Cooooley!

So we heard about a week ago that Chris Cooley was going to be in Williamsburg on Saturday, and Sunday signing autographs at a hotel/pushing the upcoming Redskins Beach Blitz event. Williamsburg, only being about forty-five minutes away, was feasible so Lisa and I make plans to drive down their to see him on Sunday.

The night before, I went into the Skins closet and pulled out some Skins clothing/shoes for both of us to wear. I also had to determine what items I wanted to take with me for Cooley to sign. I read on a Redskins message board that Cooley would sign up to three items per person! Looking around the Redskins room I decide to take with me the cover of "Game Day" magazine with Cooley pictured on the front, Cooley's official draft day cap from his draft year, and a football with other Redskin Player signatures.

We leave the house headed for the Burg at 10:30 in the morning, planning on being at the place by 11:30am to get a ticket to see Cooley starting at noon. We hear the night before there was a huge draw on Saturday so we expect to be there a while. Headed down 64 we jam out to Chris Paul's Redskins raps making the drive a bit easier. We arrive to what appears to be a pretty open parking lot with a sign for Cooley/Skins to the left and a Wedding party to the Right. Just imagine sharing the hotel with Skins fans and your wedding reception. I am sure they were happy about that. We head to the Harrison ball room where Cooley is supposed to be meeting and we are given a ticket by one of the workers which marks our place in line. We were number 817 and 818. I hear from some guys walking around that they stopped autograph signings yesterday around number 350, but they expect most people from yesterday with tickets not to come back. This could be a very long day or even worse we might not meet Cooley since he is leaving at 2:00pm.



In the room they had some Skins merchandise for sale and game worn Jerseys and used footballs. We decided to walk around and take a look at everything. Before we made our move I looked up and saw "MY BOY JIM" the manager of the Skins store in Chesterfield! Lisa and I head over to him to get the story on the store closing. He tells us they are just moving location in the mall to allow a larger retailer to have more space. The new store should be open within the month and actually be larger then the original! So excuse my comments about the Chesterfield Town Center in my prior blog. As we stand talking to Jim he points out Cooley's dad who walked past us. Jim takes a second and says hello to him and makes sure all is well. He tells us Chris and Pops just hung out at the hotel last night and stayed out of trouble. I am sure they hung out at "Pitchers" the bar in the hotel lobby a bit. I tell Jim that Lisa and I had met Cooley's ex-wife at training camp his rookie year and how much has changed since then with a chuckle. He said Christy did not make the trip with Chris. Guess it was a boys weekend.

Finally noon comes and Cooley appears on stage. He gets on the microphone and tells everyone hello and says make sure to buy up his Jersey. They start calling numbers 350-400, 400-450. We finally get our number called about 1:45 only fifteen minutes to spare. We walk up to Chris and he signs all of our stuff as Lisa snapped a few pictures. He was real nice with everyone chatting a bit with each person. I tell him to make sure to get that contract signed ASAP and he said he wished it was already done. I mention that we will be up in the 400's during the year and he says sweet!


All and all a good day, long waiting time but it could have been worse. Good free autograph opportunity and lots of Skins fans which is always good company.