SPTimes:Second coming

[scskinsfan]

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/08/Sports/Second_coming.shtml

Second coming

After a third Super Bowl win coach Joe Gibbs resigned and his Redskins sank to mediocrity. His return this year has resurrected hope.

By JOANNE KORTH, Times Staff Writer

Published September 8, 2004

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ASHBURN, Va. - The massive huddle marking the end of practice broke to the cheers of thousands of fans. Players scattered in every direction, many of them tugging off shoulder pads as they jogged toward the air-conditioned comfort of the Redskins' training facility. Coach Joe Gibbs, a man with 11 years of homework to catch up on, strode toward the crush of people lining a nearby railing.

Young fans with tattoos.

Old fans with wrinkles.

Loyal fans with hope renewed.

Around a bend and up a hill, the 63-year-old coach inched his way along the meandering line, signing autographs, thanking fans as genuinely as they thanked him. The path led Gibbs to the back door of a plain white building he worked in 11 years ago. A building with an all-hours meeting room called the submarine and three gleaming Super Bowl trophies in a front-lobby display case.

The forces in Gibbs' life - the allegiances, the successes, the fans, the prayers, the loving family and the beckoning challenges - led him back to this spot, back to the door he walked out of all those years ago, supposedly for the last time.

"The first go-around, I had real good people and a real good coaching staff and was very fortunate. This time, who knows? It could go totally the other way," Gibbs said with a high-pitched giggle, almost a squeal. "I think this is where I'm supposed to be, but it may be to get plastered, I don't know. We'll find out."

Fans still calling his name, Gibbs reached for the door and gave it a tug.

Gibbs was an incurable workaholic the first time around. He and his staff submerged themselves daily in the submarine, where they schemed, argued, told stories and ate candy bars into the wee hours of the morning. Afterward, they stole a few hours of sleep on cots set up in their offices. Some weeks, Gibbs did not go home for three or four days.

But it worked.

From 1981 to 1992, Gibbs led Washington to four Super Bowls and won three, compiling a 140-65 record. His all-time winning percentage of .683, including an astounding 16-5 playoff mark, remains the best among NFL coaches with at least 125 wins. He resigned in March 1993, and three years later was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, complete with bronze bust and heartfelt acceptance speech.

No regrets.

"I figured at that point it was the culmination of all I was going to do in football," Gibbs said. "So, now we've got a chance to drag it out of there and melt it down."

The years after Gibbs retired were lean for the proud franchise. Five coaches - Ritchie Pettitbone, Norv Turner, Terry Robiskie, Marty Schottenheimer and Steve Spurrier - combined for a 75-102 record and one playoff appearance.

When owner Daniel Snyder lured Gibbs out of retirement, he brought back one of Washington's most respected figures and the symbol of the Redskins' glory years. All of Washington is buzzing with the return of a savior.

It starts Sunday at FedEx Field against the Bucs.

"(For) the fans up there, Joe Gibbs coming back is kind of like the second coming of Moses," said retired quarterback Doug Williams, the MVP of Super Bowl XXII under Gibbs, now a Bucs personnel executive. "They feel invincible at this point because Joe Gibbs is the coach."

Gibbs' formula for success is simple but somewhat elusive in today's big-money, big-ego sports world: people and teamwork. He believes in character, hard work and unity. So a team that lacked discipline the past two years under Spurrier is going old-school with Gibbs, who presides over practice with a quiet confidence, arms folded across his chest.

"It's like playing for my granddaddy," 24-year-old cornerback Fred Smoot said. "He don't have to cuss you. He can look at you and smile, but I know he means business. He's somebody you want to lay it on the line for: "I'm not leaving this field 'til I can't walk anymore.' I can see why they won those Super Bowls, no doubt."

The second installment of Gibbs' NFL career features largely the same cast of characters as the first. Shortly after signing a five-year, $27.5-million contract, Gibbs called many of his former Redskins assistants out of retirement in a reunion that would have made the Blues Brothers proud. Gibbs got the band back together, artificial hips and all.

Assistant head coach Joe Bugel and silver-haired offensive coordinator Don Breaux are 64. Tight ends coach Rennie Simmons is 62. Quarterbacks coach Jack Burns is 54. Combined, they have 84 years of NFL coaching experience.

"This team has rejuvenated us. We feel like we're 40 years old, even though we're in our 60s," said Bugel, the architect of the Hogs, Washington's dominant offensive line of the 1980s.

"Joe loves challenges. We built such a great program in the '80s and early '90s, and he saw the deterioration. Something had to be done and, hey, maybe we're the right people to try to get it back. We're going to be the most scrutinized football team this whole year, just to see if those old farts can come back and do something."

It's not like Gibbs was a restless retiree. Life after football was rewarding for Gibbs, who became a successful NASCAR team owner, author and guest speaker. He applied the same winning formula from the Redskins to his NASCAR team: people and teamwork. Joe Gibbs Racing won the 1993 Daytona 500 with driver Dale Jarrett and Winston Cup championships in 2000 with Bobby Labonte and 2002 with Tony Stewart.

Sundays were still competitive, spent on pit road amid the roar of 800-horsepower engines. Atop the pit box, Gibbs had a headset to monitor the conversations between driver and crew chief, but it came with strict orders for the excitable owner who didn't know a sway bar from a shock absorber: Don't say anything.

Meanwhile, the NFL moved on without Gibbs. It adopted a parity-driven salary cap. Free agency churned rosters. Coaches devised game plans on computers. Defenses became more aggressive. And those clumsy sideline signals, once the only way for coaches to send plays in to the quarterback, gave way to one-way radio transmissions with a headset linked to an earpiece in the quarterback's helmet.

In 2002, Gibbs bought a minority interest in the Falcons, owned by Arthur Blank, whose Home Depot company sponsors Stewart's No. 20 Chevrolet. At first Gibbs watched the games casually but before long, according to son J.D., Gibbs was studying them.

He had the itch.

When younger son, Coy, decided to give up racecar driving for coaching, Gibbs' course was set. He turned the NASCAR team over to J.D. and headed to Washington, where Coy is a first-year assistant.

"I tell you what," Gibbs said, grinning, "they let me talk on the headsets here."

You bet they do.

* * *

In the 1980s, Gibbs was an offensive innovator, popularizing three-receiver sets and the use of an H-back in pass protection. He used the run to set up the pass. Gibbs won championships in the 1982, '87 and '91 seasons with three quarterbacks: Joe Theismann, Williams and Mark Rypien.

That many of Gibbs' schemes appear in the playbooks of the league's top offenses, such as St. Louis and Kansas City, perhaps indicates the league has not passed him by.

"Fortunately, I've got some of these old game plans that I've kept all of these years," said Breaux, his bright eyes peering over the top of his bifocals. "My wife said, "Why in the world are you dragging those things around?' This was why, I guess."

Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin knows better than to think Gibbs tipped his hand during a 3-2 preseason. Kiffin is worried as much about the new wrinkles in Gibbs' game plan as the AARP gang's old tricks.

"Has he added some things these other coaches have brought to him since he's been out of the league?" Kiffin said. "I promise you, he's got some things he's not showing, because he's always done that, even back when he became a head coach. In the preseason games he didn't show anything. Then he came out and spread the field."

Clearly, some things will be different.

Now, when the staff gathers in the submarine, it will draw plays tailored to running back Clinton Portis, veteran quarterback Mark Brunell and receiver Laveranues Coles.

While the Hogettes, male fans who don outlandish women's clothes and plastic pig snouts, remain fixtures at Redskins games, Bugel has given this generation of offensive linemen a new, equally dubious nickname to honor: The Dirt Bags.

Gibbs promised his wife, Pat, that he would come home every night to sleep, no matter how late. A diabetic, Gibbs must watch his health. But he already has installed a shower and cot near his office, so the promise may not keep.

"Joe may have told a fib," Bugel said.

Gibbs knows only one way to coach: full bore. It didn't take long to fall back into the familiar habits, for the debates to rage in the submarine. He is as eager as anyone to see if his principles of coaching still apply.

"I think that's the reason it's so challenging," Gibbs said. "Can you get that many people from that many diverse backgrounds to sacrifice their individual goals for a team? Can you do all that? I think that's why people enjoy it and admire it."

And what drew Gibbs back.

[cphil006]

He's already stayed late I'm sure. Late as in 3 days...