Tl:dr-awesome texas ball at the bottom from the 2006 champ game, father in-law looks like woody harrelson, acts like him too but somehow got to his good side to make a dream come true. *I titled it “story” because it’ll be long, I apologize but it’s Sunday so why not read. In 2005/2006, I was a spry 14 years old and already a diehard longhorn. I remember the cotton bowl against LSU when Roy went off and that was the confirmation I wanted to cheer for the burnt Orange for life. I decided to chase my golf career and wasn’t “Texas good”so never technically went there but convinced my brother years before to go and so I was in Austin a ton during my high school years. During the year, we all know the year, I had a feeling it was the time. During that game itself on the 4th down, I was jumping up and down so much that our giant, not flat screen had broken the stand it was on. One of the best moment for my life as I’m sure many others here. Anyway, fast forward to 2018 and I met the love of my life and also got to meet her father. We got to talking about sports and found out he was a USC fan and once I said I was a longhorn fan, he started to laugh hysterically as I stood in confusion. He goes “shut up and follow” and into the garage we went. He grabbed this box in the corner and out comes this Football that says “2006 National Championship game” with some autos on it and the first one I see, is Vince. Holy hell. Then leinart, then Reggie, then Mack then Pete then…well lendale. I’m sweating, shaking, I’m like this is the holy grail for me. He says, “if you treat my daughter well and marry her, I’ll give it to you.” Im Like whoa that’s a.. “ha im just kidding, I can’t give this away, I won it at this private banquet where only 5 chairs had a note for a ball underneath and I had one of those. No way can I let this go”. I’m like you jackass because he is in a semi-endearing way. Somehow 4 years later I was engaged to his daughter. We had to visit him because, well, of liver issues from years of you know what. It wasn’t looking pretty. After he got out of the hospital, he was still in tons of pain from procedures and just everything but he got out of our sight and we were scurrying to find him. Well, he was in the garage looking at the ball. I approached and he turned and said, “this is just in a box in my garage, I know you will enjoy this more than me. Don’t fuck with my daughter or this ball will not only be in your body but will be way up there. You know how my daughter likes the packers, yeah you know what I mean.” Note taken. Sure it’s not game used but to get a high quality item from the greatest game in history, at least in my and any smart person’s eyes. Not only did I jump up and down during the game, but I did over a decade later when I got it home. I know the recent years have been painful but I wouldn’t change the joy that picking the horns has brought me as well as an item I thought I’d never own. (Also some future heart attacks but that goes unneeded to be said) Hook em! 🤞please work photo🤞