Vinny Testaverde, I'd like to shake your hand, and quite possibly pull a T-Pain and buy you a drink.
Not because you just signed with the Patriots to be Tom Brady's 43-year-old clipboard holder, but because you had a major impact in landing Dennis Erickson as our head football coach.
Maybe not as much as of a role as someone like Lisa Love - but Vinny - you laid the foundation for the house to be built.
Let's take a trip back to 1998 to see how Mr. Testaverde got the ball rolling.
Back then, Bruce Snyder was in charge of the Sun Devils, and Erickson was in his fourth season in the NFL, as the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks.
While Titanic was breaking box-office records, Erickson's role as head coach of the Seahawks was also sinking slowly.
With Erickson needing a win against the New York Jets to keep his playoff hopes and job alive, Testaverde made a play that will forever live in infamy.
In the final play of the game, Testaverde maneuvered through the defense and then lunged for the goal line, scoring the game winning touchdown and sealing Erickson's fate as head coach.
Not only did Testaverde not score the touchdown, but that single play inspired what we all know today as instant replay.
Vinny, thanks again.
Look, I'm not saying coach Erickson would have lasted until this very day in Seattle, but who knows where he would be now.
Timing is everything, and for that we all owe Testaverde a great big high five, with a fist-pound and maybe some confetti at the end.
From what I've seen from Coach Erickson, he is exactly what ASU needed as the face of the football program.
Not only does Erickson offer a resume with championship bling, the old ball coach not named Spurrier is great with the media and even better with his players.
Talk to any of the players on or off the record and they will all tell you how great Erickson has been to play for.
"He creates a really good atmosphere for us to play in," junior quarterback Rudy Carpenter said after the last practice at Camp Tontozona.
Besides allowing his players to be themselves, Erickson has made sure the players are ready to work hard.
"We've never had two-a-day practices with just shells and then pads — it's always been just straight pads," sixth-year senior and most tenured Sun Devil Zach Krula said after his last two-a-day in his college career. "When there are two practices, you don't feel beat up for the second one so you can practice harder."
Small things like adjusting the practice format and eliminating the number of guest speakers have been welcomed by the players.
With his players on board, it is only a matter of time before Erickson wins over the rest of the Sun Devil faithful.
Even I consider myself pro-Erickson, and my family has season-tickets to the San Francisco 49ers. (I blame Terry Donahue for those bad years.)
The bottom line is Erickson is hard not to like.
He's quotable, he's entertaining and he's a nice guy.
People skills along with the two championship rings, years of head coaching experience on the professional level, and recommendations from former players like Ray Lewis and Chad Johnson, and Erickson will certainly be a player when it comes to recruiting top talent to Tempe.
One likely recruit could be a talented Pop Warner stud, who has one of the best highlight videos on You Tube that I have ever seen.
He's not even in high school, but Cody Paul has more bizarre moves than Britney Spears.
While that recruiting class comes down the road, we can be sure that Erickson will continue to add and develop quality players for seasons to come.
And don't even start with the loyalty questions, like that reporter from the Seattle Times at the Erickson introductory press conference who asked, "What does loyalty mean to you?"
Erickson is not going back to the pros and probably won't find a better job than the one he currently holds.
Judging by Erickson's love for the game of golf (as I witnessed covering the golf teams last year, where I saw DE hitting balls at their practice facility), he won't find a better place to play golf in the off season — unless he moves to Scotland, the birthplace of golf.
Good news for us, NFL Europa is out of business.
Reach the reporter at: edward.price@asu.edu.
