldn’t have experienced a more pictureque launch than what we saw. I know no one is going to believe me but directly between us and the sun a bald eagle swooped down about 400 feet away and snagged a fish and brought it to a nearby island for an apparent feast. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the eyes of a child get so large. I wish I would have taken a picture. We saw everything from his launch from the tree, snagging the fish, and the massacre that happened on the small rock island right in front of us. It was quintessential nature unfolding right before our eyes… Incredible!
The guide had never been to the lake so he wasn’t a hundred percent sure of where we were to go but he had a depth finder and plopped us right on top of a bed a of hungry sun fish. He immediatly set us up with some fishing poles and worms and leeches for bait. It was almost as if the fish were jumping into the boat at first. I didn’t even use my pole for the first half hour because I was to busy baiting ‘little’s’ hook and removing the fish. He could do the worms, but it was the leeches that gave him the willies. He was a little weary of the fish too. He wasn’t grossed out but he was scared of getting poked and they were flopping around to much for him to get a hold… it was a funny scene! Throughout the day I was working on him/trying to trick him into working with the leeches and removing the fish. I’d casually say, “hey man, quick hold onto this fish. I need to fill up the live well so we can keep them and clean the fish later” or ” hey ‘little’ quick grab me a leach!! I see a big one swimming down there.” Leaches… no chance but he was so intrigued by the idea of cleaning the fish that he almost forgot about his fear. When the fish jumped in his hand though, he was quickly reminded. I finnaly got him to grab the fish but he used his shirt as a buffer zone, ha ha it was so humurous. His shirt reeked by the end of the day but he couldn’t care less. Between the two of us and our guide we ended up catching 50 sunny’s of which ‘little’ and I kept 22 to clean.
22 Fish... all in a days work!!
To be honest, the event definitely tested ‘little’s’ patience. It was really interesting because that was the first time I’d ever seen him amongst the company of others and how comfortable he was at social interaction. There were a few times where I thought he was a little forward with our guide, for example, asking him if he could drive the boat a few times, if he could operate the trolling motor, if he could pull up the anchor. It was great to see him comfortable enough to ask questions that were on his mind but the guide didn’t really know how to respond, so he decided not to. ’little’ didn’t understand his nervousness so kept asking and was a bit put out and when I somewhat sternly told him “no, sit down. Whatever the captain says goes.” He was bit chagrined but got over it pretty quickly. He was also a bit careless of where his hook was when he was casting and I needed to physicaly stop him a few times and let him know about the safety issues at hand. He didn’t understand until he was putting a worm on his hook and stuck himself. When I explained that could happen to others when he was casting he was much more careful. He wasn’t bad by any means, and it was a pleasure to fish with him.
At the end of the outing we gathered up our fish, and hit the road. We went back to my house and cleaned the fish. Cleaning sunny’s is somewhat of an easy task but he was absolutley flabbergasted to see the actual operation. I cut the fish up so he could cut the last piece of meat off of the skin. He was overjoyed to participate and apparently had forgotten all of his squeamishness from earlier that morning. We cleaned the fillets, rolled them up in paper towels and got them ready to bring to his mom as a gift. He loves to bring presents back to mom which I think is fantastic! He has so much love for her. On the ride back to his house he quickly konked out in the car. The 5-6 hour excurision defintily wore him out, but I think it was a true testiment to how great it was. He was sure to thank me before he got out of the car at his house.
Konked Out
One of the greatest parts of my day with ‘little’ is when I drop him off at home, and not for the reason that you may think. He is so innocent, questioning, and curious when he’s with me, but the first thing when his siblings come around is he puts on this tough guy fascade to let them know that, “no, 22 fish caught, removed from the hook, and cleaned in a single morning isn’t that big of a deal”, and “what?? you guys have ever been fishing with your mentor before??” knowing full well that they don’t have a mentor, nor have they been fishing before. He such a tough guy. It’s hilarious.
Mom was happy, and suprised that we were giving here 44 filets. The day was an absolute blast, and I couldn’t thank 3M and Big Brothers Big Sisters enough for the awesome coordination of this great event. The guides were great, and apparently more than happy to be bringing us around. It didn’t sound like they do this for too many other groups but that they held BBBS up as a special organization to be a part of.
Thanks guys!!
