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John Tatum is one of the\u00a0most plugged-in businessmen I know, and yet when the\u00a0bombs started flying over his\u00a0\u00adhotel room in downtown Doha \u2014 just a few minutes from the embattled US military facility in\u00a0\u00adQatar \u2014 he was stranded and\u00a0helpless.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was truly frightening,\u201d\u00a0\u00adTatum, who runs the Dallas-based\u00a0marketing firm Genesco Sports,\u00a0told me late last week\u00a0as he was scrambling\u00a0to leave the oil-rich Gulf state and return to safety in the US.<\/p>\n
Tatum might not be a household name for many readers of The Post, but he is a legend on the sports\u00a0business scene, a consummate\u00a0salesman who matches some of\u00a0the most recognizable brands\u00a0(think PepsiCo, Verizon, Lowe\u2019s,\u00a0Anheuser-Busch, Frito-Lay, Visa, Campbells Soup) with\u00a0some of the biggest stars in pro\u00a0sports (Cowboy QB Dak Prescott, football greats, Tom Brady, Eli and Peyton Manning, soccer stars like Lionel Messi, David Beckham and many more).<\/p>\n
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He counts Cowboys owner Jerry\u00a0Jones as one of his mentors. He considers Raws owner Stan Kroenke and Jets owner Woody Johnson close friends. He\u00a0raises serious dough for national\u00a0politicians; he has contacts inside the Trump White House because of his deep\u00a0ties to the burgeoning Texas business community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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And yet he tells\u00a0me he just spent the scariest and\u00a0most frustrating couple of days of\u00a0his life being one of nearly 3,000\u00a0Americans stranded as air traffic\u00a0ceased in the region. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get through to anyone and when I did, they said they couldn\u2019t help,\u201d he tells me.<\/p>\n
It all started last Saturday morning, Qatar time, just hours after meetings with his clients at Qatar Airways, the official global airline partner of the 2026 FIFA World\u00a0Cup. Something that sounded like\u00a0an amber alert began blowing up on Tatum\u2019s iPhone.<\/p>\n
The alert was from the Qatari\u00a0government in Arabic and English to shelter in place.\u00a0\u00adTatum turned on his TV and much to his surprise he watched President Trump announce we were at war.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the bombs really\u00a0started flying \u2014 literally over his\u00a0head. Plumes of smoke and load crashes of the Iranian missiles aimed at the US base being intercepted before they could do their damage. Some made it through. Tatum and his team saw it\u00a0all.<\/p>\n
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He knew he needed to get out and fast. But calls to the State Department\u00a0went into voicemail. He desperately blasted texts to anyone and everyone he knew in DC. None of his\u00a0contacts in the US government could help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry been very busy,\u201d responded one very senior Trump Administration official (I am withholding his name at Tatum\u2019s request). \u201cOnce we can get flights in, we can line up charters but right now airspace has been closed.\u201d<\/p>\n
True, Tatum traveled to Qatar, a part of the world that can be dangerous, though he went there without an\u00a0\u00adinkling that he would be going to a true war zone. This was of course a\u00a0sneak attack by the US and Israeli military.<\/p>\n
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After hours of being in limbo, worried he might have to wait the war out for several weeks, before getting back to Dallas, good news arrived. His friends at Qatar Airways found\u00a0him a way out with a charter bus to Saudi Arabia, where most of the airspace wasn\u2019t closed, and a charter flight to\u00a0Frankfurt. He\u2019s on his way back to\u00a0Dallas as this piece goes to press.<\/p>\n
Quite a couple of days for a guy who is at his best schmoozing with clients as opposed to ducking from missile attacks. So, I asked Tatum if he plans to go\u00a0back anytime soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His response. \u201cOf course, I love\u00a0Qatar.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Tatum is one of the\u00a0most plugged-in businessmen I know, and yet when the\u00a0bombs started flying over his\u00a0\u00adhotel room in downtown Doha \u2014 just a few minutes from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}