Dr. J I'd finished a workout at my healthclub and got in the sauna, and Dr. J was sitting in there too, chatting with an older club member. Sixers were in Chicago the day before a game, and team members were at my club to loosen up/whatever on their night off. After showering, as I was toweling off, Dr. J came by and I said "Hey, Doctor." "Yeah, man." "Who do you like in NCAA final four this weekend?" He mentions a couple of teams, but stops to ask "who do you like?" I mentioned a team, and he acknowledges. Of course, the team I mentioned ended up getting blown out by like 30 points. Really nice guy.
Arthur Levitt, former head of the SEC. I was on the planning team for a national treasury conference, and Levitt was the kickoff, morning speaker, so we all had breakfast with him. Lots of our group were asking a bunch of econ/business/treasury questions, and he seemed totally bored, so I asked him about his family. He really lit up then as he talked about them. Turns out his son, Art Levitt, had recently taken a position as CEO of Fandango.
Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education. She and I were buddies in college. I also grew up (school and church) with her husband, **** DeVos. The DeVos and VanAndel families (founders of Amway) both went to our church, and my siblings and I were similar ages to their second generation. Betsy was really friendly, if totally unqualified for her current job. All the DeVos and VanAndels were/are wonderful, generous people.
Greg Meyer, last American to win the Boston marathon before Meb did recently. He was at another local high school, but we didn't meet at the cross-country ..meets. In recent years (many years, now, past his Boston win), he's been at some race expos, so we've met and talked about the high school days. He also happens to work at a sister Catholic university, and he's invited me to call him for lunch if I'm back in Grand Rapids.
My wife blew the chance to meet Brad Pitt. He was in our town to film scenes for one of the Ocean's movies. She was leaving work in our residential neighborhood, but the car was having some ignition problems. Limo pulls up behind, and the driver asks if she can pull forward a bit. She starts ranting and raving about the car problem and the fact that her husband hadn't gotten it fixed yet. Pitt gets out of the limo to see what's going on. She soon gets the car started and leaves. I ask her if she talked to Pitt. She says no - she was too angry about the car situation.