Just a few days ago I spent the day with Tim Floyd. I’m sure many of you men have often dreamed of what it would be like to be a professional sportswriter, and in my short career at the Daily I have learned that being part of the media has certain perks.

Included in those perks are interviews with famous athletes, media passes to all the sporting events nobody can get tickets to and free cookies in the press box.

I, however, would know nothing about those perks since those kind of luxuries only go to people named “Drew Harris.”

However, we sportswriters often do get the chance to take advantage of our media credentials and good relationships with coaches and athletes alike and spend some time one-on-one with famous sports personalities.

Often these are the kind of personalities the average person like you, the reader, would never be allowed within spitting distance of. However, I am not you, the reader. Rather I am a sportswriter, which means that I got to spend a day with Tim Floyd.

Actually, let me just clear up any misconceptions and say that technically we did not spend the entire day together, rather we only met at the Varsity Theatre for a showing of the movie “Good Will Hunting.”

And technically, we did not intend to meet each other at the movie; we just happened to bump into each other in the theatre.

Also, we did not spend a lot of quality time chatting with each other, in the sense that he has no idea who I am and we have never actually spoken.

The truth is that he walked into the theatre much later than me and happened to sit down just a few chairs away, and that’s as close as I have ever come to Floyd in my life.

Still, I can not help but become excited when Coach Floyd sits down only a few chairs away from me at a movie theatre. Tim Floyd is the kind of man that you cannot help but respect.

To put it into perspective, I would rather sit a few feet away from Coach Floyd in total silence and darkness for a couple of hours than, for example, commune with the Pope.

Anyway, back to the movie. “Good Will Hunting” is a very good film which I think was probably about a boy genius who frees a killer whale named Will from captivity, or something to that effect.

Actually, I only vaguely remember the opening credits, much less the actual movie, because the whole time I was sitting there I was trying to come up with something intelligent and witty to say to Floyd while we were walking out together at the end of the movie.

I figured if it was witty and intelligent enough, he would probably have a good laugh, slap me on the back and invite my date and me to his house for drinks with him and Beverly.

By the end of the night, maybe we would be talking basketball over a game of pool and even making a few prank calls to Jerry Krause.

When the movie ended, however, I had not come up with anything to say to Coach Floyd.

When the lights finally came back up, I still had not come up with anything, so I figured I would just trust that something would come naturally.

I got out of my seat and headed across the aisle to bump into him, but out of nowhere someone he actually knew blocked my way, shook his hand and chatted with him the whole way out of the theatre.

I considered trying to push my way through to him, but it’s probably just as well that I didn’t, since I could feel I was losing the better part of my motor functions the closer I got to him.

Instead of saying something witty and intelligent, I probably would have said something like “Hulaheblu” and been forced to wipe my own slobber off of his shirt.

So, I finished my night out with Tim Floyd like it began, in total anonymity. Since then, my date that night has remarked on more than one occasion that Tim Floyd is REALLY good looking.

So now I’m starting to think its time for Tim to move on and for ISU to bring in a coach for the next generation, one that looks less like Tim Floyd and more like Purdue’s Gene Keady.

Maybe he and I can go to a movie together, and maybe I won’t even slobber on him.

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Aaron Senneff is a senior in computer engineering from Bettendorf.