Dillard credits that July night, in part. "It's like one great moment in sports and your career is defined," he says. "That speech will continue to define him."

———

Terry Link and Barack Obama were elected to the state Senate the same day, became seat mates and fast friends. Link always joked Obama would move on before he did. He wasn't thinking at the time that it would be to the White House.

Link and Obama bonded over golf and Wednesday night poker games as part of a group dubbed "The Committee" that gathered over beer and cigars in Springfield to while away the nights when the Legislature was in session.

A few years ago when the buzz started about a possible Obama presidential campaign, Link was cool to the idea. "I said, 'Don't do it, don't do it.' I didn't know if he was quite ready."

But as he saw the growing crowds and enthusiasm, Link changed course. When he asked Obama to attend a campaign event in 2006, he took him aside, and walking arm in arm, urged him to seize the moment.

Last year, Link traveled the nation, campaigning for his former poker buddy.

A week after the election, Obama called Link and left a message.

"It was kind of funny. He said 'This is Barack Obama, your old card-playing friend' — like I'm not going to remember," Link says. Obama left his new cell phone number and an admonition NOT to share it with anyone.

Link returned the call, but missed Obama. When he left a message, he made sure to address him as 'Mr. President,' not Barack, as he normally did.

Link has two things he cherishes: a photo of Obama holding his newborn grandson two years ago at that 2006 campaign rally — and that number.

"I know if I ever called, he'd take my call," Link says. "I'm not looking for a job or any favors. I've got the cell phone number of the president in my pocket. That's all I want."

———

Loretta Augustine-Herron still remembers the October day in 1992 when she attended the wedding of Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson.

Several years had passed since she had first met Obama when he came to Chicago to work as a community organizer for the group she co-founded. On this momentous day, she approached the beaming groom as he mingled with guests. She had one request:

"When you become the first African-American president, I want to be at the inaugural ball,'" she says she told him. "He said, 'You've got it.'"

Then he laughed.

Sixteen years later, Augustine-Herron took two of her grandsons to Grant Park for Obama's victory celebration. Standing in the crowd that unusually warm November night, she remembered the young man who drank coffee and smoked cigarettes in her kitchen, worked 14-hour days and once boasted he could "burn" the floor with his dance moves — then proceeded to prove it.

She also remembered her long-ago prediction.

But when Obama takes the oath, Loretta Augustine-Herron will be watching it on television with her special education students at a South Side elementary school in Chicago.

"The children need to witness this, to talk about this," she says. "You know what? I always thought I wanted to be at the inauguration. But I really want to be with my students."