I have talked in previous posts about performing the National Anthem with my sister at numerous Fightins game (Check out Star-Spangled Emotion or Reading Phillies 2012: Top 10 Moments/Memories for my thoughts on performing the anthem) and what a neat experience it is. It has gotten to the point where we are called upon to sing whenever they have a singer cancel or they are unable to get someone to sign up.

Getting the chance to perform the anthem is always exciting. Each time is special and we love getting the chance to sing. There is one performance, though, that stands out from the rest.

It started like any other night. We found out shortly before the game was about to begin that they needed us to sing the anthem that night. After quickly running through the song once, we headed down to the field to sing. I think we sang pretty well and once we finished we started walking off the field.

This is where it got interesting.

We were walking off with one of the front office members when we heard someone yelling from behind the backstop. Looking over, we saw a gentleman still standing at his seat, clapping and yelling, “That was a wonderful performance! Fantastic!” We smiled and waved, thinking nothing of it until the person we were walking with turned and said, “Do you know who that is?” Shaking our heads, we looked at him in confusion.

“That’s Dennis Dugan, Kelly Dugan’s dad.”

Ok, so?

“He’s a film director and producer.”

Oh, ok cool.

I’m not going to lie, I had no idea who Dennis Dugan was. I knew who Kelly Dugan was because he had been playing in our outfield for a good part of the season. It was cool to think that we had just sung in front of a well-known director, but it didn’t really mean that much to us.

Then we got back to our stand and decided to visit Google and see what movies he had worked on.

It turns out that he directed some major films such as The Benchwarmers, Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, and Just Go With It, to name a few. While I have never seen the first three movies, or many of the other movies he has worked on, my sister and I have seen Just Go With It numerous times. After learning that he had directed that movie along with many, many others, we got a bit more excited about the fact that he enjoyed our singing.

After that, the game got underway and we got busy with customers and didn’t really think about it much more. Then he came to order ice cream and once he realized we were the ones who had sung, he could not stop telling us how much he enjoyed our singing and that we did such a fantastic job. It was a very cool experience and I will say he was an incredibly nice guy.

I’m sure he doesn’t remember our singing and it’s not as though anything came out the chance meeting, but it was a really cool moment that my sister and I still talk about.

After all, how many people can say they unintentionally performed in front of a Hollywood director?

Confessional: Have you ever had the opportunity to meet someone famous? Was it a nice moment?