Boswell:Time Loves a Hero

[TK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63464-2004Jan7.html

Time Loves a Hero

By Thomas Boswell

Thursday, January 8, 2004; Page D01

Everyone remembers the gruesome play when Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theismann's leg. But the Redskins of that era remember the next play -- because it epitomized Joe Gibbs. Second-year quarterback Jay Schroeder trotted onto the field. "We figured we'd run a handoff, let him get his feet wet," tackle Joe Jacoby said yesterday.

"Instead," said tight end Doc Walker, "on the first play, Coach Gibbs throws the bomb."

And the Redskins beat the Giants that night, 23-21. Gibbs's instantaneous response to suffering the worst injury a team can receive was to get up and punch Bill Parcells's bunch in the face. The Redskins didn't miss a beat without Theismann -- or anybody else during that dozen years -- because they had Gibbs. Players changed. Even the general manager changed. But the coach was the constant.

Now, the most dominant Washington sports legend of the past 50 years is back in town. Washington may not yet be the home of champions. But we are certainly the city of sports theater. Gibbs's arrival easily outstrips Michael Jordan's ambitions as an NBA executive, Jaromir Jagr's arrival or the brief dreams attendant on Steve Spurrier. Now, we truly have enormous stakes. Will Gibbs increase his stature to the point where he rivals anyone in history for the title of greatest football coach? Or will Gibbs, in this second coming, fall victim to the same intrigues and in-fighting that have turned the Redskins into a model of dysfunction in recent years?

At the moment, Gibbs returns to this sky-high town as the greatest local sports figure since Walter Johnson and Sammy Baugh long ago. In the last half-century, only Sugar Ray Leonard, Wes Unseld and John Thompson have similar -- though somewhat lower -- iconic stature. This city is babbling, nearly incoherent at delight about Gibbs's return. But if he recreates even half his previous success in this new NFL era -- after an 11-year hiatus as a superstar NASCAR owner -- he may achieve a comparable national stature.

Some joke that the only way owner Daniel Snyder could have topped his hiring of Gibbs would've been to bring Vince Lombardi back from the dead. In a few years, if the stars align, Gibbs may be running bumper-to-bumper with Lombardi in the Sport Immortality 500. Or will Gibbs be derailed by the man who hired him? Or the team he inherited? Or any of the countless pitfalls of football in a new century. Those are the stakes.

Could Gibbs succeed grandly? No one sensible doubts it. Gibbs is a fit 63. Dick Vermeil is 67, Parcells 62. They're flourishing. Marv Levy coached the Bills until he was 72. Almost all of his Super Bowl trips came after Gibbs's age. Jack McKeon is 73 and just managed the World Series winner. Gibbs signed for five years. But why not re-up? After all, age is the rage. The Old School is being brought back to control the New School, noted John Thompson. "Order, discipline and law," Big John said, are craved by great athletes in any generation.

The Redskins better leave those damn cell phones in their cars, get to every meeting early and never jump offside on the goal line -- unless they want to be ex-Redskins. Gibbs is the most decent and religious of men. In fact, he was always sincerely sorry when he had to release or demote a player for the good of the whole group. But he always did it, then never looked back at the dead weight he'd thrown over the side. It's a tough league, son.

It's doubtful the Redskins have any idea what they're about to meet. Gibbs looks so genial, so self-effacing. The day he quit -- a much greater shock than the Steve Spurrier resignation -- Gibbs gave utter exhaustion as the reason. Medically, it was "migraine equivalence" that prevented him from getting a single decent night's sleep the last month of his last season. Year after year, he worked 16 or more hours a day, seven days a week from July through January and slept on his office cot four nights a week.

Gibbs's family lived only a few minutes from Redskins Park but, for a while, he and his wife and two sons exchanged videotaped messages during the season so they could keep track of each other's lives. That stopped because, according to Gibbs, the messages from home became increasing angry, along the general lines of "You weren't here as usual, when we needed your help."

Anybody who thinks Gibbs has mellowed can think again. "I realize how hard this is. Nothing is harder . . . one of the hardest things you could attempt to do," Gibbs told Channel 4's George Michael yesterday.

Did Joe remember to mention, in case any players were watching, that it was going to be hard?

One of those hardships is obvious. The Redskins have announced that draft, free agent and trade decisions will be made in a three-person consensus format involving Gibbs, personnel director Vinny Cerrato and Snyder. This is not the same as Gibbs, Bobby Beathard and Jack Kent Cooke or Gibbs, Charley Casserly and Cooke. Gibbs will say of Snyder what he always said of Cooke -- who was, at times, a rough approximation of a Grade-B horror-flick demon -- "We have the greatest owner . . ." In the league. In America. On earth. It'll vary.

At the moment, deserved or not, Snyder is a consensus pick on any all-Worst Owner team. In a few years, we may eat those words. But right now, Snyder's record is that, once the recruiting process ends, he goes downhill fast, sometimes within the first 24 hours of courting and purchasing his new man.

My worst apprehension, however, is more visceral. And it's not about Snyder, who loves the Redskins and despises his failures thus far. He wants desperately to be liked. And, as an owner, this move could save him.

No, my fears arrived unbidden. Free association happens without our permission. The instant I heard "Gibbs," the name "Earl Weaver" jumped to mind. Gibbs was the best football coach I ever covered and Weaver the best baseball manager. Weaver retired, in glory, after the '82 season. By '85, the Orioles were in disarray -- a team with obvious .500-or-better talent, but problems of discipline, bad chemistry and meddling ownership. To the shock of the entire sport, Weaver was begged and bribed out of retirement. Earl, who's three months younger than McKeon, was only 54 then -- fit, rested and fiery. The reaction among Orioles fans was roughly the reaction of Redskins fans now, give or take a decibel of hysteria.

Yet by September of '86, the Orioles were a wreck, finishing the year poorly to give Weaver his first losing season as a manager in almost 30 years. "I put every damn thing I had inside me into it this year. What new things would there be to teach in spring training?" said Weaver. "When I was gone, people said, 'This would never happen if Earl were here.' They won't be able to say that anymore. It has happened with Weaver. See ya, gentlemen."

With that, he hopped off the bench, looking distraught, hurried up the tunnel and resigned.

In the last inning of his final game, less than 1,000 days after the Orioles had won the World Series, the stands were two-thirds empty. In the ninth inning, he relieved his last pitcher. As he walked off the field, no one cheered. Weaver stopped on the lip of the dugout, looked at the still-life scene, then tipped his cap to the silence.

That's not how it will be with Gibbs, it says here. Think Vermeil instead. But before we set the bar too high too soon for the Genius of Washington, don't forget how the second coming turned out for the Earl of Baltimore. Appreciate our unexpected Gibbs gift, win or lose. Sometimes there's only one storybook ending to a customer.

[TK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63464-2004Jan7.html

Time Loves a Hero

By Thomas Boswell

Thursday, January 8, 2004; Page D01

Everyone remembers the gruesome play when Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theismann's leg. But the Redskins of that era remember the next play -- because it epitomized Joe Gibbs. Second-year quarterback Jay Schroeder trotted onto the field. "We figured we'd run a handoff, let him get his feet wet," tackle Joe Jacoby said yesterday.

"Instead," said tight end Doc Walker, "on the first play, Coach Gibbs throws the bomb."

And the Redskins beat the Giants that night, 23-21. Gibbs's instantaneous response to suffering the worst injury a team can receive was to get up and punch Bill Parcells's bunch in the face. The Redskins didn't miss a beat without Theismann -- or anybody else during that dozen years -- because they had Gibbs. Players changed. Even the general manager changed. But the coach was the constant.

Now, the most dominant Washington sports legend of the past 50 years is back in town. Washington may not yet be the home of champions. But we are certainly the city of sports theater. Gibbs's arrival easily outstrips Michael Jordan's ambitions as an NBA executive, Jaromir Jagr's arrival or the brief dreams attendant on Steve Spurrier. Now, we truly have enormous stakes. Will Gibbs increase his stature to the point where he rivals anyone in history for the title of greatest football coach? Or will Gibbs, in this second coming, fall victim to the same intrigues and in-fighting that have turned the Redskins into a model of dysfunction in recent years?

At the moment, Gibbs returns to this sky-high town as the greatest local sports figure since Walter Johnson and Sammy Baugh long ago. In the last half-century, only Sugar Ray Leonard, Wes Unseld and John Thompson have similar -- though somewhat lower -- iconic stature. This city is babbling, nearly incoherent at delight about Gibbs's return. But if he recreates even half his previous success in this new NFL era -- after an 11-year hiatus as a superstar NASCAR owner -- he may achieve a comparable national stature.

Some joke that the only way owner Daniel Snyder could have topped his hiring of Gibbs would've been to bring Vince Lombardi back from the dead. In a few years, if the stars align, Gibbs may be running bumper-to-bumper with Lombardi in the Sport Immortality 500. Or will Gibbs be derailed by the man who hired him? Or the team he inherited? Or any of the countless pitfalls of football in a new century. Those are the stakes.

Could Gibbs succeed grandly? No one sensible doubts it. Gibbs is a fit 63. Dick Vermeil is 67, Parcells 62. They're flourishing. Marv Levy coached the Bills until he was 72. Almost all of his Super Bowl trips came after Gibbs's age. Jack McKeon is 73 and just managed the World Series winner. Gibbs signed for five years. But why not re-up? After all, age is the rage. The Old School is being brought back to control the New School, noted John Thompson. "Order, discipline and law," Big John said, are craved by great athletes in any generation.

The Redskins better leave those damn cell phones in their cars, get to every meeting early and never jump offside on the goal line -- unless they want to be ex-Redskins. Gibbs is the most decent and religious of men. In fact, he was always sincerely sorry when he had to release or demote a player for the good of the whole group. But he always did it, then never looked back at the dead weight he'd thrown over the side. It's a tough league, son.

It's doubtful the Redskins have any idea what they're about to meet. Gibbs looks so genial, so self-effacing. The day he quit -- a much greater shock than the Steve Spurrier resignation -- Gibbs gave utter exhaustion as the reason. Medically, it was "migraine equivalence" that prevented him from getting a single decent night's sleep the last month of his last season. Year after year, he worked 16 or more hours a day, seven days a week from July through January and slept on his office cot four nights a week.

Gibbs's family lived only a few minutes from Redskins Park but, for a while, he and his wife and two sons exchanged videotaped messages during the season so they could keep track of each other's lives. That stopped because, according to Gibbs, the messages from home became increasing angry, along the general lines of "You weren't here as usual, when we needed your help."

Anybody who thinks Gibbs has mellowed can think again. "I realize how hard this is. Nothing is harder . . . one of the hardest things you could attempt to do," Gibbs told Channel 4's George Michael yesterday.

Did Joe remember to mention, in case any players were watching, that it was going to be hard?

One of those hardships is obvious. The Redskins have announced that draft, free agent and trade decisions will be made in a three-person consensus format involving Gibbs, personnel director Vinny Cerrato and Snyder. This is not the same as Gibbs, Bobby Beathard and Jack Kent Cooke or Gibbs, Charley Casserly and Cooke. Gibbs will say of Snyder what he always said of Cooke -- who was, at times, a rough approximation of a Grade-B horror-flick demon -- "We have the greatest owner . . ." In the league. In America. On earth. It'll vary.

At the moment, deserved or not, Snyder is a consensus pick on any all-Worst Owner team. In a few years, we may eat those words. But right now, Snyder's record is that, once the recruiting process ends, he goes downhill fast, sometimes within the first 24 hours of courting and purchasing his new man.

My worst apprehension, however, is more visceral. And it's not about Snyder, who loves the Redskins and despises his failures thus far. He wants desperately to be liked. And, as an owner, this move could save him.

No, my fears arrived unbidden. Free association happens without our permission. The instant I heard "Gibbs," the name "Earl Weaver" jumped to mind. Gibbs was the best football coach I ever covered and Weaver the best baseball manager. Weaver retired, in glory, after the '82 season. By '85, the Orioles were in disarray -- a team with obvious .500-or-better talent, but problems of discipline, bad chemistry and meddling ownership. To the shock of the entire sport, Weaver was begged and bribed out of retirement. Earl, who's three months younger than McKeon, was only 54 then -- fit, rested and fiery. The reaction among Orioles fans was roughly the reaction of Redskins fans now, give or take a decibel of hysteria.

Yet by September of '86, the Orioles were a wreck, finishing the year poorly to give Weaver his first losing season as a manager in almost 30 years. "I put every damn thing I had inside me into it this year. What new things would there be to teach in spring training?" said Weaver. "When I was gone, people said, 'This would never happen if Earl were here.' They won't be able to say that anymore. It has happened with Weaver. See ya, gentlemen."

With that, he hopped off the bench, looking distraught, hurried up the tunnel and resigned.

In the last inning of his final game, less than 1,000 days after the Orioles had won the World Series, the stands were two-thirds empty. In the ninth inning, he relieved his last pitcher. As he walked off the field, no one cheered. Weaver stopped on the lip of the dugout, looked at the still-life scene, then tipped his cap to the silence.

That's not how it will be with Gibbs, it says here. Think Vermeil instead. But before we set the bar too high too soon for the Genius of Washington, don't forget how the second coming turned out for the Earl of Baltimore. Appreciate our unexpected Gibbs gift, win or lose. Sometimes there's only one storybook ending to a customer.