My husband and I helped out my mom at the Terry Fox Run on Sunday (she was on the organizing committee). We were really thankful it didn't rain and, barring a few glitches, it went well. They raised over $10,000, so that's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

But one of the weirdest things happened. The run was scheduled for 10:00 and for some reason the registration started at 8:00. But, of course, not many people came that early, why would you? So at 8:30 there were plenty of volunteers, myself included, milling around to witness this weird thing:

A man came through the gate in complete football garb, pads, helmet, everything. He was wearing a BC Lions jersey and carrying a big gym bag. The first words out of his mouth were "I'm an American." Not, "I'm here for the run." or "I'm here because I think there's a football game at this soccer field." or anything like that. That statement was followed quickly by "I play for the CFL. I train with the Lions. They let me do the run every year." Well, whoopee, anyone in the province, nay, the world, can do the run. But then he adds that they let him do it on the track every year, which isn't true, as the route is around the park surrounding the stadium. But, barring that, to get into the stadium to start the run, everyone has fill out a free, simple registration form so the committee can get a count of how many participated. He refused and in fact seemed greatly offended. He tried to tell my mom he was a sponsor, to which she replied that the Terry Fox Run has no sponsors. He then said he had a sponsor, by which I suppose he could've meant that he'd collected pledges, but that still didn't mean he didn't need to register. He repeated the CFL/every year speech at least once more and when my mom wouldn't budge, he said "Well, I tried!! Thank you, ma'am." and stomped off. 

Everyone I've told this story to thinks he's some sad, crazy man who got hold of some football gear and just wanted attention.