Cards: Topps AAF Certified Player Issue 2011, Upper Deck College Legends 2011 Bowl Game Heroes
Acquired: TTM 2020, C/o Home
Sent: 4/22/20 Received: 4/29/20 (7 days)
See Also: Daryl Johnston, Daryl Johnston (2), Daryl Johnston (3)
I really hustled hard for Daryl Johnston this time around. I had seen on a few sites that he was giving away his player issue version of his certified Topps AAF 2019 card- that I did not have, and along with the fact that he was GM of the Commanders, and it was super expensive on the secondary market, I really wanted to get my paws on that card. I wrote a solid 9 page letter talking about how our lives had intertwined over the last- 30 ish years or so. It was the longest letter I’d ever written to a player.
Daryl has been very good to the TTM community, and as a whole has been a gracious signer outside of those rare instances. Instead of flooding him with cards, I just sent this one Upper Deck College Legends card and asked him for the certified one, since I was a season ticket holder to the Commanders. I was very happy when he responded in no time flat and added the tag #Swords Up! giving the Commanders card a bit of personalization. It gave me a nice bounce in my step for the day.
I had high hopes that he’d pen an inspired response to me about his AAF experience, but the stories that I had read led me to believe that he was caught just as flat footed as the rest of us, even though he was fighting in the trenches everyday for the league. After his AAF experience, Daryl went on to join the XFL 2020 Dallas Renegades, and despite the boasted money behind it, the league folded only after 5 games due to COVID concerns.