The first thing out of Barack Obama's mouth when he met Vernon Davis and Alex Smith at a fundraising dinner Monday night had to do with the 49ers' Nov. 19 game against Obama's Chicago Bears.
"You know you're playing soon, right?" Obama said, via Davis.
Davis first met Obama in February at another San Francisco fundraiser at which Davis spoke. After that speech, Obama took the podium and invited Davis to join the Bears, a comment that received good-natured boos from the crowd. Monday's event was a dinner. Davis brought his five-year-old son, Jianni. Smith was with his wife, Elizabeth.
Smith didn't need Davis to get him into the event. His younger sister, Mackenzie, works for the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
"Very cool. Huge honor," Smith said of meeting the President. "He talked ball the whole time. He was down to earth. Knew what was going on with us, talked a lot about us, the game on Sunday, our schedule, knew we were playing the Bears. So it was cool."
Davis also attended the White House Correspondents' dinner earlier this year in his native Washington, D.C., and he has been open about his support for Obama. Not surprisingly, he said that support has attracted plenty of criticism from the anti-Obama crowd, but he said it doesn't bother him.
"When I put a picture up, a picture of me and Alex, we got some comments on Instagram, people were talking crazy," he said. "You get a lot of reaction."
-- Matt Barrows
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