John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Encounters with Icons

My early days as a sports agent (wanna be)

“Look, as long as I’m representing Muhammad, we aren’t fighting in Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium.

It’s either Freedom Hall or somewhere in Manilla in…wherever that is.

And I don’t want to hear that Don King’s name one more time. The guy is nuts and has lame hair and will never be able to compete with my doo no matter how hard he tries to copy me! I’m the original crazy-haired boxing promoter!

We clear fellas?”

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This picture may have been the pivotal conversation I had with Colonel Sanders when I was 3 to persuade him to sell KFC.

“Look, Colonel, if you sell controlling interest to Jack Massey and my dad, it’ll be like you can be a kid again.

You’ll have all the money you want to buy toys and candy and we can dress up like cowboys, Indians, superheroes, colonels and what not and play in the back yard all day and mom will make cookies and lemonade for us.

No more of these long boring business meetings and endless phone calls about earnings. It’ll be awesome!”

Or it may have been the conversation about me wanting another piece of birthday cake.

I just can’t remember.

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Got game?! Kinda…. ; )

The apex of my athletics career….

At Freedom Hall performing at halftime basketball game in front of over 10,000 people as a member of the Bellarmine Junior Pros half-time entertainment.

We were good.

And Ken Fleming, future Metro Council member, was nearby. We won the Regional title for, well, not sure what they called us—half-time performers with basketballs, I guess.

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This one is for Jeff Hoover.

Your fro beat mine. I give you that…. But you gotta admit, I gave you a run for your money!