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I met Kony Ealy today

Mark S

By Mark S,
in Carolina Panthers

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Mark S Newbie

Mark S

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Posted

Background:

-My mom works at BOA.

-This is a long story, but I hope you'll like it.

Story:

I was asleep as I heard the garage open at 1:30 pm. The first thing I did was check my phone, as I found 8 missed calls by mom. Oh no. My mom called my name as I suspected she wanted me to do some chores. She came upstairs and said "Hey Mark, do you want to meet Kony Ealy?" I said "WHAT?", as my mom knew little to nothing about the Panthers, other than my die-hard fandom for them, let alone a rookie on the team. I asked "Are you serious?! How?". She said " He's coming to the bank at 2:00, if you want to come, go get ready". I jumped out of bed and hugged my mom from behind. The fact that she took time out of her lunch to come and pick me up, just made me feel so great.

Of course, I was in a state of panic. "What should I bring? What should I wear? I ran to the computer room to try and find a decent pic of him to print out, but no luck. With a slow computer, I printed out a logo of the Panthers, got dressed, and we were on our way.

We arrived at the bank and I was greeted by my mom's coworkers. They asked me if I was here to meet Kony. I said "Yes!" They basically knew nothing about him, just that he was a rookie and hasn't played a game yet. They knew what car he was coming in, either a Dodge Charger or a Cadillac Escalade. So here we we, staring out the windows and door, waiting for the car to show up. It's 15 past 2:00 and he hasn't showed up yet, which I imagine was reasonable as he is new to Charlotte.

All of a sudden, we see a purple Dodge Charger roll into the parking lot. Everyone is like, oh yeah thats him. The bank is empty, except for the workers. Mr. Ealy walks in and the workers introduce themselves to him, Mr. Ealy walks into my mom's office. A few minutes pass and my mom calls me into the office. I think to myself 'This is it! I finally get to meet him!'

I walk myself into her office and introduce myself. I stutter my way through words and my mom asks him if I can take a picture with him. We all take pictures, and every one of us are dwarves to him. I say "Okay Mr. Ealy, thank you so much! I'll leave you guys to continue your business." He says "Oh no man, don't worry about it, come have a seat with us." "Oh. My. God." is what went through my head. I couldn't believe it, hear I am, hearing a little about his personal life, "How great is this!" I thought to myself.

I took a seat next to him. It was only my mother, the manager, and I in the room, the occasional coworker would come in and greet him and ask him for a picture. As they were talking about what he came in for (confidential), I asked him how he was liking the Panthers so far and replied "I love it. I love the community. I love my team. I love the lifestyle" and I nodded my head with a huge grin on my face as I was currently engaging in normal conversation with Kony Ealy! He really liked it down here from the looks of it. The conversation went on, and some of the highlights were of him saying that: He can't swim, he doesn't like heights, what he plans to do with his life.

He talked about the change from college to the pros. How Greg (Hardy), Charles (Johnson) and especially TD (Thomas Davis) really helped him with the transition and that he is very grateful for them. He called the all really good guys and he was happy to be on the team. My mom asked a little about his personal life, like what he studied in college, what he did outside of football. He mentioned a couple businesses he managed and I thought it was pretty cool. My mom asked about his family and he mentioned his big family, including his sister, as he looked to me and said I probably already knew about her. By this point, he could tell i was a huge fan and knew a lot about him. I nodded my head and told him it is really a great story of how got here, we told him our prayers with her sister. He told us about she was his motivation, other than God, and about how any time he was in distress, he though of her and pushed through it. We were really heartfelt. My mom asked if he had any family down here in NC and he said "Yes, my football teammates". That warmed my heart a little as it was good to hear he was already comfortable with the team and how they have welcomed him enough because he doesn't have any immediate family down here.

Everything he came in for was done, and it was time for him to go. I pulled out my paper of the logo and he signed it. I said I was going to post my picture on instagram, and he asked me what my username is so he could follow me back. Boy, was I excited. I sent him the picture and posted it on Instagram, and he did the honors of liking it and following me. He also mentioned if he could fight one of his teammates for tickets to the next game, they would go to me. I was so happy!

He finally left, as he went into the door and hopped into his car. I sat back down in my mom's office. All of a sudden, I heard the manager call out my name and say "Mark, come here!" I ran over and she handed me a small BOA football and said "Go run out and have him sign this for you!" I ran out to his car, as he was still in the parking lot. He rolled down his window for me and I said "I'm sorry Mr. Ealy, I just got this last minute, could you sign it for me?" He said " No problem", and he took the pen and signed it. I told him I really appreciated it and his time. He replied "No problem bro, I appreciate y'all". I felt really good and I walked back inside.

So that was that, a story of how I met Kony Ealy, I hope you enjoyed it. There was much more for me to write but I figured you guys didn't want to hear ALL the details. Id like to say thanks to my mom, the manager, God, and Mr. Kony Ealy. The guy is truly so humble and he's just an amazing guy. We only spent 20 minutes together but from that, you could tell just how great he was. This was one of the greatest days ever!

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Mark S Newbie

Mark S

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That's awesome man! But a computer room? Is this 1998 or some poo? Just kidding but seriously.

Lol it is kind of a library, its just a room in the house dedicated for whenever you want to print or I need to write something for school. I don't agree with it as we can just hook up our laptop to the printer and use the room for something else but, whatever lol.

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