Offering A Beer To Dan Mullen On The Strand In Hermosa Beach, CA
I spent a gorgeous Sunday afternoon – well, a whole weekend, really – sitting on a deck on The Strand in Hermosa Beach, CA.
The Strand is an amazing thing. It’s a two-lane street of sorts that runs parallel to the beach, with the sand on one side and houses on the other. No cars or vehicles are allowed and neither is any motorized transportation. It’s all foot-powered traffic.
And while it’s just a strip of concrete it’s really alive because of all the people walking, running and riding bikes and skateboards on it. There are few things like it anywhere else in the world.
So on many weekends, I sit at a house right on The Strand and watch the world – or at least the South Bay Beach Cities world of Hermosa and neighboring Manhattan and Redondo Beach – walk and roll by here. Sometimes, people come over and join me and we have an impromptu party and other times it’s just grab a drink and watch the activity. The Strand is the ultimate people-watching place.
On this day, a spectacular sunny Sunday, I noticed a group walking by dressed in blue polo shirts with Florida Gators logos. Since I am the World’s Most Foremost Authority On College Football, I’m always ready to make a comment to someone wearing a college team shirt.
As they went by, I did a “hey Gators” salute and then as they passed, noticed one of the guys was Florida Head Coach Dan Mullen. The others were obviously assistant coaches. Whoa!
They were gone before I could say anything else, but about an hour later they came back by the house. I had alerted a couple friends of their identity and while one is a Bruin who HATES Florida because of what the basketball team did to UCLA in consecutive Final Fours in March Madness, he politely said “Go Gators” as they passed.
But I wanted more. I offered them to come up for a beer.
“I would love a beer,” Dan said (hey, when you offer someone a beer on The Strand, you’re on a first-name basis, whether you know them or not). “But we’re working. We have to get to a clinic.”
Dan kind of spun around as if temptation were pulling him this way, but he quickly regained his focus and continued his journey. Dang – imagine if we could have had a photo together and he tagged PubClub’s Twitter and Instagram accounts!
I know the clinic; the previous week I found out after the fact the two Alabama quarterbacks were in neighboring Redondo Beach for one. I am, by the way, an Alabama alumni. Had Nick Saban and some staffers walked by I would have leaped off the deck to greet them.
I did invite them back for sunset cocktails but they did not show, tho it’s an open-ended invitation to them. As well as any other college coach, football or otherwise.
I’m not much on celebrities – even though I live in LA – but sports figures and especially college football people do get me fired up a bit.
Now I know you’re expecting me to post of a photo of Dan and the coaches walking along The Strand but I didn’t get one so for this post you’ll have to put up with one of me at sunset, beer in hand. What you can’t hear are the intoxicating TropRock tunes of my friend Eric Stone.
Cheers!
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