Shine a mama…

I fell in love with football around the same time I fell in love with the quarterback of the football team! All these years later I still like them both, one just a little more than the other!

Yesterday, lured by the SMU Huskies football team, I pulled into O’Regan’s on Robie to have my car washed in support of Shinerama.

What started in 1964 as a “shoe shining” fundraiser, has grown to last year include 35,000 students at 60 universities raising over $1,000,000 for Cystic Fibrosis!  The foundation happens to be dear to my heart as a number of years back I lost a friend to CF and this week, my friend Trevor Umlah is in New York trying out as a goalie with the Elmira Jackals… just four years after receiving a double lung transplant from fighting the disease!  Trevor is not only proving how awesome his new lungs are, but he’s raising awareness for organ donation with the Life Pass It On Organization.

OK! ALRIGHT! WHATEVER… my cougar senses were tingling and I couldn’t pass by young, shirtless, football players with soapy sponges and buckets of water!

The entire team was out… in fact, the event was mandatory as part of their training schedule!  They spit polished my car with supplies donated to them by O’Regans (where another of my favourite former football players happens to be the General Sales Manager) and danced to the beat of music provided by 101.3’s The Bounce!

The boys were in fine form… scrubbing my rims and removing the bugs I’d accumulated from driving to St. FX just a few days before… reminding me that these young lads are my daughter’s age and I really shouldn’t be ogling! Once washed, I moved ahead to the drying section where in football formation they yelled out multiple plays of “wipe”, “ring” and “dry” while hut, two, three’ing around my car!  It was quite a show.

I drove away with a grin on my face… a touch of nostalgia for the good ‘ol days… twenty bucks lighter for a fabulous cause… and a shiny clean car.

Cougars say rawwwwrrrr….. ummmmm… I mean… Go Huskies!