It’s true: Professional athletes are just like you and me.
The NBA rookie whose car was being driven by Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon when he got a DWI last weekend said the two met and swapped vehicles at a grocery store.
“Me and Josh Gordon met at the Fresh Market in Chapel Hill,” Charlotte Hornets first-rounder P.J. Hairston said, via Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. “I walked there to get food and happened to run in to him in there.
“I am a football fan so I knew who he was. Right away, we started talking about football, basketball and we walked outside. He saw my car and asked me ‘What are you doing?’ He asked if I minded if we switched cars and we exchanged numbers and he was going to drive my car that night and bring it back to me.
“I said OK and we switched cars. The rest of that is history.”
Of course.
So with that, Hairston drove off in Gordon’s Mercedes, Gordon drove off in Hairston’s Escalade, then got stopped for drunk driving and was bailed out by convicted felon Hadyn “Fats” Thomas, who just so happened to have rented a car to Hairston the night Hairston was arrested with a gun and marijuana during his college days at North Carolina.
It makes sense that Hairston tries to distance himself from Gordon, as he’s trying to overcome a reputation for trouble and begin his own career. Of course, Hairston was also accused of punching a high school kid during a pickup game this weekend, so it’s hard to tell who the bad influence was.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get Florio’s car back to him, as soon as I can retrieve the Kiss “Destroyer” 8-track that’s jammed in the tape deck again.