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Joba shows Lincoln girl wonderful world of Disney

By COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star
Monday, Mar 09, 2009 - 11:19:10 am CDT

No way, she told her parents.

She’d go on any ride at Disney World except for one. The Tower of Terror.
(That’s the ride in Hollywood Studios that takes you 13 stories high in the
freight elevator of a doomed old hotel, then drops you to the Twilight
Zone.)

Few kids would call Jazmin Meyer-King a chicken. The 11-year-old is the
only girl in the Lincoln Sharks football league. She plays right guard.

“She takes her helmet off after games,” says her dad, Richard King, “and
it’s like, ‘So THAT’S who was kicking our butts out there?’”

She plays basketball for the Lincoln Katz, practicing every day after
school in the Salvation Army’s gym. She wants to play in the WNBA.

She’s a class leader at Clinton Elementary, tutors peers, breezes through
her high-ability classes. She loves math.

For all of those reasons, when Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain, a Lincoln
native, asked the Clinton Elementary principal to pick a kid from his old
neighborhood to come to Disney World with her family as his guests for four
days, the principal chose Jazmin.

They spent last weekend in Orlando.

Joba, in Tampa for spring training, paid for everything: The air fare; the
SUV and the driver awaiting them at the airport; the deluxe rooms at
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge overlooking the beach; the VIP treatment, front
of the line on every ride; the private escort lady who took them anywhere
they wanted to go and paid for anything they wanted to eat.

The best part?

“Meeting Joba,” Jazmin says, smiling.

He was tall. He was real nice. He asked her about Lincoln. He encouraged
her to keep working hard in school and sports because hard work pays off.

“He told me he was proud of me.”

She met him last Sunday when she and her family were his VIP guests to an
annual fan festival called “ESPN the Weekend” at Hollywood Studios. They
hung with him as Joba got mic-ed up for interviews. They sat in the front
row and watched him compete with other stars in a sports trivia game show.

There were many sports stars there that day. But to Jazmin, the one people
wanted to be near the most was Joba.

At the end of the day, as people were streaming out of Hollywood Studios,
Joba told Jazmin and her family that he just had to do one more thing with
them before they said goodbye.

His words made Jazmin’s stomach drop.

We’re going to the Tower of Terror!

The workers at the ride happily agreed to run it one more time for the
VIPs. Trying to hide her terror, Jazmin entered the “freight elevator.” She
sat down next to Joba, buckled herself in.

Plunged to her doom.

Screamed and screamed.

But it was OK, she says.

Because Joba did, too.

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@....

Photo: Every year Joba Chamberlain (center), who pitches for the New York
Yankees, selects a school and then selects a student to share a weekend
with. This year he chose Clinton Elementary in Lincoln. He visited with the
principal, and Jazmin Meyer-King was selected. Chamberlain flew (from
right) Jazmin's mom, Jazmin, her brother and her father to Tampa, Fla., on
Feb. 27 for four days and lots of fun. (Courtesy)