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Seeing Troy Aikman bend over and scribble his name over the left breast of the shirt that my wife was wearing, followed by his stylized number "8" gave me feelings that you can not imagine! I WAS ECSTATIC! It was 1993 and the Cowboys were on the way to repeat as Super Bowl Champs. We had waited with other fans outside the Hotel where the Cowboys were staying near Valley Ranch for the better part of 2 hours when Troy arrived and began going through the crowd signing footballs, helmets, media guides and the like.

The idea hit me to have my wife ask him to sign her shirt. She did, he did and I got the picture of it. The shadow box I made with the shirt and photo is one of my favorite collectibles and a guide to getting started.

It doesn't take a lot to create a collectible if you are savvy and imaginative. Right before the University of Texas won the National Collegiate Football Championship in 2005, Quarterback Vince Young was passed over for the Heisman Trophy, college football's annual award to the player who was most valuable to their team's success but he was scheduled to receive the Davy OBrien Award in February as the best college football Quarterback in the United States.

I had a son who was doing banquet work at the time and I asked him to sign on with the caterer who was handling the affair at the Country Club and he was able to get a position for the night as a waiter. The banquet is limited to about 200 guests which is the number of menu cards, place settings and programs that are printed.

As the dinner wound down my son was able to retrieve a complete menu, table seating card and program from table #40. He took the program to Vince Young to sign and in his haste turned to the page with former winner Steve Young's name and bio, which Vince Young signed (an error). As a bonus, when I looked at the seating card for table #40, it was for Condalezza Rice, Secretary of State. Not a bad evenings work for some great memorabilia.

These are just two examples of how I have collected my memorabilia from stars of my favorite sport - football. My son and I have completed similar missions with the Dallas Mavericks Basketball Team.

It is just a matter of keeping your eyes open for opportunity, being polite and persistent. For as many missions that we have completed we have fallen short on a dozen more.

One last story. The following Dallas Cowboy season rolled around as training camp opened for "The Boys." I knew that I had put so much effort into the repeat season of '93

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