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Glenn Younes: The Oscars With Ed Reed - Beyond Bucket List

As a giant sports nerd my bucket list has items like the Masters, Super Bowl, World Series, NBA All Star weekend and more on it. It also has travel plans on it, Europe, the Coliseum etc etc. And while I crave getting lost in movies, watching characters on screen and love music, I've never placed the Oscars or Grammys on my bucket list. It's just not something I've thought of, not anything that I ever thought I would or could do.

That changed the Friday before the 2013 Oscars.

2013 Oscars - Ed Reed & Glenn Younes
Credit: CBS Radio

Yes, Friday before the Saturday flight is when I found out I could go to the Oscars. It was scramble city, I had to get my tux, finish painting a condo I own so the new tenant could move in that weekend, go to a baptism then jump on a plane. It was chaos, pure chaos as I had 24 hours to get it all together and get to BWI.

Of course I made it work, had no choice, it was the Oscars! A chance to accompany Ed Reed who was acting as a red carpet correspondent for the NFL Network & Rich Eisen, a no brainer, I jumped on the chance. Once in LA the reality of going to the Oscars still didn't hit me despite being extremely excited about the idea of the red carpet. That excitement level would get cranked up well past 10 come mid afternoon Sunday. Once credentialed and on the carpet "it was on" ... the red carpet was unreal. Glitz, glamor, gowns and a ton of makeup.

I was in a very unique spot because I wasn't nervous at all, which I should have been and I wasn't in amazement either, which I should have been. I was just there, belonging and enjoying the heck out of it. The coolest part of the red carpet with Reed was sneaking backstage but that in a moment because the red light that went on in my head early was security guards. All of them knew who Ed Reed was and while many of the stars did too, they were in movie star mode, looking for other movie faces not a Super Bowl champ - future Hall of Famer. I stored the security guard praise in the back of my head and once the correspondent work was done it was time to see just how much juice #20 had in Hollywood. Let's just say being the best safety (maybe) ever has its privileges. When asked if they could get Ed in the building a simple response of "you ready to go" was all that needed to be said. After walking thru a couple different security checkpoints we were escorted into THE green room. A room I called the "Que Green Room" where stars like Paul Rudd & Melissa McCarthy were siting on a couch with us waiting to go on stage. The room where Channing Tatum comes to after his dance routine to say hi to Jamie Foxx, get introduced to Reed and then get his face wiped down to go back onstage. It was a room that I had NO business being in and yet I was personally dropped off there. It was quiet, awesome, mysterious and the 20-30 minutes I spent in the "back of the back stage" was something I'm sure I'll never get to do again and will never forget.

2013 Oscars - Gunit crashed you in style, in a tuxedo, in the cut!

Follow me on Twitter @gunitradio

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