What does it say about me that I was more excited to meet former Gov. Mike Lowry (see picture below) than any of the stars at the P-I Sports Star of the Year banquet? That's partly because the real stars of the banquet (Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander, Sonics super shooter Ray Allen) didn't show. Shaun had a good excuse (that Super Bowl thing). Ray, not so much.
It's your typical banquet kind of thing: A ton of tables in a big room. I had Mike Lowry on one side of me, and Cathy Soriano (the granddaughter of legendary sports writer Royal Brougham) on the other. Good times. I got to hear how Royal suffered a heart attack while covering a Seahawks game in 1984. I had heard that legend, but not the accompanying coda: While being taken out of the Kingdome, he used his waning life force to tug at an usher who was assisting him and ask, "What's the score?" Nice.
Another reason I was more excited to meet Lowry than the superjocks was because I'm increasingly careful about getting too caught up in fandom for people who are rooting against my team (aka anti-gay). And the conservative sports world is rife with those folks. And I hate to say it, but I tend to assume the worst about people who are the quickest to thank God for their success. How sad is that? I'm a regular churchgoer, but I'm scared off by most people who like to publicly declare themselves Christians. Heck, not even all Methodists want me and my family going to their church.
But when someone pleasantly surprises me, I am a fan for life. Like Kanye West, who is taking on the hip-hop world's homophobia. Not a lot of examples in sport, but I can tell you that I was reduced to a babbling tower of fandom when I met former major leaguer Billy Beane at Whistler.
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