Cuseregular
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2011
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Just amazes me the SU administrative bureaucracy. As many of you know I was lucky enough to come into a 1959 signed SU national championship football. Thinking that maybe this might be of interest to SU to have it on display a few months to perhaps help with recruiting and/or be just something they'd want to display prominently up there since they have no similar ball apparently, I contacted them by calling the AD's office. Instructed to then connect with the assistant AD I left a message with message taker up there.
I don't know maybe I'm crazy but I thought for sure there would be high interest in having a ball signed by the schools ONLY HEISMAN trophy winner, you know the first ever African American winner (I think they made a movie about him). Or perhaps they'd badly want a ball signed by their legendary coach Ben S., and the rest of the championship team, you know the one and ONLY football championship in the schools history. I guess I'm a little off center in thinking like this.
Nearly a week later I got a call from someone not of those offices returning my call the name not recognizable to me and she does not lead the conversation or suggest any ideas of what to do or what they want. So after I suggested to come up there with the ball to meet I went up. The gal was a sweet as could be but man oh man. Clearly I was more excited for them to have it than they were to have it on display.
So I get up there and track down this nice lady. Her office was a tiny one in the far back of the complex and so stacked with stuff that it was impossible to show it there so she suggested we go elsewhere. Makes sense I figure but instead of going to a room or something we go outside her office to the main room where there's a large table completely covered with other stuff (and I mean completely covered deep with papers, drinks, food stuffs, etc) where several young students were working on computers.
I try to move in between the students, then try and clear off some of this "stuff" off from the table to make room to be able to put the ball down to then take it out of the display and maybe go over a few important details as to how to handle this. Theres no plan on their part, they don't show me any display location where it will go, nor give any details on plans until finally I inquired where it will go it when it was said that it will go in one of the areas out in the Manley entry area that has some football stuff in it. No real security with it or anything.
I go out and check the area up there out. Not bad, nice stuff but one crappy lock is all that stands between the stuff in there and someone who wants to take it out of there. And the glass is sliding windows jiggling loose in fact. Now I start to think to myself if I'm remembering correctly I can see why something valuable was stolen out of there a while back if I'm recalling correctly. Not sure I want to take the chance with this thing I thought.
Now I'm not really sure what this football is worth but there is another similar ball on ebay right now listed for $90k. There's no way that's realistic for this ball I'm sure but regardless it's worth a decent amount of $ and more importantly is representative of something special of serious sentimental value. Apparently more so to us fans than to them up there. At least in admin. I'm sure Marrone, etc. would feel differently. In fact coach Mac was up there (not sure he recognized me having recruited me a bit back in the day), but regardless he got a big kick out of it and hearing the whole story associated with it.
Anyway I took it out there with the excuse that I planned to show it at the first FINE lot tailgate (true I might add as it will be up there next thursday) and show it to the hard corers amongst us wholl really appreciate it so that's what's going to happen. Short of a call from Marrone or someone with a plan/plan of safety for it, the thing stays with me and some of our hard core fans.
I don't know maybe I'm crazy but I thought for sure there would be high interest in having a ball signed by the schools ONLY HEISMAN trophy winner, you know the first ever African American winner (I think they made a movie about him). Or perhaps they'd badly want a ball signed by their legendary coach Ben S., and the rest of the championship team, you know the one and ONLY football championship in the schools history. I guess I'm a little off center in thinking like this.
Nearly a week later I got a call from someone not of those offices returning my call the name not recognizable to me and she does not lead the conversation or suggest any ideas of what to do or what they want. So after I suggested to come up there with the ball to meet I went up. The gal was a sweet as could be but man oh man. Clearly I was more excited for them to have it than they were to have it on display.
So I get up there and track down this nice lady. Her office was a tiny one in the far back of the complex and so stacked with stuff that it was impossible to show it there so she suggested we go elsewhere. Makes sense I figure but instead of going to a room or something we go outside her office to the main room where there's a large table completely covered with other stuff (and I mean completely covered deep with papers, drinks, food stuffs, etc) where several young students were working on computers.
I try to move in between the students, then try and clear off some of this "stuff" off from the table to make room to be able to put the ball down to then take it out of the display and maybe go over a few important details as to how to handle this. Theres no plan on their part, they don't show me any display location where it will go, nor give any details on plans until finally I inquired where it will go it when it was said that it will go in one of the areas out in the Manley entry area that has some football stuff in it. No real security with it or anything.
I go out and check the area up there out. Not bad, nice stuff but one crappy lock is all that stands between the stuff in there and someone who wants to take it out of there. And the glass is sliding windows jiggling loose in fact. Now I start to think to myself if I'm remembering correctly I can see why something valuable was stolen out of there a while back if I'm recalling correctly. Not sure I want to take the chance with this thing I thought.
Now I'm not really sure what this football is worth but there is another similar ball on ebay right now listed for $90k. There's no way that's realistic for this ball I'm sure but regardless it's worth a decent amount of $ and more importantly is representative of something special of serious sentimental value. Apparently more so to us fans than to them up there. At least in admin. I'm sure Marrone, etc. would feel differently. In fact coach Mac was up there (not sure he recognized me having recruited me a bit back in the day), but regardless he got a big kick out of it and hearing the whole story associated with it.
Anyway I took it out there with the excuse that I planned to show it at the first FINE lot tailgate (true I might add as it will be up there next thursday) and show it to the hard corers amongst us wholl really appreciate it so that's what's going to happen. Short of a call from Marrone or someone with a plan/plan of safety for it, the thing stays with me and some of our hard core fans.
