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People do this kind of thing all the time.

You meet your buddy at a bar, you have a couple of beers, you joke about the old times, you wonder about the times to come.

Sure enough, here I am Monday night, having a beer with my buddy, joking about the old times. I bring up our eighth-grade flag football team, and because nostalgia just seems to work this way, he finishes my sentence.

“We won it, dude,” he says. “We won the whole thing.”

We talk about Little League baseball, trying to one-up each other with hilarious names from the past, all the while having a hard time believing we’ll be gone from this place in two months.

Yep, pretty much your standard spring quarter scene between a couple of seniors with everything to do but study, nothing to do but laugh. Typical. Predictable.

Normal, until you realize that the guy you’re talking to isn’t going off to law school or the Peace Corps or an accounting firm or the cushy world of post-collegiate unemployment.

No, he’s going to play football. Against Jerry Rice. Against Brett Favre.

Against … gulp … Ray Lewis.

This is where it gets “crazy.” That’s the word my buddy Mike Seidman keeps using to describe these times. Now that he has been drafted by the Carolina Panthers. Now that getting tackled by Ray Lewis has become a distinct possibility.

“It is weird,” he says. “Dude…I made it, you know what I mean?”

Nobody ever doubted that Mike would make it. He was an All-American tight end at Westlake High School, a guy who in his senior year drew triple teams and played real football like most people play video game football.

I guess the strange part for anyone who has followed Mike’s career is that those “times to come” are here right now. The NFL Draft took place last weekend, and when the Panthers went on the clock in the third round, his new life rang.

“It’s just the craziest feeling ever,” he says. “They called two minutes before my name came up. Right when I got the call, I got the feeling this was it.

“The guy on the phone goes, ‘hey Mike it’s so-and-so from the Panthers calling to see how you’re doing,’ and then says that Coach (John) Fox wants to talk to me. He gets on and says, ‘hey Mike, how are you doing? You haven’t gotten injured since the last time I saw you, right? (No, I’m cool, Mike assured him) Well good, because we’re looking forward to flying you back to North Carolina soon.’”

Carolina had been one of five teams to invite him out for an interview, but after returning from such places as Atlanta, Jacksonville and Indianapolis, all Mike ever talked about was the Panthers.

“I got a really good feeling from them,” Mike says. “I liked the coaching staff, they have a really cool facility, the ownership’s not stingy with its money, it’s a good place to be.”

A good place, but a good 2,500 miles away.

“It’s going to be a really big adjustment,” he says. “It’s not like I’m a drive away anymore.”

Once training camp starts in the summer, though, he’ll probably be only a few steps away from some familiar faces. Former Bruin DeShaun Foster was drafted in the second round by Carolina last year, and fellow senior Ricky Manning went to the Panthers just six picks after he did.

Still, it’s hard to believe that he’s officially a workin’ man now.

“You’re there to catch the ball, and if you drop one that’s catchable, you’re not doing your job,” he says.

And when you’re not doing your job in the NFL, 60,000 people are right there, totally willing to let you know it.

Mike made it. He’s got an agent, a trainer, a team and about two months to prove himself. This is the part of senior year that is both frightening and exciting, no matter what you have in store. I’m just glad that my own job security won’t depend on breaking a Ray Lewis tackle.

Best of luck, Mike.

Agase is embarrassed to say that the eighth-grade flag football championship is probably the greatest moment of his sports career. E-mail him at jagase@media.ucla.edu.