In '91, Danny Ainge came to our open gym during his offseason with Portland. After our coaches were split three ways over who should be our starting PG, they asked DA his opinion and he voted for me. I got a huge lift from that and spent a lot of time between pick up games asking DA questions and just shooting the shit (he told some great stories about Bird, the finger biting incident with Tree Rollins, etc). He was super down to earth and eventually even started conversations with some of us.
A year later, I was in the condiment line fixing up my hot dog at the Fred Meyer Challenge, when a guy leaned in behind me and said "I'll give you $100 for your hot dog". I turned and it was DA (he was incognito, hat pulled down, shades on, collar flipped up...it didn't work). I couldn't believe he remembered me and I wasn't sure how to respond. We ended up walking the rope together for a couple hours watching the golf.
The most surreal moment of that day came near the end when we were standing and watching approach shots at one of the last holes. I stood on one side of him. On the other, was a line of a half dozen people or so, waiting to get their chance to say something to him about how much they loved him or they wanted him to stay in Portland or asking something about Clyde. I asked him how he could watch anything with all the people distracting him and he said he just nods, smiles and says " thanks". All of the sudden we see Arnold Palmer coming down the fairway and the crowd all claps and whistles for him. I think Peter Jacobsen said something to him and then turned to a group of people and said something inaudible to me that made them all laugh. Arnold seemed to spend a little extra time over his ball. It was silent. He hits his shot and it skips off the water in front of the green and the ball stopped on the green, but quite a ways from the hole. Needless to say, the crowd went crazy! I look up at DA and he's yelling like a cheerleader, then he reaches over and high-fives me.
That moment made me a lifelong Danny Ainge fan.