Verne Lundquist Will Straight Up Steal Your Lady

Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch dropped his annual media awards column today, and there's plenty of good stuff in there for anyone who wants to take a look back at the best and worst of sports media from the last year. But nothing in the column is as delightful as Verne Lundquist's story about how he met his wife.

The story is from an interview Lundquist did with Deitsch in April. We somehow missed it then, but we present it happily now:

"We met in a bar, and I hasten to add it was an upscale bar in Dallas. It was a place called Arthur's. I walked in after I did the 10 o'clock news (at WFAA-TV in Dallas) and I didn't want to go home. Nancy and her date were at the bar and her date recognized me from local television and invited me over to have a drink. He introduced me to his date and her name was Nancy Miller. It was their first date, a blind date. So we sat and chatted and her date, Raymond Willie, said to me, "Listen, I know you are single. I'm going to fix you up with a friend of mine and we can all go to dinner." He looked at Nancy and asked her, "What are you doing Thursday night?" She said, "Nothing." He said, "Good, you'll be my date and we'll fix Verne up with this schoolteacher friend of mine and we'll go to dinner." Meanwhile, I'm looking at Nancy thinking she is the prettiest thing I have ever seen in my life. So, Raymond finally left to take care of his business and I asked Nancy, "So, how involved are you with Raymond? She said, "Oh, this is our first date and it's a blind date." So I said, "Well, forget what he is talking about on Thursday night. What are you doing on Saturday night?" She said, "I think I am doing whatever you are doing."

Verne! You rascal.[ SI]