More on Kasay's letter

Maybe by the time you read this you will already have seen John Kasay's letter to Panther fans, which can be viewed here if you haven't.

I also wrote a column about the letter, explaining a little how it happened. Here's a little more of the story.

John dated the letter last Tuesday, Aug.2nd, and he dropped it off at The Charlotte Observer security desk, to be delivered to me. It was put in my mailbox sometime Wednesday, and originally John was hoping (he told me in his separate cover letter) that the letter could be published in the Sunday, Aug.7th newspaper.

One problem: I didn't see it until Monday, Aug.8th. I work out of the office almost all the time these days -- most sportswriters do, working from either a press box at some offsite location (for me it's been Spartanburg for most of the past few weeks at Panthers camp) or telecommuting from home.

So I came in and saw John's letter on August 8th and, as I wrote in the column, was very touched by it. I was touched he entrusted it to me to spread the words he wrote, and I was also touched that he wrote fans a handwritten, 257-word, two-page letter like that. In more than 20 years in the business, I've never gotten a letter quite like that one.

You can obviously see the letter by using the link. However, since you may well be a Panther fan if you're reading this, I want to make you an offer:

Email me at sfowler@charlotteobserver.com and I will send you a free PDF attachment of the first and second page of Kasay's letter in a reply email. Or you can email me someone else's address who you think would like it, and I will send it to them. Please don't send me dozens of people at a time, but I'm happy to email it to someone who you don't think would have seen it.

Kasay, after all, wanted me to get this to as many Panther fans as possible, and I want to do that for him. So if you want to have a PDF of the original letter for some reason, let me know.(I'm not able to send out hard copies of the actual letter through snail mail, but you can certainly print it out yourself from the PDF for you or someone else if you so desire).

I think we can all agree this is one of the classiest things an athlete can do when he basically gets fired by his longtime employer, so feel free to spread John's words of thanks to all Panther fans in whatever ways you think are appropriate.