Throughout my life, I have always been a collector of sorts. From comic books to record albums to beer memorabilia – I have amassed quite a collection of items to fill the various closets in my home. But besides the memorabilia that I have chosen to collect, there is one collection that I amassed completely by accident – my hat collection.

While everyone owns at least one baseball cap – my collection is nearing one hundred – and of all the hats I own – I think I purchased less then half a dozen of them. The reason for my accidental hat collection is because of the jobs I have and the lifestyle I lead. When you have jobs like I do that put you in the public eye and place you in a position where you interview people, they tend to give you a sample of their merchandise or a free gift with their company’s logo on it as a way of expressing their gratitude for the interview – and usually, that gift is a hat or a t-shirt. And after doing over ten years of interviews – you can understand why I have collected so many hats. Also, the fact that I attend so many events and functions is another reason that I have too many hats for my one head.

The reason I am writing this column about my accidental hat collection is because I recently decided to straighten out my closet – and in doing so had to pull all of my hats out of the closet to re-organize. When I finished pulling them all out of the closet – I could not believe how many hats I had. Once they were all out of the closet – my entire king size bed was covered with hats. And as I was looking through them, I noticed a few hats that I did not even know I owned. I discovered that I had hats that had beer logos on them, wrestling logos, names of various companies, radio stations, television shows – and the most amazing – a hat that I got from Lincoln High School in 1995 that was signed by the school’s star player long before he joined the Phoenix Suns – Stephon Marbury. And believe it or not – I even found some doubles that I was able to give to others – just as most of these hats were given to me.

So while some people, like myself, may collect things on purpose – sometimes it is the accidental collections that are the most exciting ones to have.