(03-26-2020, 04:11 PM)MikePete54 Wrote: I was a big basketball fan. Still is, but not as much as football.

In France, nobody cares American Football. It's all about soccer.
Back in 1997, the only thing that we had about the NFL, was 30 seconds highlights of every game on wednesday afternoon, and the scores in the sports news paper every thurdsay...better too late than never.
But sometimes, there was a NCAA game on tv ( saturday afternoon).

One day there was nothing to do, weather was terrible. But there was a game on TV : NCAA football. Well, I didn't know the rules or anything, but the uniforms were pretty cool.
There was a "little" guy, very quick, always running between the big guys. I was fascinated by this guy. I spend the whole game looking at him when he was on the field.
His team was Florida, and his name was Fred Taylor. I spend a loooooooot of time, trying to find thing about him, learning the rules etc... 
I made a promise to myself : I will follow the team that will draft this kid. 

Since we didn't have the internet and no news about the draft, I knew he was selected by the Jaguars the next thursday in the sports news paper.
Believe me or not, but coincidental, two days after I learned about it, my mom asked me to come with her to the flea market. 
We are walking through the alleys of the market, and I stopped : there was a lot of t-shirts, with rock bands on it, soccer players, singers etc....and there was 3 NFL t-shirts : cowboys, eagles and...jaguars !!! 

Thanks to the internet, I was able, years later, to watch old Jags games, learn about the history of the Franchise etc...