Football coaches had always been thought of as tough, mean, and uncaring. Grizzled old men like Woody Hayes. Young workaholics like John Gruden. They yelled and cursed a lot and inspired large grown men to act like children. Like Bob Skoronski, an offensive tackle for the old Green Bay Packers. One summer night Skoronski took his kids for ice cream. When his coach, Vince Lombardi, walked up to the ice cream stand, Skoronski hid his cone behind his back. Tough, intimidating. Then along came Tony Dungy.
A kind, softspoken, non-cursing man who demonstrated that you don’t have to yell and scream and intimidate to succeed as a coach in the NFL. I have never seen anyone so universally respected. Tony epitomizes the concept of someone being a better person than they are a player or coach. His retirement prompted me to think about Leo Durocher’s adage that nice men finish last. No, they don’t. His retirement also made me realize how rare such nice people are in professional sports. And that shouldn’t be. So I thought and thought and lo and behold guess what I remembered? That there are nice guys in sports.
I sat in the bleachers at Wrigley Field before a Cubs-Dodgers game and watched Dodgers pitchers Orel Hershisher and Roger McDowell playing catch with the Chicago fans. As Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda walked by, McDowell grabbed his hat and gave it to a kid in the stands. Then Hershiser pulled a barrel of balls over and challenged fans in the bleachers to throw a ball into it from their seat. The first person who could throw a ball into the barrel would get Hershiser’s hat, a bat and Hershiser’s jersey with a $100 bill in the pocket. And sure enough someone won.
In 1996, the year after Cal Ripken broke the Ironman streak, I was at Fenway before a Sox-Orioles game and watched Ripken spend 45 minutes signing autographs in three different areas of the stadium. He was like a rock star and did his best to accommodate everyone. I also watched Eddie Murray and Bobby Bonilla walk by those same fans and refuse to even turn their heads and look at the fans asking for autographs.
If you aren’t a hockey fan then you may not appreciate just how big Wayne Gretzky was. He is on the Mt Rushmore of sports icons with Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, and Muhammed Ali. I watched the press conference after his final game and watched a Rangers front office person tell the media this would be the last question. Gretzky said no, that was okay, he had time. He did that five times.
After Pat Lafontaine retired from the NHL, the head of Buffalo’s Children’s Hospital finally told the story of his good deeds. Lafontaine had his own key to the hospital so he could come and go as he pleased away from the media and the cameras. The hospital would call in the middle of the night asking Lafontaine to come visit a sick child. He always did.
Just a few. We have to realize that not every professional athlete is Pacman Jones or Chad “whatever he wants to be called today”. There are plenty of great stories. We need to talk about them more.
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