Gale Sayers, Kansas football legend and the youngest person to ever be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame (at age 34), made an appearance at The Sandbar once upon a time.

According to former bartender Pat, he was working the door one night when Sayers, nicknamed the "Kansas Comet," and some of his hangers-on arrived. Many nights The Sandbar has a cover charge, and this was one of those nights. Pat informed the group of the $1 cover charge and Mr. Sayers reached for his wallet without argument. (In doing so, he also dropped a twenty on the ground, and Pat graciously picked it up for him.)

A member of the entourage rather rudely told Pat that "Gale Sayers doesn't pay cover charges," to which Pat replied that someone would need to pay it or Gale Sayers wouldn't be coming in the bar. The rude guy paid it.

To his credit, Mr. Sayers himself did not complain about the cover charge and was perfectly willing to pay it. After all, it was just a buck.

Later that night, Mr. Sayers autographed his dollar bill and it was proudly hung on the wall of the bar. I wanted to show you a picture of it, but you try finding a specific dollar bill among the thousands on the wall. And it's probably in Ottawa anyway.

Mr. Sayers will be in Lawrence this weekend. He's written a new book, "Sayers: My Life and Times," and he'll be signing copies in the KU Bookstore on Saturday, March 1, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

He's donating 100% of royalties from book sales to the Gale Sayers Center, a not-for-profit organization, and the KU Bookstores will also contribute $5 for each book sold Saturday.

Perhaps he'll make an appearance at The Sandbar this weekend. That would be cool.

In completely unrelated news, but so exciting that I couldn't wait to share it, construction on this year's float began today!