Even Cowpukes like Gibbs
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:20 pm
COWBOY CONFESSION: REDSKINS’ GIBBS IS OK GUY|
(For use by New York Times News Service clients.)|
| By RICHARD OLIVER|
| c.2004 San Antonio Express-News|
SAN ANTONIO — It’s just not the same.
Something’s missing, and it leaves me feeling as lost and empty today as a discarded beer keg at a fraternity house.
As a Dallas Cowboys fan, I miss the hate.
The NFL season is upon us, bringing with it the same familiar promise of malevolence and antagonism that has captivated this Texas boy for decades.
Like a squall line before a cold front, the emotions have usually rolled in with howling and thunder.
But not today.
The despised Washington Redskins kicked off their preseason schedule on Monday night, beating the Denver Broncos 20-17.
The occurrence hit with all the impact of a marshmallow dropped on felt. It was supposed to raise the usual bitter bile of loathing, to bring forth the comfortable contempt that has annually signaled the change from hot pavement to hot under the collar.
I wanted the same old anger, bubbling up like volcanic magma, but instead felt nothing more than a dull irritation.
Darn that Joe Gibbs.
The Washington head coach is back, and is simply too classy, too respected, too dadgum likable to detest. It’s not like yesteryear, when Gibbs was a young hothead engineering championship teams with brash confidence, allowing his players to march into Dallas dressed in Army fatigues, hogging NFC East titles by scaring the sneer off the likes of former Giants coach Bill Parcells.
Now, Gibbs is a remarkable comeback story, a Hall of Famer who stood on the sideline at Canton, Ohio, looking like a sexagenarian Harry Potter, working his old magic to bring a moribund franchise back to life.
He’s a feel-good story, a warm-and-fuzzy backdrop for a cold and heartless sport.
He looked, well, cute.
In a startling evolution, I found myself rooting for Washington against Denver and its severe head coach, Mike Shanahan, who often has the pinched look of a man who just swallowed a bug.
Following the Redskins’ victory, Gibbs was predictably pleasant and giddy, at one point unleashing that noted high-pitched giggle that sounds like a hyena on helium. Who can’t appreciate that?
For a football fan raised to view the Cowboys as heaven and Washington as something a markedly different zip code from that, the development ranked as nothing less than a spiritual rebirth.
I haven’t felt this kind of forgiveness in my heart since they brought red M&Ms back.
It’s a stark contrast to only a few months ago, when the arrogant Steve Spurrier still prowled Washington’s fields, the smirk on his face hiding the apparent cluelessness behind it. He was a wonderful target for Cowboys fans, as was Marty Schottenheimer before that and Norv Turner before that.
Even in Dallas’ darkest hours, it has still managed to torture the ’Skins in recent seasons, and the venom flowed hot in veins pumping blue and silver.
Like most Cowboys fans, I grew up conditioned to despise the Redskins, mostly by sitting before the television as a youngster as packs of snarling adults spat insults and the occasional profanity at the screen when the teams met, usually when former coach George Allen popped up.
My divorced mother, who lifted up Dallas coach Tom Landry as a deified father figure for her impressionable young son, demonized the finger-licking, pompous Allen as a reviled challenger to all that was good and proper. If one of his thugs laid a hand on Roger Staubach, well, hell’s got a spot for coaches like that.
The years changed, but the enmity didn’t. Despising the Redskins became a rite of fall as natural as falling temperatures and the opening day of school.
Even today, I have a special place in my heart for former Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who was nice enough to fall on the lower leg of Joe Theismann in 1983, breaking it and effectively ending the Washington quarterback’s career.
Where’s the forgiveness? Hey, one Redskin at a time.
Now, along comes Gibbs, who left his NASCAR racing team behind when Redskins owner Daniel Snyder showered him with enough money to wallpaper the Washington Monument.
As a result, Washington is suddenly the NFL’s sweetest story, and I’m left bitter.
Still, there’s a sliver of hope out there. Philadelphia is a pit of a town, and the Eagles strike me as kind of haughty. And that Terrell Owens? A noted Cowboys antagonist.
I hate that guy.
(Richard Oliver can be reached at roliver(at)express-news.net)
