An Olympic medal gets you in a lot of doors, as Sean Rooney learned in 2008. After his indoor volleyball team took first place in the Beijing Games, Sean got to meet basketball superstar (and fellow Olympic athlete) Dwyane Wade and shake hands with former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who gently teased him for being a Cubs fan. But instead of gluing the medal to every shirt he owned, Sean handed it off to his dad as thanks for all his support. “He was pretty proud of it,” Sean remembers. “He might have worn it as a necktie at work for a while.”