The time Mike Shanahan met young Jayson Werth

There is a fanciful story, familiar to lovers of English history, that the four-year-old Oliver Cromwell punched and bloodied the nose of the two-year-old Charles I at Hinchingbrooke,Cambridgeshire sometime in 1603. In a similar vein, we present the below story of when Mike Shanahan, then the offensive coordinator at the University of Florida, met the toddler Jayson Werth.

From Rich Campbell of the Washington Times:

Bob Slowik is the Redskins' linebackers coach and Shanahan's good friend dating from his four-year stint as an assistant at Florida. Slowik's wife, Carol, was the track coach at Florida. Werth's mother, Kim Schofield, was a track star at Florida who competed in the 1976 U.S. Olympic Trials in the long jump and 100 meters.

One day Shanahan and the Slowiks got together with Schofield, who brought her toddler son. Shanahan marveled at how athletically the kid threw a ball that day.

It wasn't until years later that Jayson Werth was in the news one day. Slowik said to Shanahan: "You know who that is, right?"

For the record, Werth took the name of his stepfather, former big-leaguer Dennis Werth. On his mother's side, Werth is the grandson of John Richard "Dick" Schofield, who had a 19-year big league career and the nephew of Richard Craig Schofield, who also went by "Dick" and had a 14-year big-league career.

So, there you are.