At a recent celebrity softball game, Charles Barkley entertained the locker room with a story about the first time he played against Dirk Nowitzki in an international game in the late 90’s and subsequently tried to recruit him to Auburn. Dirk was nice enough to post it in his YouTube channel for the rest of us to enjoy.
Some of the highlights:
So I call Nike and I says “Find out about this kid. Tell him I’ll give him anything he wants to go to Auburn.”
“In the SEC, dude, we make sure you’re well taken care of.”
Sir Charles goes on to the recent Cam Newton saga:
“Everyone wants to give us a hard time about giving Cam Newton $200,000? That’s called a good damn investment.”
Barkley’s comments were clearly tongue-in-cheek, and it’s refreshing to see that he can joke about his alma mater and the SEC in the same way the rest of us do (though often times we’re not as lighthearted).
While Barkley probably could have hooked Dirk up with a sweet Jeep Grand Cherokee and a few grand down in Alabama, I’m guessing The German Wunderkind and his $20 million per season are probably glad they decided to jump straight from Germany to the NBA.
Proof that, sooner or later, everyone comes around to love the Irish.
After growing up as a Notre Dame hating, misguided youth, it only took one visit to campus during high school for Twibby to realize the error of his ways. From that point on Twibby and the Irish have had what can only be described as a true Hollywood love story. When he's not reminiscing about his time in South Bend and pondering ways to get a 5th year of eligibility as a student, Twibby writes about Notre Dame and the rest of the college football world for HLS. Along with the Irish, he is a diehard fan of the Chicago Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks and Cubs with a strange affection for Northwestern Wildcats football.
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http://youtu.be/2lzZ5xzVWS0