Former NY Jets Running Back, Freeman McNeil, visited Halesite's firehouse to sign one of eight game footballs given to him during his NFL career. The football, given to McNeil following his stellar performance against the Buffalo Bills on September 15, 1985, was donated to Halesite's Hose Rescue Company and raffled off at its annual Super Bowl Pancake Breakfast. McNeil posed for photographs and also took time out to look over Halesite's mini-pumper, 222. McNeil told the gathered members how proud and honored he was to meet them, saying "you are the real heros"
thats awesome! always loved freeman and he was one of the reasons i became a jets fan. dude looks pretty good for an old timer. its nice to see good stories about past jets heroes instead of bad stuff. you dont often hear too much from freeman so its nice to see this kind of stuff. thank you for sharing it.
Significant to me as that was the very first Jet I ever attended. We rolled the Bills like 45-7 or something like that.
I met Freeman in 2003 at the Jets Draft Day Party at ESPN Zone in Manhatten. As he was signing an autograph for me I said to him, " your the reason I'm here today, you, Kenny O'Brien, Joe Klecko, you guys were my childhood heros." He handed my pen to the guy who he was with, staff member or whatever and gave me this huge man hug and said "thank you Mike" I had a few in me, but I'd be lying if I said I ain't fighting tears back with everything I had. I was like... That was Freeman McNeil........ That was a pretty special moment
Thanks for sharing! The reason I am Jets fan as well. It is great to hear that my first football "hero" seems like a good guy. I would love to meet him at some point. While everyone else in the neighborhood was pretending to be Tony Dorsett, Earl campbell, Franco harris, or Joe Morris, Freeman was my guy! Just realized this was written months ago as I was trying to figure out why he was in a winter jacket at your very late super bowl pancake breakfast. Ha!
