He’s known as TV Teddy to fans everywhere because of his habit of making demonstrative game-changing calls on the biggest of stages in front of the television camera.
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I’m pretty sure the television cameras weren’t on Valentine a couple minutes before he worked the College of Charleston-Charlotte game Tuesday night at Halton Arena, but luckily enough, I happened to be watching as the 49ers’ mascot — dressed up in his Santa Claus suit — wandered over toward where Valentine was doing pregame stretches.
Because Valentine was crouching down, I could tell the mascot — Norm the Niner — had no idea he was there, and was about to stumble into the referee. I grabbed my phone and opened the camera app.
I was not disappointed with what happened next. I’ll just let you see …
The whole thing was very amusing, and a bit surreal. I admit, heading into tonight, I did not expect to write about the sport’s most famous/infamous referee getting tied up with a mascot dressed as Santa Claus.
But some days, you just get lucky.
