Boswell:Return to Redskins Gives Coach an Edge

[TK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1849-2004Jan8.html

Return to Redskins Gives Coach an Edge

By Thomas Boswell

Friday, January 9, 2004; Page D09

To understand Joe Gibbs, to welcome him back properly, we need to grasp one central facet of his character. He is absolutely exhilarated by the thrill that comes from a profound fear of failure.

Asked to explain the motive for returning to the city where he won three Super Bowls, where hopes and expectations are astronomical and his name is on every tongue, Gibbs got a crooked grin on his face. For Gibbs, humor is often a tiny bit dark, mordant and accompanied by a high-pitched laugh that's almost a nervous giggle.

"There is no net," said Gibbs. Then he paused, realizing that some in the packed auditorium didn't understand the impact of the words for him. "There is nothing down there," he said, imitating a man looking down, terrified, while standing on a high wire. "Nothing is going to catch us [if we fall]. That may be the biggest thrill."

Danger makes anyone feel most intensely alive. At 63, Gibbs lusts after that tingle for five more years. He's granting himself one last lap around the NFL track at high speed, with himself in the driver's seat. The threat of embarrassing himself, tarnishing his legacy (not that he could), is still the prod he needs to be his best fanatic self.

"Dallas was number one in defense. We may not make a yard against Dallas," he said. Then comes the laugh, the almost gleeful "whoopee-we're-all-gonna-die" snicker at danger that he first felt in the fast car of his daddy the North Carolina sheriff. No wonder Gibbs loved NASCAR, the sport where infinite preparation and possible terminal danger are constantly joined. Gibbs is an orderly meticulous list-making man, a compassionate socially conscience religious man, an unpretentious people person who knows the names of everybody's kids. But, in some sense, all this is a proper preamble so that, when he gets to the edge of the cliff, he feels more prepared to take the leap of faith off its edge. Into the thin air of competition, uncertainty, rash possibility and perhaps even humiliation.

Of course, to make sure the Redskins avoid the possibility of being held without that "one yard" by the ignominious Bill Parcells, Gibbs will work on his game plan until the garbage trucks arrive at Redskins Park at 3:30 a.m. "You'd hear 'em outside and say, 'Time to get some sleep.' " Oh, it'll be that way again. "I need to get to work and bury myself in the film room," he said, though the season doesn't start for nearly eight months.

Gibbs is as profoundly driven to win as any coach in any sport. But it is an absolute abhorrence of poor craftsmanship or improper preparation, especially when it is rooted in any hint of selfishness or lack of hard work, which really pushes all his buttons. In his 50-minute mass interview yesterday, a performance so perfect yet off-the-cuff that you could take it to Vegas, Gibbs hit all those familiar notes. "I'm nervous and excited, so if I make a few mistakes here you'll have to bear with me. I'm going to kind of wrestle my way through this," said Gibbs, adding later, "You see, I'm not too smart. I'm a physical education major. That's ballroom dancing and handball. That's what you've got here."

In this self-deprecation, as in almost everything, Gibbs is utterly sincere and completed calculated. Not many can pull off that combination. You can't be a complete team, an ideal ego-less team, if the coach's vanity isn't in check, too. Gibbs mentions that he's trimmer now because he's diabetic. "I used to say, 'Work like a horse, eat like a horse, look like a horse.' I'd send somebody out for a half-a-pound of chocolate bars after midnight when we were working. If I'm torturing myself every other way, at least I'm going to enjoy [sweets]. I was rather flabby. What was it you guys call me," said Gibbs, pointing at one of the dozens of former players who came to The Park yesterday just to sniff the air at his return. "Wasn't it, 'Big Buns?' I heard that. We ran five extra plays for that."

It is not Gibbs the offensive tactician or Gibbs the franchise organizer who will be most valuable to the Redskins. It is Gibbs as the galvanizing central personality that will matter most. He has always been able to pick exactly his kind of men, then connect with them at so deep a level that they change, as a group, into something they never imagined.

"You win with good people, the right character, the right smarts, then the ability," said Gibbs. "I'll just share one little thing with you. . . . [One year] we got off to a horrible start. And I think were like 1-2. Before we go out we always have a team meeting. And for some reason, I just said this: 'If any of you guys got anything to give the Washington Redskins, you need to give it tonight. We're in trouble.' "

When Gibbs looked up, there were "tears coming out of their eyes. And that's what it takes. You got to have players like that."

Yes, to Joe Gibbs, 1-2 is a "horrible start," the end is neigh and anybody who doesn't buy into that world view and that set of priorities -- anybody who doesn't cry with emotion at the disgraceful thought of going 1-3 -- better rethink his Redskins future. Let me note again what was mentioned here in September. Just 15 minutes after the Redskins lost by two points to the Eagles in Philadelphia last year, I counted nine Redskins sitting in the locker room all simultaneously laughing, chuckling or generally acting like they'd won. At that moment, I thought of Gibbs's genuinely morgue-like locker rooms after defeat.

The single key to Gibbs's success or failure in this return, more than anything else, will be whether he can get a group of undisciplined, talented individualists to function as an accountable, competitive team. Few things are harder to accomplish in sports. Gibbs may not be able to do it. But if he can't, nobody can. Because everything the Redskins utterly lack at the moment are exactly the things at which Gibbs has always been best.

"You can be yourself with Coach Gibbs. I wore sunglasses to meetings the first seven years I was here. He likes 'characters,' like John Riggins and people on the same team who are entirely different -- he'd say he wanted both 'fire' and 'ice,' " said Gary Clark, the volcanic little receiver. "But you've got to pay attention every second, you've got to be smart and competitive. If any of these players bring a cell phone to a meeting, it better be on 'vibrate.'

"It seemed like all our first picks got cut before training camp was over, even though they had bonuses. If they weren't 'Redskin material,' they were gone."

Gibbs has no idea how long it will take him to identify those who are Redskins material. Nor does he care, apparently. "There is no 'plan,' there is no nothing," said Gibbs. "Play as absolutely hard as you can and we'll see where we go."

"He takes blue-collar players, like me, and makes them into local heroes and all-pros," said Clark. "This current Redskin team has lost its character, but he'll help them find it again."

So, it's all starting again. Maybe. With luck and a next generation of Redskins who buy into a system that wins. The Gibbisms are already flowing. Introducing his sons and their families, he said proudly, "Our boys both out-punted their coverage [when they picked] their wives." And the old Redskins are back filling the building and telling their stories. "You should have seen our huddle," said tight end Donnie Warren after getting a hug from Gibbs. "Russ Grimm would swallow his 'dip' by halftime and throw up on somebody's shoes. Jeff Bostic and Mark May were fighting about who'd missed an assignment. And man did Riggo stink from his hangover. But we got it done."

Gibbs tries to soft pedal his return. "[in the NASCAR business] they were getting ready to roll me over in the corner," he said. "The first time [Gibbs's son] J.D. said, 'No, we're not doing that,' I thought, 'I gotta go some place where they'll listen to me.' "

They'll listen at Redskins Park. Or they should anyway. What they'll see is a marvelous coach who's scared to death -- which is just the way he likes it. On edge, fully alive, working 'round the clock.

"I didn't wear my Super Bowl ring," said Gibbs yesterday. "The past doesn't buy us much other than relationships. It's a whole new deal for me. We've got to prove ourselves all over again."

How scary, how thrilling. How perfectly Joe Gibbs.

[TK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1849-2004Jan8.html

Return to Redskins Gives Coach an Edge

By Thomas Boswell

Friday, January 9, 2004; Page D09

To understand Joe Gibbs, to welcome him back properly, we need to grasp one central facet of his character. He is absolutely exhilarated by the thrill that comes from a profound fear of failure.

Asked to explain the motive for returning to the city where he won three Super Bowls, where hopes and expectations are astronomical and his name is on every tongue, Gibbs got a crooked grin on his face. For Gibbs, humor is often a tiny bit dark, mordant and accompanied by a high-pitched laugh that's almost a nervous giggle.

"There is no net," said Gibbs. Then he paused, realizing that some in the packed auditorium didn't understand the impact of the words for him. "There is nothing down there," he said, imitating a man looking down, terrified, while standing on a high wire. "Nothing is going to catch us [if we fall]. That may be the biggest thrill."

Danger makes anyone feel most intensely alive. At 63, Gibbs lusts after that tingle for five more years. He's granting himself one last lap around the NFL track at high speed, with himself in the driver's seat. The threat of embarrassing himself, tarnishing his legacy (not that he could), is still the prod he needs to be his best fanatic self.

"Dallas was number one in defense. We may not make a yard against Dallas," he said. Then comes the laugh, the almost gleeful "whoopee-we're-all-gonna-die" snicker at danger that he first felt in the fast car of his daddy the North Carolina sheriff. No wonder Gibbs loved NASCAR, the sport where infinite preparation and possible terminal danger are constantly joined. Gibbs is an orderly meticulous list-making man, a compassionate socially conscience religious man, an unpretentious people person who knows the names of everybody's kids. But, in some sense, all this is a proper preamble so that, when he gets to the edge of the cliff, he feels more prepared to take the leap of faith off its edge. Into the thin air of competition, uncertainty, rash possibility and perhaps even humiliation.

Of course, to make sure the Redskins avoid the possibility of being held without that "one yard" by the ignominious Bill Parcells, Gibbs will work on his game plan until the garbage trucks arrive at Redskins Park at 3:30 a.m. "You'd hear 'em outside and say, 'Time to get some sleep.' " Oh, it'll be that way again. "I need to get to work and bury myself in the film room," he said, though the season doesn't start for nearly eight months.

Gibbs is as profoundly driven to win as any coach in any sport. But it is an absolute abhorrence of poor craftsmanship or improper preparation, especially when it is rooted in any hint of selfishness or lack of hard work, which really pushes all his buttons. In his 50-minute mass interview yesterday, a performance so perfect yet off-the-cuff that you could take it to Vegas, Gibbs hit all those familiar notes. "I'm nervous and excited, so if I make a few mistakes here you'll have to bear with me. I'm going to kind of wrestle my way through this," said Gibbs, adding later, "You see, I'm not too smart. I'm a physical education major. That's ballroom dancing and handball. That's what you've got here."

In this self-deprecation, as in almost everything, Gibbs is utterly sincere and completed calculated. Not many can pull off that combination. You can't be a complete team, an ideal ego-less team, if the coach's vanity isn't in check, too. Gibbs mentions that he's trimmer now because he's diabetic. "I used to say, 'Work like a horse, eat like a horse, look like a horse.' I'd send somebody out for a half-a-pound of chocolate bars after midnight when we were working. If I'm torturing myself every other way, at least I'm going to enjoy [sweets]. I was rather flabby. What was it you guys call me," said Gibbs, pointing at one of the dozens of former players who came to The Park yesterday just to sniff the air at his return. "Wasn't it, 'Big Buns?' I heard that. We ran five extra plays for that."

It is not Gibbs the offensive tactician or Gibbs the franchise organizer who will be most valuable to the Redskins. It is Gibbs as the galvanizing central personality that will matter most. He has always been able to pick exactly his kind of men, then connect with them at so deep a level that they change, as a group, into something they never imagined.

"You win with good people, the right character, the right smarts, then the ability," said Gibbs. "I'll just share one little thing with you. . . . [One year] we got off to a horrible start. And I think were like 1-2. Before we go out we always have a team meeting. And for some reason, I just said this: 'If any of you guys got anything to give the Washington Redskins, you need to give it tonight. We're in trouble.' "

When Gibbs looked up, there were "tears coming out of their eyes. And that's what it takes. You got to have players like that."

Yes, to Joe Gibbs, 1-2 is a "horrible start," the end is neigh and anybody who doesn't buy into that world view and that set of priorities -- anybody who doesn't cry with emotion at the disgraceful thought of going 1-3 -- better rethink his Redskins future. Let me note again what was mentioned here in September. Just 15 minutes after the Redskins lost by two points to the Eagles in Philadelphia last year, I counted nine Redskins sitting in the locker room all simultaneously laughing, chuckling or generally acting like they'd won. At that moment, I thought of Gibbs's genuinely morgue-like locker rooms after defeat.

The single key to Gibbs's success or failure in this return, more than anything else, will be whether he can get a group of undisciplined, talented individualists to function as an accountable, competitive team. Few things are harder to accomplish in sports. Gibbs may not be able to do it. But if he can't, nobody can. Because everything the Redskins utterly lack at the moment are exactly the things at which Gibbs has always been best.

"You can be yourself with Coach Gibbs. I wore sunglasses to meetings the first seven years I was here. He likes 'characters,' like John Riggins and people on the same team who are entirely different -- he'd say he wanted both 'fire' and 'ice,' " said Gary Clark, the volcanic little receiver. "But you've got to pay attention every second, you've got to be smart and competitive. If any of these players bring a cell phone to a meeting, it better be on 'vibrate.'

"It seemed like all our first picks got cut before training camp was over, even though they had bonuses. If they weren't 'Redskin material,' they were gone."

Gibbs has no idea how long it will take him to identify those who are Redskins material. Nor does he care, apparently. "There is no 'plan,' there is no nothing," said Gibbs. "Play as absolutely hard as you can and we'll see where we go."

"He takes blue-collar players, like me, and makes them into local heroes and all-pros," said Clark. "This current Redskin team has lost its character, but he'll help them find it again."

So, it's all starting again. Maybe. With luck and a next generation of Redskins who buy into a system that wins. The Gibbisms are already flowing. Introducing his sons and their families, he said proudly, "Our boys both out-punted their coverage [when they picked] their wives." And the old Redskins are back filling the building and telling their stories. "You should have seen our huddle," said tight end Donnie Warren after getting a hug from Gibbs. "Russ Grimm would swallow his 'dip' by halftime and throw up on somebody's shoes. Jeff Bostic and Mark May were fighting about who'd missed an assignment. And man did Riggo stink from his hangover. But we got it done."

Gibbs tries to soft pedal his return. "[in the NASCAR business] they were getting ready to roll me over in the corner," he said. "The first time [Gibbs's son] J.D. said, 'No, we're not doing that,' I thought, 'I gotta go some place where they'll listen to me.' "

They'll listen at Redskins Park. Or they should anyway. What they'll see is a marvelous coach who's scared to death -- which is just the way he likes it. On edge, fully alive, working 'round the clock.

"I didn't wear my Super Bowl ring," said Gibbs yesterday. "The past doesn't buy us much other than relationships. It's a whole new deal for me. We've got to prove ourselves all over again."

How scary, how thrilling. How perfectly Joe Gibbs.