A little more complete version:
Posted by Mike Florio on September 11, 2008, 10:25 a.m. EDT
Though we?re always skeptical of celebrities and pro athletes who do something nice for someone else and then send an e-mail to every newspaper in the country announcing their good deed, we?ve got a feeling that the recent Samaritan-style actions of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo weren?t intended to garner the kind of good karma that comes from, say, a grandstanding donation of $10,000 to a smattering of charitable causes. (Then again, grandstanding donations of $10,000 to a smattering of charitable causes didn?t help Mike Vick in the karma department.)
On his way home from Sunday?s game against the Browns, Romo stopped to help a couple who was struggling to repair a flat tire.
Bill and Sharon White didn?t initially recognize Romo, due in part to the bandage on his chin that was covering the 13 stitches he received after taking a helmet to the jaw.
The light flickered for Sharon White while Romo was working on the tire. He didn?t answer when she asked if he was who he is. She repeated her question when he finished pumping air into the tire from a cigarette-lighter compressor.
?I didn?t want to bother him,? Sharon said, ?but I asked again, ?You?re Tony Romo, right?? I knew it was him by then. But he smiled and said, ?Yes, ma?am.? I did something no 50-year-old woman should be doing, but I screamed real loud, and then jumped up and hugged him.?
Her husband, Bill, was less concerned about his wife?s PDA with a studly young athlete than he was about ruining his ability to watch the Cowboys-Browns game without knowing the outcome: ?Don?t tell me how you guys did,? Bill White said. ?I?m going home to watch it.?
Romo didn?t publicize his actions at all; the team didn?t even know about it as of Wednesday. If Sharon White hadn?t sent an e-mail to Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the story might never have been known.
?He gets almost knocked cold in that game, and I read it took 13 stitches to close the cut, and then there?s a long flight home and Tony?s got to be dog tired, but he still was a good enough person to stop and help us,? Bill White said.
?Look, we?re driving a 10-year old car that is sitting in a parking lot with a flat tire in the dead of night. He could tell by that we?re nothing special. But here?s a young man making millions of dollars, and he?s got all this fame and glory, and he does this? . . . This was a good person we met. A good person with small-town values despite all the big-city fame and fortune.
?f I ever had the opportunity, I?d also like to thank two other people. His mom and dad. They obviously raised him right.?
