Rob Maiden (RM) and Daniel Jacob (DJ)

RM): I’ll never forget going from the ninth grade to the tenth. I went from 5’6” to 6’3” over the summer. It was so bad that my mom thought something was wrong with me. But my dad loved football, so he would say to me, “Man if I would have known you’re going to be this big, I would have made you play. You should be a tight end right now. I should be at the games.’ I said, “Well I wasn’t really into a lot of people hitting me.” Nah, I was good. I’ll pass. The ManiAAcs, we’re just big guys dancing.

DJ: And it’s all good natured —

RM: Yeah.

DJ: — but it’s pushing the envelope.

RM: We’ll start out fully dressed, but we kind of end with some exposed bellies and…

DJ: We have half-shirts which shows off a little more skin.

RM: A lot more skin, if you’re my size.

But my father is a man’s man, so he didn’t get any of that stuff. I would invite him to games all the time and he’d give me a million excuses as to why, “I have to get up early tomorrow. Well, I don’t drive at night.” But I will never forget he came, and met me after the game. And he’s watching all of these folks come up to us. And we’re signing autographs and a fan had my face on his shirt. I look at my dad and I said, “Can you believe that?” That guy said, “Did you say that’s your father?” And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, “Sir, would you sign this?” My father never signed an autograph in his life.

I won’t ever forget the look on my father’s face, and he did not stop talking about it. You know, how much he just respected me as a man because he said, “You look like you really were born to do this.”

And it really stuck with me because now when I’m raising my kids, I’m not as hard on them about what they’re trying to do with their life because I just have this belief that it’s going to work out. And, you know, so far, life has worked out pretty good.