So sad to hear about the passing of Kevin Greene.

One of the greatest players in Carolina history, one of my favorite players of the initial Panthers Era and one of only three Panthers jerseys my dad has ever owned.

Quick Story .

(1/) My dad was a Panthers season ticket holder for over 20 years and he wasn't a big jersey guy, but the jerseys he chose, he wore for years. For about a decade, he had only a Dan Morgan 55 jersey and a Kevin Greene 91 jersey.

One Sunday, my dad was walking into

(2/) Bank of America Stadium sporting his #91 jersey and as this was the early 2000s, it wasn't really that popular of a choice at the time.

"Hey, nice jersey!" a voice yelled to my dad.

My dad, who has (and always will) got jokes: "It's for sale."

(3/) "Oh no, please don't do that," said the man with a laugh who, when my dad turned around, saw was not only 6-foot-3 and JACKED, but was very clearly and obviously Kevin Greene.

My dad (who isn't a small man himself) asked Kevin if he could get an autograph, but sadly didn't

(4/) have a sharpie. Greene hands him a business card with his phone number and email address, telling him to get in touch that week and they would work something out.

A couple of email exchanges later and my dad has mailed off his jersey to Greene, who shipped it back ASAP

(5/)with an inscribed signature on it.

Super nice guy, as anyone who has ever met him will attest. But that's only half the story.

Because my dad showed me that business card when I was home from college for a weekend and I saw that Kevin Greene had an AOL email address.

(6/) Now this is going to reveal my age, but back in the olden days, you could communicate w/ almost anyone via AOL IM (I killed it with the away messages #humblebrag). All you needed was their screen name.

So, being the idiot that I was, I added Kevin Greene to my friends list.

(7/) It was kind of like friending someone on Facebook except it was really only used as a direct line of communication as opposed to a way to update people on what was going on in your life, share cat memes or see exactly which family member you were going to hate the most.

(8/) Anyway.

For the longest time, nothing happened. And I completely forgot about it. Then, all of a sudden, a new name popped into my active friends list.

I don't want to reveal it exactly - because I'm assuming that email still exists - but rest assured. It had 91 in it.

(9/) So I did nothing. But every now and then, that name would pop to life and I would think to myself "I'm friends with Kevin Greene. The internet is so cool."

And then, after months of waiting, and at the prodding of my friend Fat Dave, I messaged him w/ an important question.

"Hey Kevin."

For minutes nothing happened. Kind of what we expected. Oh well, just some dumb teenagers making jokes. I would tell people stories about Kevin Greene ignoring me on AIM the same way I talked about once sending a Hornet a side of applesauce at Ye Olde Pancake House.

(11/) And then the window roared to life.

"Who is this?"

uh oh.

"It's Josh! I have a question for you!"

play it cool, Josh

"How did you get my email?"

A fair question

"I'm not sure you were just on my AIM list so I messaged you."

So cagey.

We waited with bated breath.

(12/) "I don't think I'm supposed to be there"

OK, so Kevin Greene didn't want to be my friend, real life or Instant Messenger. I get it. He was 20 years my senior & a future Hall of Famer and I was an overweight college kid getting hype when he would make tackles on Gameday 98

(13/) And then, out of the blue:

"What's your question?"

OH MAN. FUTURE HALL OF FAMER KEVIN GREENE IS MY BEST FRIEND. HIGH FIVES ARE EXCHANGED IN ROOM 202 OF SPENCER DORM.

This was all a blur, so apologies if I leave out a detail.

(14/) Deep breath. Big question. From 19-year old Josh to future NFL Hall of Famer Kevin Greene.

"Well, I'm in a band and we're looking for a name. It's got to be something super rock and roll, so we were hoping you could make a suggestion."

(15/) Long pause.

He's probably not going to answer. There were no bubbles back in those days, so it wasn't like you could see if the person you were talking to was typing.

To this day, I don't know why he did answer.

But low and behold...after a very long wait.

(16/) "How about DOG RUSH ONE? That was the blitz we ran when Chad Cota intercepted that pass against Pittsburgh. Bye Bye."

Try as I might (and I tried a lot), that was the only time he ever responded. Nothing else would be said & really - what else needed to be said?

(17/) As my friend Tom put in our group chat today, "damn. kevin greene died. best known for sacking QBs and ignoring AIMs from Josh Klein."

In truth, just like he led the league in sacks at age 34 in 1996, he came through for me - that was a pretty badass band name.

(18/) But sadly, DOG RUSH ONE was way too rock and roll for our acoustic jam band with two Jewish guitarists that poorly played DMB covers and love songs written about girls in our Creative Writing classes.

That signed framed jersey hung at my parents house for years, though.

Still one of my dad's favorite players, ever, specifically because of that interaction.

I'll never forget the big smile he had on his face when he told me that story, showed me the business card and made the big reveal that he had the signed jersey.

DOG RUSH ONE forever.