Fun piece on Bubba Tyer

[Dan T.]

This appeared in yesterday's Washington Post, on the front page of the Style section, and I didn't see it posted here yet. It's a good article on Bubba Tyer, long-time trainer of the 'Skins who started with George Allen and retired 6 months ago, only to come back once Joe Gibbs was rehired. Some funny stories about practical jokes played on players. . .

Long but a good read. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63236-2004Feb22.html

Hail Bubba

Six Months After the Handoff, a Redskins Standby Is Back in Possession

By Don Oldenburg

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, February 23, 2004; Page C01

Larry Moore knows the training room.

For 15 weeks since suffering a severely sprained foot in the Cowboys game in November, the Redskins starting center has spent almost all his days getting treatment. That doesn't count the couple of weeks he missed in the preseason after tearing the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Happens all the time in the National Football League. Other walking wounded gimp into the training room in Ashburn, among them tackle Chris Samuels (knee) and receiver Darnerien McCants (shoulder). They're all on the rehab wall chart of 28 names noting necks, ankles, surgeries.

Moore's working off-season mornings now to regain strength in the foot. He leans his big elbows back on a table as an assistant trainer works on it.

Bubba Tyer navigates past a dozen training tables to him. "Players play hurt and we nurse them through it," says Bubba, "but at the end of the year, we say let's clean it up."

Looking over the 310-pound player, Bubba mentions that Moore tried a comeback, reinjured the foot and just ended four weeks in a cast. In a soft-spoken Texas accent he repeats a favorite Bubbaism: "Tough players make good trainers."

Moore smiles at Bubba, who at 61 is twice his age and at 5 feet 8 and 185 pounds looks about half his size. "Bubba's one of my favorites!" he says.

Bubba pulls a quarter from his pocket and offers it to Moore as if payola for saying that. If Bubba Tyer had a quarter for every kind word said about him the past three decades, he'd own the Redskins.

For 33 years, the revered Tyer -- his real name is Lamar but everyone calls him Bubba -- presided over the world of hurt inside the training room and on the sidelines of the Washington Redskins. Elastic bandages, athletic tape and ice buckets have been his milieu, witty repartee and locker room camaraderie his elixirs.

Six months ago he retired. He traded torn ligaments for relaxed trips to the Hilton Head vacation house he and his wife, Cathy, bought last summer. He flew home to Texas twice to see his mother. He played golf, dawdled around his Northern Virginia home, daydreamed about that crab boat he wants so badly. He . . .

What? Joe's back? To hell with retirement!

How the return of Joe Gibbs to the Redskins changed everything -- yet so much stays the same. Here it is, the day after the Redskins officially announced Gibbs's new staff, and Bubba's back, too. No longer head trainer, as he was for 25 years, he now has the title "director of sports medicine." By 7:30 a.m. he was in his office as excited as a rookie.

Why come back? After three decades of long, back-aching hours standing at training tables, why, Bubba?

"Joe asked me," he says.

A Big Return

It happened so unexpectedly that Bubba got blindsided that week in early January. He'd seen his old coach and friend occasionally at charity banquets and golf tournaments but had "no inclination" that the man who once brought the Redskins to national prominence was thinking about coaching again.

When the rumors started flying that Tuesday, Bubba was cleaning up at the Hilton Head house and hadn't heard a word. When Cathy called the next morning, excited, saying, "It's in the paper! Joe's coming!" Bubba shrugged. "Aw, that's not true," he said.

Then former Redskins physician and Bubba buddy Don Knowlan called, saying, "Joe's coming back!" And Bubba said, "When I go to Redskins Park and see Joe Gibbs in that coach's office, then I'll know he's back."

Bubba called developer Bill Hazel, a Gibbs confidant. "Bill?" Bubba started. Hazel cut him short: "He's on his way back, Bubba!"

That was that. Bubba hopped into his car and headed home to attend the big news conference that Thursday. Gibbs called him, and they met Friday at Redskins Park.

"That was one of the first meetings I had," says Gibbs, explaining that "the medical team" plays such a critical role on a football team that he wanted somebody in charge whom he knew and trusted. "I said, 'I need you to come back and help.' "

Two years ago, Redskins owner Dan Snyder had talked Bubba out of retiring and gave the tired head trainer an upstairs job. Bubba was never completely convinced he did the right thing. And Cathy was peeved about blowing off a $3,000 trip to Spain she'd booked for them.

But this time it was different. "He said he needed me and I said, 'Great, I'm here,' '' says Bubba. "But if it weren't for Joe Gibbs, I wouldn't be back."

Getting the Treatment

The training room in Loudoun County is a large, wide-open space equipped with ice machines, treadmills, stationary bikes and training tables. A rack of exercise balls lines a back wall near the X-ray room. The whirlpool rooms and a high-tech underwater treadmill are on the opposite side.

"Where the tire meets the road is in that athletic training room," says Keoki Kamau, one of four Bubba proteges who became head trainers in the NFL. "Every single person on that team will get hurt -- whether it is a sprain or something serious."

Pain and injury are big business in the NFL. Since Bubba first joined the Redskins as one of the league's original assistant trainers, athletic training has built muscle in the NFL and all other professional sports. Today there are more than 100 full-time head or assistant NFL trainers, according to the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society. And every team has physicians and orthopedic surgeons on board.

NFL training rooms are not generally open to outsiders because injuries are guarded like state secrets from other teams and oddsmakers -- those NFL-required weekly reports aside. So training rooms are safe havens, comfort zones away from the pressures of the field, apart from coaches' scrutiny. Players spend hours in treatment here. They socialize, male-bond, roughhouse, confide.

"Lovin' them, lookin' after them and sometimes kickin' them out of there" is how Gibbs describes Bubba's training-room role. "He has a great way with the players. He sees a different side of the players than the coaches do."

In the healing of million-dollar athletes, Bubba is an icon. He was named top trainer in 2000 by the NFL and "Super Athletic Trainer of the Year" in 2001 by a sports medicine association. "He's a legend. All of us in the NFL know Bubba Tyer," says John Burrell, the Redskins' new head trainer in the big office next to Bubba's.

Sam Huff, the Hall of Fame linebacker, radio game analyst and Redskins authority, says: "It's a tough job. Your life is not your own. Bubba's life basically belongs to the Washington Redskins."

Bubba's office is sparsely decorated. Its door opens directly on the training room. A black Redskins T-shirt with a Bubbaism -- "Working to Win" -- hangs on one wall. By the door is a photo of the Over-the-Hill Gang, George Allen's collection of past-their-prime misfits that was the heart of the stingy Redskins defenses in the '70s -- and some of Bubba's favorite characters.

Bubba has worked for six Redskins head coaches -- Allen, Jack Pardee, Gibbs, Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer and Steve Spurrier. He has weathered ownership changes from Edward Bennett Williams to Jack Kent Cooke to Daniel Snyder. He helped get the team to five Super Bowls.

His first year at old Redskins Park was 1971, the year some of today's aging veteran Redskins were newborns. On that first roster were greats such as Sonny Jurgensen, Billy Kilmer, Larry Brown, Pat Fischer, Charley Taylor -- names on FedEx Field's Ring of Honor. Bubba's name is up there beside them.

Sen. George Allen Jr. -- famed coach George Allen's son, who hung out in the training room as a teenager back in the day -- says there's no question why Gibbs wanted Bubba back: "There's no one who has more longevity in the organization than Bubba. He's the glue that has kept the Redskins traditions alive."

"Heyyyy, Bubby!" Joe Bugel yells, stepping into the office.

Bugel was the architect of "the Hogs," the Redskins' burly offensive line 20 years ago that set new standards for offensive linemen. This go-round he is Gibbs's assistant head coach on offense.

"This guy right here, he's the man!" Bugel says. "One of the best hires we made, this guy right here! When Bubba tells you something, you listen. That's why Joe Gibbs wanted him. He's one of us! One of us, baby!"

Bubba reaches into his pocket for the quarter.

Staying Power

Bubba got into athletic training by accident. He was 13, riding his bicycle in his home town of Nederland, Tex., when a '53 Chevy pickup ran over him. "I got hit and thrown off the side of the truck into the ditch," says Bubba. He suffered a fractured skull, a busted elbow and broken ribs.

The injuries ended his high school football career before it started -- which, in '50s south Texas, where football was life itself, was bad news. He went to see the football coach at Nederland High -- at that time, Bum Phillips, who 20 years later would coach the Houston Oilers. Bubba asked to be equipment manager.

"If you weren't associated with football, you were kind of left out," says Bubba.

After high school, he studied at the University of Texas to be a trainer. After a year he transferred to Lamar University to work under respected trainer Bobby Gunn. When he graduated, the Marines tapped Bubba for Vietnam, but instead Gunn got his protege assigned to Quantico as trainer of the Marine football team, which played a college schedule as a recruiting gimmick.

When new Redskins coach Allen hired Gunn three years later to be head trainer, Bubba's mentor brought him along. Gunn lasted one year under the hyper-intense Allen. Bubba stayed. And stayed.

"George Allen, that was special," says Bubba. "He demanded a lot of your time."

Right down to the minute. You leave at 4:30 p.m. to get a haircut, "invariably there'd be a note on your door the next morning saying, 'I wanted to see you at 5:15. -- G.A.' He would've driven us nuts had he had e-mail and cell phones," says Bubba.

Everything was about winning, even little battles. "Coach Allen was obsessive about it," says Bubba. He laughs and recalls an incident with Allen's middle son, Bruce, then a teenager who practically grew up at Redskins Park. "During one game, Bruce was on the sideline cussing, you know, hollering at the other team's players. An official came over and said, 'Who is that young man on the sidelines?' " Not willing to sacrifice another voice on the sideline, Allen looked at his son and told the official, "I don't know."

Allen was infamous for checking up on players in the off-season, even assigning wives of team docs and trainers to phone certain players. "His saying was, 'What you do in the off-season determines what you'll do in the season,' " says Bubba.

Once Allen sent Bubba to New Orleans to check on Billy Kilmer. "He said, 'I want to know how much he weighs and if he's working out,' " recalls Bubba.

The hard-playing quarterback, nicknamed "Whiskey," picked up Bubba at the airport and took him to the French Quarter for drinks, then to Jimmy Moran's for dinner and more drinks. "We got plastered," recalls Kilmer.

Then Bubba got paranoid that something bad would happen, "and George Allen's going to find out I'm drunk with Billy Kilmer and I'm going to get fired," he says.

Nothing bad happened, and Bubba flew back and reported to Allen: "Coach, Billy's in real good shape. You'll be really pleased with Billy."

That's Bubba, laughs Bruce Allen, now general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "Bubba was not only an expert in the medical field, but he was also a counselor and a friend and a psychologist."

Spilling Some Secrets

Bubba says going from George Allen to Joe Gibbs was memorable, and he expects the next Gibbs season will be again.

He says that for all of Allen's eccentricities, Gibbs has a few of his own. "I get a kick out of Joe because he doesn't cuss," he says. "He'll stand up in front of the team and tell them, 'We're going to kick their buns!' And the team goes, 'Buns?' The players nicknamed him 'Bunsy' because of that -- and the way he looks in his coaching shorts."

But trainers walk a thin line between the players who befriend and confide in them and the coaches who would exploit those confidences. John Riggins, the Hall of Fame running back, says that as "upbeat and a good guy" as Bubba is, what happens in the training room doesn't always stay in the training room.

"Bubba's a double agent," Riggins says, laughing. "I joke about it, but there is a little bit of truth to it. You don't want to do anything in front of Bubba that you don't want Coach Gibbs to know about 'cause Bubba's a very loyal guy."

Bubba gets serious when talking about Riggins in the glory years. He admired how Riggins played football, not what he did off the field, he says. "John would drink and carry on but, boy, he could play like a man on Sundays. But there were a couple of linemen who loved drinking with him. Come the next day they weren't any good to us. Old Riggo could do it, but they couldn't."

And it's the trainers who are held accountable for getting players ready to play. In a 1999 overtime loss to the Cowboys, several players cramped up from dehydration, but Bubba couldn't persuade Michael Westbrook and a few other bullheaded players to drink enough water.

"I was in the owner's box after that game," Bubba says, "and it wasn't just a little short visit."

Trick Plays

Bubba has pulled more pranks than anybody. Filling the cab of receiver Clint Didier's old Ford pickup with popcorn and hoisting assistant coach Jerry Rhome's bicycle up a flagpole, taping two aspirin to defensive end Dexter Manley's ankle and convincing him it would stop the ache.

Bubba and Keoki Kamau clipped threads in the seat seam of Donnie Warren's street pants, knowing that the big tight end never wore underwear. "We went out drinking and I blew out the back of my shorts," says Warren.

After a preseason game in Los Angeles, the team returned to training camp at Dickinson College and found that the entire dormitory stank unbearably, thanks to Bubba. "It was a damn chicken in one of my dresser drawers," says Kamau.

Russ Grimm, the former Redskins offensive guard and now the Pittsburgh Steelers' offensive line coach, remembers how Bubba filled former center Jeff Bostic's car "with those Styrofoam things. He'd put sour milk in your closet. And he can't tape ankles!"

But what ticked off, and tickled, Grimm most was Bubba constantly intercepting and hiding packages of smokeless tobacco the American Tobacco Co. sent him free. Bubba had asked the company to stop sending "dip" because it was unhealthy; Grimm had made sure the company continued doing so, leading to the hide-and-seek game.

Once, in the '90s, when Grimm was a Redskins coach, instead of twisting Bubba's arm to get the package back, Grimm picked up his good buddy and dumped him in the whirlpool, clothes and all.

As the team warmed up that day, a dried-off Bubba emptied Grimm's locker -- his hunting boots, favorite straw golf hat, everything but jeans and wallet -- and carted them out onto the field. He waved to Grimm, who was conducting practice across the field, then ceremoniously squirted lighter fluid on the pile -- and dropped a match. "It all went up in flames and I was going crazy," says Grimm.

When the Redskins played the Giants the next week, Coach Norv Turner gave the team a pep talk, saying, "It's important to get even."

"Then Norv says, 'Watch this,' " Bubba recalls. "He pushes a button and a videotape comes on of me lighting Russ's stuff on fire. And Russ gets up and says, . . . 'I'm going to get you!' "

Bubba locked himself in his hotel room that night.

"I still owe him for that one," says Grimm. "Tell Lamar to keep looking over his shoulder."

Bubba notes that the Redskins play in Pittsburgh this season. "I'll do something to him," he counters. "Warn him."

Hearing of Bubba's boast, Cathy Tyer sighs. "Oh, Bubba Tyer. That man is a piece of work. If you tell that to Russ, please remind him Bubba is getting older."

Says Donnie Warren, the tight end: "That's why we won. It was just like a family. And that's why Bubba is coming on board again."

The Good Life

When Bubba retired last year, he says he picked season tickets for the lower corner section in FedEx where players enter and exit the field so he can "be cussing the other team from the stands."

Those tickets are now available. And, hey, retirement might not have been all it's cracked up to be anyway. Their daughter, Ashley, 22, graduated from Virginia Tech and was married in July, so the empty-nest Tyers got a six-month dose of retirement life together.

Bubba around the house all the time? "When you're there day in and day out together and you know this isn't temporary, it's an adjustment," says Cathy, a real estate agent in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, who has been married to Bubba for 20 years. "I like to sleep in, and he's up at the crack of dawn and had two cups of coffee and read 15 newspapers. Little things like that. So, between the two of us, it was, 'Okay, one of us has to find something to do.' "

So never mind for now that crab boat that Bubba intends to name "the Sidelines," so that when someone asks, "Where's Bubba?" the answer is "On the Sidelines." He's going to be on the real sidelines instead, cursing opponents, cheering the Redskins, healing players, just like always.

For how long? "Joe told me to stay as long as he stays," says Bubba, who signed a one-year contract. "I'm going to work my tail off and we'll see at the end of the year. But I just know in my heart that we're going to be successful."

Which reminds Russ Grimm: "Somebody needs to make a call to Mr. Snyder because they put Bubba's name up on the Ring of Honor. They should take his name down. The Ring of Honor is only for people after they're gone -- and Bubba's back."

[TK]

http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50964

[Dan T.]

D'oh. :doh:

I searched on "Bubba" and didn't see a hit on this. Oh well. I guess I won't be changing my username to Dan aka Scoop T.

Good read anyway. I love the story about taping two aspirins to Dexter's ankle and convincing him it would help heal his sprain! Or burning the entire contents of Grimm's locker right there on the practice field.