King of the World Herschel Walker was on campus today signing his new book. I’ve been to signings with Vince Dooley and Larry Munson, and I’ve never seen anything like this at the UGA Bookstore.

I heard people started waiting at 5:30 a.m. to get in. At some point they cut off the line - 250 to 300 people I believe - and turned everyone else away. He was upstairs, so if you weren’t an early bird, you couldn’t even see him.

No one can deny his athletic ability, but… 5:30 a.m.? My dad is from Florida and a UF fan, thus I was one of maybe 5 people in the store under age 25 who wasn’t raised listening to Herschel Walker bedtime stories, so maybe.. but…just… 5:30 a.m.?!

Herschel will only sign 3 books per person, Herschel will only sign THIS book and no photos, other books, magazines or memorbilia, and Herschel has an entourage and Herschel will not be photographed with you. After all, Herschel is busy, and Herschel has to do what’s best for Herschel (it’s a little down page).

Getting an interesting, non-generic book signing photograph can be difficult. Especially when media is corralled and squished into a little roped off place directly across from and at least five feet away from Herschel, so the only photo we could probably get were people’s backs.

Which, if you didn’t know, looks something like this:

One fan, one Herschel, five helpers

(The bookstore manager was nice enough to locate me a ladder. Not a step ladder. A real ladder. Nice.)

If everyone complains enough, if the store management is nice like they are here, they might find You the Media another angle, still many feet away from Herschel and still behind a rope. Improvement!

I was going for patterns, and this didn’t exactly work:

Got almost-lucky once from said squishy corral angle, before I moved. Almost lucky as in, you can see any part of Herschel.

And I admit I wasn’t quite ready for Herschel’s quick pre-signing statement to the media:

“Uh… Buy this book. Huh huh huh.”

No really. That’s what he said. I’m not kidding.

Ladies and gentlemen, the always handsome, always quotable, the Herschel Walker.