Mankato memories: The young Vikings fan yelling at Blair Walsh

This story gets told enough that there is a strange sentimentality about it, so here it goes again:

Down at Vikings training camp in Mankato a few years back with some friends, we saw a kid — maybe 11 or 12 years old — yelling at then-kicker Blair Walsh to try to get his attention.

"Blair! Blair!" the kid kept yelling.

Walsh, who was making the trek away from the practice field and likely to the rooms where the players stayed, finally looked up. This was long before the infamous missed kick against Seattle, by the way.

The kid finally had a chance to ask his important question:

"Blair! How tall are you?"

Yes, that was the thing that was so important. Walsh is listed at 5-foot-10 (which might be kind of generous). The kid likely wanted to know if he was taller than Walsh, who kept walking.

I can only hope there is the same opportunity in Eagan, the new training camp home of the Vikings starting in 2018, for these kinds of weird interactions.