Dates are important to me.

They make great cookies.  They were fun to go on when I was younger and less married.  And certain dates mark a significance in my life.

This is a story about one significant date.

When I was younger, my dad was in charge of the Brooklyn Park Athletic Association basketball program.  He coordinated the coaches and referees.  He ordered pictures.  And one particular year, he designed the basketball t-shirts that every player in the league wore.

Flash forward about 10 years to the early 2000s, where a crazy trifecta of sorts was born.

1.  In Plymouth where I was coaching golf, soccer was becoming a huge sport.

2.  My dad was cleaning out his garage and found some old Brooklyn Park basketball t-shirts.

3.  My then girlfriend was madly in love with David Beckham and seemed to know everything about him...even that his son's name was Brooklyn.

So, as Skavnaks (and then-girlfriend), we came up with a brilliant idea.

What if we sent one of these Brooklyn Park t-shirts to David Beckham as a gift and see if he would wear it.  Yes, they were kids-sized shirts.  But as my girlfriend so delicately put it, "He wears tight clothes all the time, and looks hot."

So we scrounged for his management company's address.  Not exactly easy in the early days of Google (Thanks, Alta Vista!).  We eventually found it and sent the t-shirt off with a hand written note from my dad that read:

Weeks and months, and eventually years went by, but we didn't hear anything back.  Were we expecting to?  Probably not.  But it would have been fun.

Until one fateful date.  November 7, 2007.

A short article was published in the Star Tribune mentioning David Beckham and a Brooklyn Park t-shirt.  And it even had a picture.

It was crazy.  It was unbelievable.  And it was really freaking cool.

I will always remember that date.  You should remember dates too, because they mark times in your life that are important.

Today could be one of those days.

Talk soon,

Bryan