Best. Lunch. Ever.

As the title might imply, I just had the best meal of my life. It was a cheeseburger (thin patties of beef that had been sitting under heat lamps, a cold bun, and a slice of rubbery American cheese), some cookies (which were actually pretty good), and a cup of root beer, all served at a Northwestern University cafeteria. What made this lunch so great was not the food – which was awful – but the company. Michael Wilbon, co-host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption was there. Sitting at the same table as me. Talking about sports.

You see, right now I’m at a journalism camp (which, by the way, doesn’t look very impressive when you write it down…) at Northwestern. One of the people on my floor happens to be a friend of Mr. Wilbon and got him to come to this camp on Thursday. For an hour and a half, he talked to the group about reporting and his views on the future of journalism. Then he had lunch with us. Awesome.

In the week leading up to Wilbon’s visit, all of the sports fans (in this case, that means all of the guys) were going crazy. It’s Michael Wilbon! From Pardon the Interruption! The night before, we were all giddy with anticipation. We even made little masks with his face on them, like the ones PTI uses for their segment, Role Play. Needless to say, we were a bit excited.

But one of the coolest parts of the day (and this was a pretty cool day) was right after the lecture. Standing in the lobby of Northwestern’s McCormick Tribune Forum, the guest of honor realized he had a text message. “Looks like we’re going to be neighbors in Scottsdale” the message said. It was coming from Grant Hill, who was letting Mike know he signed with the Phoenix Suns.

Honestly, how cool is that? Before 99% of the sports world knew about what happened, we found out because the man gets text messages from Grant Hill.

For the next hour, he sat around a big table in Hinman Hall’s cafeteria, taking questions and shaking hands with the twenty guys gathered around him. Through this conversation I learned that Mike has had dinner with Barry Bonds, that Barry doesn’t like Hank Aaron (“It’s complicated”), and that, despite being on ESPN almost daily, Michael Wilbon is afraid to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at Wrigley Field.

What an awesome day.