A Tribute to Jeff Pon

Or Ichiro, or whatever you wanna call him. He, also, like Eskew has moved on to bigger and better things working as the children's recreation coordinator for the city of Kissimmee, Florida. It's great that Jeff gets to go back to the state that he calls home and gets to be so close to his beloved Canes of the University of Miami. Like Eskew, Pon cut his teeth at LSU University Recreation as a Graduate Assistant of intramurals and taking care of your kids at Tiger's DEN summer camp. During camp, which was on "off time" for us, he'd usually just put in a meager 50 hours a week instead of the normal 60, and of course there was no school work to go along with that. If you wanna figure it actually, Jeff and I worked an estimated combined 1,400 hours a semester (A VERY conservative amount) which included having to stay academically eligible to remain GA's. That's right folks, he's half man, half machine- you can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him. Like Eskew, Pon really made things happen at the LSU Student Recreation Center. He was the guy you bitched to when the big game didn't go your way. He was the guy you came to when your kid got in trouble in camp. He was the guy waving at you at the finish line when you finished one of the 5K races or triathlons/duathlons in the LSU URec run series. Jeff was also the guy at Fred's with the dumb Breeder's Cup hat on, but most of all, Jeff was a great person and great person to call your friend. Jeff did it all, all the time. I've thought about it alot of times, and if you add up all the hours, Jeff and I spent more time together than most married couples do in just those two years in Baton Rouge, hell we might as well have been married. Hard to imagine two grown men working that hard. Of course, those times are not without their share of stories. Let me share just snippets of a few of those:

• The first trip we went on, we took Draper and AP to Pensacola to the West Florida flag football tournament. Jeff and I had a hotel room in not only the worst part of Pensacola, but the worst hotel in Pensacola as well. This was fun because Jeff and I went about 72 straight hours being within 10 feet of each other- remember the married couple thing? This was also the trip Pigott had his infamous "paying in quarters" incident and also the tournament that listed Jeff as Josh Poh on the all tournament committee.
• The VERY NEXT weekend, we went to the LCIRSA state tournament in New Orleans. We had Brad's hotel room, which was cool, because we both had our own bed. I will always remember this night because Jeff and I were having dinner at Bennigan's in Metairie when the infamous "Malice in the Palace" broke out when Ron Artest jumped into the stands in Detroit. We both took off to the bar like two little kids pointing and jumping at the TV. Too bad the rest of this weekend sucked. Ok, he'll kill me if I don't admit it, this is the trip I put my shoes in the microwave.
• The summer camp party at his apartment- "I promise I'm really a nice guy.....", also the night I apparently threw up my own food back into a cup.
  
• The summer camp party at my apartment- the night that Jeff left Michael at Fred's and Michael came back to my apt just to eat and then walked home, or tried to, and gave up.
• Our few times at the boat- good for me, bad for Jeff. Maybe that's why he quit asking me to come.
  
• Putting up fences- so many times. These were always highlighted by my stories of high school football.
• The first time I ever showed the video of my high school football team. I think Jeff ruptured his spleen.
• Greg's stories......that were just recently confirmed- wink wink.
  
• Fred's- Frank the Tank, Robyn Bossier, and the Notorious P.I.G.
  
• Two words- GREAT WALL.
• Superior Grill- FRANK!!!!!!
• Ripping off Sigma Alpha Mu for $150 a piece- that was nice.
  
• The semester sharing the office with Melvin- Jeff found a new love for the music of John Legend and R Kelly- and I was right there singing along with him.
  
• Pigott's stories about his family- those were fun.
  
• Pigott singing in the office- Jeff was my biggest fan.

Ok I lied about the last one, but I could seriously go on all day, as only Pigott can do. The funny thing is that my two crazy years with Jeff Pon went by slowly at times, but looking back, it seems like time that FLEW by- almost like a dream. I've been gone for about 7 months, but it seems like YESTERDAY that we had the whole group together like a well oiled machine.

Jeff was a great guy, and not just another great guy. I know it, you know it, he knows it, he was THE great guy. I think Vince Vaughn put it best when he used his infinite wisdom describing a man like Jeff:

"Take a good look at this guy- this is the guy.......behind the guy....... behind the guy."

Here's to you Jeff, this Bud's for you.