The SCD Editor is on vacation for a few days, enjoying golf in the supposedly warmer St. Louis area. And just his luck, he got sick just before he left. Neer fear, nothing will keep him off of the course.

Pinch-hitting for T.S. is Tom Bartsch. Have a great week.

It's always fun when you stumble onto a fellow collector, be it your
neighbor, person at the grocery store or a co-worker. You instantly
have a connection and can carry on a conversation for any length of
time.

When that collecting link connects to someone famous, it's even more fun. Such is the case with Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley, who just happens to blog about his collecting adventures.

You can read one of the latest posts here.

The
story goes a little like this. Cooley has decided to start collecting
cards again, and he can't stop. His wife also gets into the act (wouldn't that be nice?). Now
Cooley isn't the first player to get back into collecting, or keep up a
childhood love, but he's one of the few that I know of that also takes
the time to sell on eBay the cards he doesn't want. Can you tell it's
the offseason in football?

If trading card manufacturers were smart, they
would ask Cooley to bust boxes on their websites, as long as he then
didn't turn around and sell them (if received gratis from the
companies). What better way to promote collecting than have an athlete
bust open packs? They should be a coordinatd thing between the leagues and car manufacturers.

Having someone who actually enjoys the process,
and can speak intelligently on the subject is much better than watching
some canned stage show in which rookies open packs during Rookie
Premiers, etc. Cooley's blog is more genuine and I think it shows.