Celebrities on Campus: Common & More

Earlier this school year, I was fortunate enough to meet Full House star Dave Coulier on the campus of my college. A few weeks ago, my school booked Academy Award winner Common to give a speech on campus as part of the Black History Month celebrations.

I'm not a big music guy, but once I heard Common was coming, I knew I had to be there. He won the Academy Award for this song from the movie Selma.

I got to the speech just in time to see him get introduced by a professor. He talked about many different aspects of his life, including his time as a Chicago Bulls ball boy, how he got into music, and his recent award wins. Here are a couple pictures I took of Common during his speech.

His speech lasted an hour, and I throughly enjoyed. After meeting Coulier months ago, I knew pretty much exactly where Common would walk in and out of the building and where his car would park. 

After standing outside in the cold for a few minutes, Common walked out the exact door that I thought he was going to. With an entourage that seemed like a dozen people, Common came right over and signed a couple photos for me and another photo for someone else. He originally was only going to do one photo, but he saw the Oscars photo and said he liked it, so he signed that one too. He has played in the NBA Celebrity game the last few years and is an avid basketball fan. I told him he was a great speaker, then he thanked me for that and left. Here are the photos. 

He then went back to his car and drove away. One member of his entourage tripped walking up the steps, which tends to happen often in icy Albany.

Also, I got another couple of autographs in the past week.

On Friday, my college was hosting the women's basketball conference championship game. It was a great game, and I got to cover it for the student media. It turns out that there was a celebrity sitting behind me the whole game. Actor Brandon Jay McLaren, a former soccer player and alumnus at my college, had court side seats to the game. Click on his name to see what stuff he was in. After the game, a friend introduced me to him and I took a picture with him while chatting for a minute. Before he left, he signed my program for me. I had nothing else to get signed, so I figured it can't be bad. The photo with him is on the right.

The announcer of that game for ESPNU was Sue Bird. Her resume is impressive: 2 time WNBA Champion, 1st overall pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft, 8 times WNBA All-Star, and 3 time Olympic Gold Medalist. After the game, I went over to her and she also signed the program for me. She was very nice. She took photos and signed autographs for everyone who wanted one. Below is the program, with McLaren's signature on the top.

That does it for this entry. Thanks for reading and good luck graphing! 

Celebrities on Campus: Dave Coulier

If you don't know already, I'm a SUNY Albany student. At SUNY Albany, well-known celebrities rarely come to campus. So therefore, on-campus autographs are hard to come by. Last year, well known Broadway actress Carolee Carmello came to campus, and I got her autograph. You can read about that HERE. However, a recent opportunity arose, and I took full advantage of it.

As a child growing up, I watched Full House reruns on ABC Family on Nick at Nite all the time. My family even has multiple seasons of it on DVD. So when I found out that Dave Coulier (aka Joey Gladstone) was going to be doing stand-up comedy on campus, I was thrilled.

Coulier's comedy event was scheduled for right after the annual homecoming football game, which was a perfect time for me. A half hour before the event was scheduled to start, I made sure to grab an aisle seat in the middle of the ballroom where the event was going to take place. Here are a couple good pictures I took of Coulier during his event.

In the photo on the right, Coulier had called a student on stage to take a video for Twitter. Here is the result. 

Sheri, it worked! Sort of... @Sherijoy0531 LIVE @UAlbanySA - sorry it is sideways! :) https://t.co/xhH358vLCc #cutitout
— Dave Coulier (@DaveCoulier) October 12, 2014

If only it wasn't sideways. Oh well. The show itself was hilarious. Coulier made many Full House references, talked about Bob Saget and John Stamos. He also made a whole bunch of sports jokes, including some about A-Rod. The show was as funny as I hoped it would be and was probably one of the highlights of my school year so far.

I had heard there was going to be a meet and greet after the show, but that turned out to be just a rumor. However, since the event took place right in the middle of campus, I had a guess as to where Coulier would be going. After the show ended, Coulier took photos with some of the programming people who organized the event.

Since I am familiar with my college's campus, I had a good idea as to where he would be leaving. So, I grabbed a seat within eye sight of the stairs leading to the exit door. After many nervous minutes waiting by the door, I heard a noise at the top of the step. A few seconds later, Coulier and a couple of the programming people walked down the stairs.

Upon seeing me, one of the programming people jokingly said, "Oh, there's only one stalker tonight." While I thought Coulier might just walk past me, he laughed at her joke and came over to me.

"Look at you coming prepared with the Full House pictures," Coulier said as I handed him my sharpie and thanked him for the hilarious show. He beautifully signed the two photos I had printed out. When he signed one of him and Mr. Woodchuck, hemarked that he is doing a new bit with Mr. Woodchuck coming out online. HERE is the new bit, it's funny. Below are the pictures Coulier signed for me.

After signing for me, I handed my new iPhone 6 to the programming woman and took a picture with Coulier. My eyes are slightly closed, but that's ok.

After taking the picture, I shook his hand, then took a picture of him and someone else who happened to be in the room. Shortly after that, he left, continuing his tour across the country.

Hopefully UAlbany can get some other good celebrities to come to campus. I enjoy getting a not sports autograph when I get the chance. That's all I have for this entry. Thanks for reading and good luck graphing.