In a 23-year career with ESPN, Trey Wingo has had his run-ins with the sports elite.
But as he told GOLF’s Subpar co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz on this week’s episode of the podcast, there was one day that was unrivaled for star power.
Wingo began by explaining that a lot of his run-ins involved his former ESPN colleague, the late Stuart Scott, because “Stuart knew everybody.”
At the 2003 NBA All-Star game, Wingo was staying at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Atlanta when he got a text from Scott.
“Hey, come down,” the text said. “I’m having lunch with somebody you probably want to hang out with.”
That person was none other than Tiger Woods.
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“[I] go into a little restaurant, back booth, there’s Stuart and I turn, there’s Tiger having lunch with Stuart,” Wingo said. “I’m like the hugest— From the moment Tiger came onto the scene, I was like, this guy is just got it. I have a whole file in my computer of all the things in the awards and all the tournaments he won, all 82 of them. I’m like geeking out.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, hey.’
“Tiger looks up and goes, ‘Hey, Trey.’”
Wingo was like all of us. He lost all memory of how to act.
Woods could only stay for about 20 minutes and Scott left shortly after that. So Wingo did what any of us would have done in that situation: he raced out to call his dad.
“I’m getting ready to call on the old flip phone and the elevator opens in the Ritz in Atlanta,” Wingo said. “Like an idiot, instead of waiting, I just barge in because I am not thinking right. I’m like, I got to tell my dad, I just had lunch with Tiger Woods. This is amazing.
“So the elevator opens — it’s NBA All-Star weekend — and I just walk in and I run smack dab into this wall of a human being. And it’s just solid as can be. And I look up and he goes, ‘Wingo, watch where you’re going.’”
It was Michael Jordan.
“I’m like, ‘Michael, sorry, that’s on me. It’s my bad.’ So I went from having lunch with Tiger and texting, and I run into Michael Jordan,” he said. “Tiger and the MJ in like a 15 minute span. And I was like, yeah, I could die today.”
For more from Wingo, including the story of the golf slip that almost ruined his career, listen to the full episode of Subpar here, or watch it below.
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