Courtesy of Mattress Mac

When you walk into Gallery Furniture in Houston, the first person you almost always see is owner Jim McIngvale (also known as ‘Mattress Mac’). In addition to his furniture business (one of the largest retail stores in the United States), Mac is also known for two other things: his philanthropy in the Houston community, and his support of the Houston sports scene (amongst other things, he is one of the chief corporate sponsors for the Houston Texans pro football team).

Several weeks ago, my brother — a Sergeant First Class in the US Army — was in Gallery Furniture soliciting donations for his Recruiting Station’s Military Ball. Many people probalby don’t know that Mac’s son is an Army Ranger, and that Mac is a huge supporter of the US Army.

After cutting my brother a large check for his Ball, he reached into a drawer and pulled out 8 tickets to the Tennessee Titans vs. Houston Texans football game (a very hot and difficult to find ticket) and two parking passes.

The falling Monday, my brother went back to Gallery Furniture to thank Mac in person for the kind gesture, and to tell him how much fun his kids had at the game. Mac then asked my brother if he knew of any Soldiers in the Houston area who would like to attend the Christmas Eve Texans game vs. the Indianapolis Colts. My brother responded that he could find a few soldiers who’d enjoy that.

So, Mattress Mac reached into the same drawer full of tickets and scooped up all of the tickets in the drawer and handed them to my brother and said “Merry Christmas”.

It wasn’t until my brother got home and counted the tickets that he realized that Mac had handed him 340 tickets, 30 parking passes, and 6 Corporate Field Level passes for the game. Of the 340 tickets, 120 of them were in Mac’s large luxury suite on the Club Level of Reliant Stadium.

My brother invited our entire family to the game, which includes my sister Myra, who’s husband is in the Air Force, my sister Rita, who’s son is currently stationed at Ft. Carson and deploys to Iraq in October, myself (US Army veteran), my brother Randy (former US Army reservist), and of course my brother Marty (active duty US Army).

My brother handed out the rest of the tickets to the soliders in his recruiting batallion and then went to the MEPS station and handed out the remaining tickets to young men and women in the process of joining the military.

Before the game, we were able to go down on the field on the Houston Texans sideline to watch the players during pre-game warmups. My nephews were able to get a bunch of autographs and pose for pics with some players. Texans WR David Anderson even gave one of my nephews his WR gloves, thus rendering any gifts we were going to give him the following day completely irrelevant.

Thank you very much, Mac for the wonderful Christmas gift. The suite was especially nice, with the fully catered and free buffett, free Texans T-shirts for all of the Soldiers and their families, and for the great seats.

Oh, and I think the Texans won the game, too.

Posted by Robbie Cooper on Tuesday, December 26th, 2006 | Trackback |