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Best Gift: Buc's Time

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By NEIL JOHNSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 17, 2008

TAMPA - Just meeting two Tampa Bay Buccaneers players at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital would have made his 12th birthday special for Collin Goldstein.

But when cornerback Phillip Buchanon took off his diamond watch Tuesday and handed it to Collin, the boy got something to keep this memory alive.

Collin held up his arm, the watch large enough to slide past his elbow, his face aglow.

"The best birthday present ever," he said. "I got Buchanon's watch."

The visit by the players is part of a community outreach program carried out around the National Football League every Tuesday, the players' day off.

Players volunteer for the visits, which also include working with schools, clubs and organizations chosen by the players.

Wide receiver Maurice Stovall also signed autographs, chatted and handed out stuffed Bucs bears to several dozen children at St. Joseph's.

The birthday gift was a spur-of-the-moment thing for Buchanon. It turns out the Freeze watch was one of his favorites. He waited weeks for the black version to come in.

"I can wait again," he said.

It wasn't his first visit to children in hospitals. He also did it in Miami, where he went to college, and Houston, where he played for the Texans before signing in 2006 with Tampa Bay.

"I try to just talk to them and cheer them up," he said.

Junior Rivera of Lutz added to his collection of Bucs autographs with Stovall and Buchanon.

Junior, 11, in the hospital after an emergency appendectomy, is a big Bucs fan. He could only whisper because of the pain in his abdomen, he said.

"There's not one thing in my room that isn't black and red," he said.

After autographing a poster and team pennant, Buchanon bent close to Junior.

"You can do whatever you want to do. Put your mind to it," Buchanon said.

"This is a dream come true. Go Bucs!" Junior said.

Michael Lopergalo slapped Stovall's outstretched palm when the player stood in front of him.

At 4 years old, he was happy to be outside the hospital room, where he has been cooped up since Thursday because of a hip infection, said his mom, Carole Daysh of Land O' Lakes.

"He's been locked up in his room the whole week," she said.

Was he excited about meeting the players?

"Yeah," Michael said.

Team teddy bears were given to every child in the hospital. About 247,000 have been handed out since 1999 through the Glazer Family Foundation, a charitable organization created by Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer.

Every child who enters one of seven hospitals - five in the Tampa Bay area and two in Orlando - is given a football player bear or cheerleader bear.

Collin, who has spent three of his 12 birthdays in the hospital because of a severe digestive disorder, picked a cheerleader bear this time to go with the player bear he already had, said his mother, Judy Gilbert of Clearwater.

Collin beamed at the oversized watch.

What did he intend to do with it?

"Use it to tell time," he said.

"I don't ever want to get rid of it."

Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (813) 259-7731 or njohnson@tampatrib.com.

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