Beyond the Lights Weekend

This past weekend I went down to San Antonio to take part in the Beyond the Lights Celebrity golf tournament that is hosted by Kyle Chandler and Brad Leland, two stars of the show Friday Night Lights.  It is a charity benefitting athletes who have suffered from spinal chord injuries. Here is more information on this wonderful event if you are interested -

Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Classic

I got into San Antonio Thursday evening. We left for the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort near Bastrop early Friday  morning.  It is possibly one of the nicest golf courses I have ever seen, and I have seen/played on my share of them.  After doing a few odd jobs and eating breakfast, I got assigned to a hospitality cart. I was to drive around and ask the players if they needed water or snacks and make sure everything was okay.

I had my first encounter with Kyle when I went around to the 17th hole where he and Brad Leland were hanging out and teeing off with everyone who came through there.  Kyle saw me and called me out by name.  He asked how school had been this semester, if it was over, and how Lubbock was.  The fact that he remembered my name surprised me so much that I dang near fell out of the cart.  We chatted about Texas Tech and some things, I gave him some water, he thanked me for being there and commented on the hat I was wearing. (A Texas Tech one), and I was on my way to see if anyone else needed anything.

After driving around a bit I hung out at the 8th hole where I helped pass out Vitamin water. That is where I had an encounter with Ricky Phillips, the bassist for Styx.  At first I didn't know who he was, but I knew he was a rockstar just by how he was dressed. He called me sweetie and thanked me for the water. He was a very gracious dude.  I was there for a bit and finally went back into the clubhouse around 4 to eat.  I hadn't eaten since that morning when we had breakfast.  I was then assigned to put bags together for the gala.  Later I was told that I would be a spotter for the auction and that they would come get me when it was time.  They never came back, so I continued selling photo stills from the set of FNL.

I had my second encounter then.  Josy, a lovely girl from France who had flown there for the event wanted to meet him.  She never spotted him me, along with a friend, pointed him out.  We went up to him with her, introduced her, and took her pic with him. Kyle was so touched that she came from France that he took two pics with her.  I got a huge bear hug from him as well and took another picture with him.

The rest of the night we hung out and tried to sell more pics from the set.  We left Friday night around 10:30 back to our hotel in Bastrop.  We were so tired that when we got into the elevator to go into our room, all three of us just stood and stared at the buttons, none of us realizing we actually had to press number three to get the elevator moving.  It was a good tired though.

The next day we went back to the resort around 8:30 in the morning.  At first they had us doing odd jobs again but after I was assigned as a caddie.  We had a player's meeting and they got us caddie's together with the groups we'd be with and we got to take a picture with Kyle.  I was standing with my group and Kyle walks up with a frisbee and says to me "Gotta have a prop for the picture, you know how we actors are." and then he nudged me and winked.  He stood by me in the picture and after he looked at me and said, "Okay Jess, you tell your team to throw that frisbee straight.  Thanks for being a caddie."  And then he patted me on the back.  

I got to caddie for Jeff Rosick, aka Buddy Junior.  He's a very nice guy.  We talked about random things - from what he's working on now to what we all do when we're not hanging out at BTL.  The poor guy was suffering from some pretty bad allergies, but he was a trooper.  

After our 18 holes of frisbee golf, I tallied up the scores and we had lunch.  We sat behind Kyle.  We got to leave right after lunch and came up to him to say our goodbyes.  He actually stood up from his food and gave us monster hugs again and thanked us for helping out in so many ways.  What I really appreciate about Kyle is that he looks you straight in the eye and is very sincere.  He also introduced us to his wife Katherine.  She was very nice as well.  

It was a weekend of hard work, but definitely a weekend I will never forget. It was a weekend where the main goal was to help out this amazing charity and put something into helping those in need. 

I have been a fan of Kyle Chandler since I saw him back in the 1990's on the movie Pure Country with George Strait.  The fact that he remembered me and calls me out by name now is so surreal that it hasn't even sunk in yet.  I'm so blessed to be a part of something so great.  I can't even put it into words.