Latest / Bengals Booth Podcast / Bengals Booth Podcast: History
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Hi, get everybody on Dan Hord and thanks for downloading
- 0:06Speaker 1: The Bengals Booth Podcast, the Got a Whole Lot of
- 0:11Speaker 1: History edition, as Hall of Famer and former Bengals coach
- 0:15Speaker 1: tick lebou joins me to discuss his remarkable life in football.
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- 0:42Speaker 1: a quick reminder that you can have the latest edition
- 0:45Speaker 1: of this podcast delivered right to your phone, tablet, or
- 0:48Speaker 1: computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. It's the
- 0:53Speaker 1: greatest thing since efficient use of dishes. I've joked on
- 0:58Speaker 1: this podcast before about some of my unique skills. For example,
- 1:03Speaker 1: I consider myself a world class whistler. If they ever
- 1:07Speaker 1: come out with American whistling idol, I'm a number one seed. Also,
- 1:12Speaker 1: I am an expert at pouring the perfect amount of
- 1:15Speaker 1: milk into a bowl of cereal so that the cereal
- 1:18Speaker 1: and milk end on the same spoonful. Well, let me
- 1:22Speaker 1: add another thing to the list. I have a genius
- 1:25Speaker 1: level ability to cook a meal with the minimal amount
- 1:29Speaker 1: of dirty pots, pans, utensils, dishes, et cetera. Part of
- 1:34Speaker 1: it is cleaning as I go, but when I'm finished,
- 1:37Speaker 1: there's generally very little cleanup required. In contrast, when my
- 1:42Speaker 1: wife makes dinner, and in fairness, she is a vastly
- 1:45Speaker 1: superior cook who makes dinner most of the time, the
- 1:48Speaker 1: sink looks like she's an army chef that just finished
- 1:52Speaker 1: serving the troops. You can probably tell who does the dishes. Now,
- 1:58Speaker 1: let's get to football. Dick Lebau played his first NFL
- 2:03Speaker 1: game in nineteen fifty nine as a twenty two year
- 2:06Speaker 1: old rookie for the Detroit Lions. He ended his coaching
- 2:09Speaker 1: career in twoenty seventeen as the eighty year old defensive
- 2:15Speaker 1: coordinator for the Tennessee Titans. In between, Dick spent fifty
- 2:20Speaker 1: nine consecutive years in the NFL as a player or coach,
- 2:24Speaker 1: and while he's best known nationally for the great defense
- 2:26Speaker 1: as he built in Pittsburgh, he actually spent more years
- 2:30Speaker 1: in Cincinnati than anywhere else, eighteen, including two plus years
- 2:36Speaker 1: as the Bengals head coach. Dick lives in the Cincinnati
- 2:39Speaker 1: area in retirement and joined me to discuss his remarkable career. Dick,
- 2:47Speaker 1: I think most people listening to this podcast know that
- 2:50Speaker 1: you spent your entire Hall of Fame playing career with
- 2:53Speaker 1: the Detroit Lions. But you were actually drafted by Paul
- 2:56Speaker 1: Brown in Cleveland in nineteen fifty nine. He was about
- 2:59Speaker 1: fifteen years old at the time, he had already won
- 3:02Speaker 1: seven championships. What do you remember about that training camp
- 3:05Speaker 1: under PB and fifty.
- 3:07Speaker 2: Nine, Well, coach Paul was an innovator from the word
- 3:14Speaker 2: to go and many of the things that were firsts
- 3:18Speaker 2: for the National Football League in terms of training camps
- 3:22Speaker 2: and off season schedules, in season schedules, note books, they
- 3:29Speaker 2: all go back passing game, if you want to, they
- 3:32Speaker 2: all go back to Paul Brown. And he was just
- 3:37Speaker 2: he wasn't a very big man. He was a good
- 3:40Speaker 2: college quarterback, I think at Miami of Ohio, and he
- 3:45Speaker 2: was a guy that when he came into the room,
- 3:47Speaker 2: there was no question who was running the meeting. And
- 3:51Speaker 2: he just was a born leader with a tremendous acumen
- 3:55Speaker 2: for athletics and football in particular, and judge, he just
- 4:01Speaker 2: had an innate judge of talent, and he could almost
- 4:04Speaker 2: I think it was almost osmotic, because he would look
- 4:06Speaker 2: at somebody and he'd say, Oh, I don't think he's
- 4:09Speaker 2: going to make it, you know, And most of the
- 4:12Speaker 2: time he wouldn't, or he would say, this guy is
- 4:14Speaker 2: going to be a good football player. And that's how
- 4:17Speaker 2: he built his team and his records. I have a
- 4:23Speaker 2: particular oddity that I like to throw to the Brown
- 4:27Speaker 2: family whenever I get an opportunity. I was released from
- 4:31Speaker 2: my position three different times in the National Football League,
- 4:34Speaker 2: all of them by the Brown family. But in between there,
- 4:40Speaker 2: I have eighteen years of employment, and you know something,
- 4:45Speaker 2: and every time that I went to the bank, they
- 4:48Speaker 2: cast a check, and anything that any Brown family member
- 4:54Speaker 2: ever said to me that they were going to do
- 4:58Speaker 2: or weren't going to do for that matter, it was exactly.
- 5:01Speaker 2: You could go to the bank on their word, and
- 5:04Speaker 2: they were as good a people to work for as
- 5:07Speaker 2: you could ever hope for in any walk of life.
- 5:10Speaker 1: Did Paul ever express regret that he didn't keep you
- 5:13Speaker 1: as a player in fifty nine.
- 5:16Speaker 2: Oh, that's one of my favorite stories. Several years later,
- 5:22Speaker 2: Paul was up to my hometown, London, Ohio, and he
- 5:25Speaker 2: was speaking at a men's club banquet at the London
- 5:30Speaker 2: Country Club, which is no big deal at all because
- 5:33Speaker 2: at that time there were only about eight thousand people
- 5:36Speaker 2: in the town. But Paul married a London girl, so
- 5:40Speaker 2: he was I think out of just respect for her
- 5:44Speaker 2: and her where she came from, I agreed to go
- 5:47Speaker 2: up there and speak to him. Well, there are quite
- 5:49Speaker 2: a few of my friends in there, and I had
- 5:52Speaker 2: made several all pro teams. But then, you know, and
- 5:57Speaker 2: my buddy started to kind of giving Paul a little
- 6:01Speaker 2: the jam, you know, when he was doing the question
- 6:03Speaker 2: and answer, and one of one of my good buddies says, well,
- 6:08Speaker 2: you know, he said, you guys, cut dick lebou. And
- 6:12Speaker 2: now he's he's going into his thirteenth year and he's
- 6:16Speaker 2: three times in the Pro Bowl and he is leading
- 6:18Speaker 2: the league in interceptions, and don't you think that you
- 6:22Speaker 2: made a mistake there, Coach Brown and Paul he just
- 6:27Speaker 2: kind of shoveled his feet a little bit and he said, oh,
- 6:30Speaker 2: he said, I've let a lot better players than dick
- 6:33Speaker 2: lea bou Go, which was classic Paul. But you know,
- 6:39Speaker 2: when you look back at it, you know he traded
- 6:41Speaker 2: Willie Davis and through two or three other guys that
- 6:46Speaker 2: are in a Hall of Fame. He either cut him
- 6:48Speaker 2: or trade him. He knew where he was going and
- 6:51Speaker 2: he knew what his plan was, and if you didn't
- 6:54Speaker 2: exactly fit it, he we're on down the street now.
- 6:57Speaker 2: And then in those days, I was like to tell
- 7:00Speaker 2: the story, there were thirty one players on the squad period,
- 7:06Speaker 2: and you didn't worry about special teams. If you were
- 7:09Speaker 2: on the team, you played, if you were capable, you
- 7:13Speaker 2: played punt team, punt return team, kickoff team. The only
- 7:16Speaker 2: thing I didn't play on was the extra point team
- 7:19Speaker 2: field goal team. I wasn't big enough for that. But
- 7:25Speaker 2: there were five defensive backs on the final roster, and
- 7:29Speaker 2: that was pretty much true throughout the whole league. And
- 7:34Speaker 2: at that time there were only twelve teams, so there
- 7:36Speaker 2: were only sixty guys making a living playing professional football
- 7:42Speaker 2: unless you wanted to go to the only other option
- 7:44Speaker 2: was Canada, which I didn't want to do, but so
- 7:48Speaker 2: to get released from a team, me and the guy
- 7:54Speaker 2: but the name of Farrell Funston, who was a really
- 7:57Speaker 2: good wide receiver from a College of Pacific. He had
- 8:01Speaker 2: about an eight or nine year professional career. We were
- 8:06Speaker 2: the last two guys cut from the Cleveland Browns that year,
- 8:09Speaker 2: and it was after the last preseason game. We played
- 8:12Speaker 2: six at that time, So to go to the last
- 8:14Speaker 2: cut out of training camp, you didn't have to hang
- 8:19Speaker 2: your head. You just hoped that somebody else would have
- 8:21Speaker 2: a spot for you, and it worked out for me.
- 8:23Speaker 1: The Browns were a perennial contender that as well, so
- 8:26Speaker 1: it was a tough roster to make. How grueling was
- 8:29Speaker 1: that training camp in fifty nine?
- 8:31Speaker 2: Training camp then was truly training camp. Like all things,
- 8:35Speaker 2: the science of football has advanced tremendously. Guys didn't do
- 8:41Speaker 2: that much in the offseason, and because they knew that,
- 8:43Speaker 2: the training camp was literally almost two months long, and
- 8:49Speaker 2: you were going two times a day for that first month,
- 8:53Speaker 2: and you had plenty of time to play yourself into shape.
- 8:58Speaker 2: And that was kind of the statis qurow throughout the
- 9:03Speaker 2: league at that time. But it was you were hunting
- 9:10Speaker 2: for that bed at lunch. After lunch, you jumped in
- 9:13Speaker 2: for a nap. I don't care if you were twenty
- 9:16Speaker 2: one years old or not. But Coach Brown had an
- 9:20Speaker 2: interesting way of doing things, and he was not going
- 9:24Speaker 2: very too much over the years because it worked. He
- 9:28Speaker 2: put in one offensive play a day, one play a day,
- 9:34Speaker 2: and well actually too because we practiced twice a day
- 9:38Speaker 2: that first month. But the first day we actually would
- 9:41Speaker 2: go out on the field and the only play that
- 9:44Speaker 2: he had in was a quarterback sneak and we would
- 9:47Speaker 2: line up for team period for twenty minutes anyway running
- 9:52Speaker 2: quarterback seat. But that's how thorough he was. He was
- 9:55Speaker 2: the first one to universally, universally apply the notebook, and
- 10:03Speaker 2: the players took their own notes. So when you would
- 10:06Speaker 2: go into the team meeting, he would speak to you
- 10:09Speaker 2: and then you'd break them to the position meetings and
- 10:13Speaker 2: the position coach would draw up the lesson for the
- 10:16Speaker 2: day up on the board, and you as a player
- 10:19Speaker 2: would sit in the classroom and draw it up in
- 10:22Speaker 2: your notebook, which you took with you, and you could
- 10:26Speaker 2: you had it there to study, and if your notes
- 10:29Speaker 2: weren't good, then you had no one to blame but yourself.
- 10:32Speaker 2: But that was the way he did it. Stuff like that,
- 10:35Speaker 2: Like I said, he.
- 10:37Speaker 1: Really customized football we're visiting with Hall of Famer Dick Lebow.
- 10:44Speaker 1: Let's go from Paul Brown to another coaching legend. You
- 10:47Speaker 1: went from your small Ohio hometown to Ohio State, played
- 10:50Speaker 1: a big role in a national championship team in nineteen
- 10:53Speaker 1: fifty seven, and of course played for the legendary Woody Hayes.
- 10:57Speaker 1: What did you respect most about coach Hayes.
- 11:02Speaker 2: Well, you're talking about two of the greatest football coaches
- 11:05Speaker 2: that ever stepped in the coaching room. But I also
- 11:12Speaker 2: as a professional football player for fourteen years, Don Shula
- 11:18Speaker 2: was one of my earliest defensive coordinators. I went to
- 11:22Speaker 2: three Pro Bowls. Vince Lombardi was one of them. Shula
- 11:27Speaker 2: was the So I was lucky enough to be I
- 11:30Speaker 2: always wanted to be a coach myself, and so I
- 11:33Speaker 2: kept a pretty good eye on the people that were
- 11:36Speaker 2: the head coaches and my position coach for that matter,
- 11:40Speaker 2: because I just you know, I would evaluate to myself, well,
- 11:45Speaker 2: you know that's probably a good way to do that,
- 11:47Speaker 2: or I might say I don't think I would do
- 11:49Speaker 2: it that way. And I was trying to prepare myself
- 11:52Speaker 2: for a life of coaching. And when I was with
- 11:59Speaker 2: the toy like I say I had Don Shula was
- 12:04Speaker 2: one of our very first coaches there. Shula had played
- 12:08Speaker 2: for Baltimore and then came over his coaching job with us,
- 12:13Speaker 2: and we led the league for two years and nobody
- 12:15Speaker 2: was close to us. And actually, when the Baltimore job
- 12:18Speaker 2: came open, Don went back and that's how he got
- 12:21Speaker 2: his first head coaching job. And so I found this
- 12:27Speaker 2: to be true in watching these guys like Lombardy and
- 12:31Speaker 2: Woody and coach Paul Brown, there was something different about them,
- 12:37Speaker 2: about their personality, about the delivery of their material. I
- 12:42Speaker 2: felt when I would go away from that experience, whatever
- 12:46Speaker 2: they would have chosen to be professionally for the rest
- 12:50Speaker 2: of their lives, they'd have been a huge success. Like
- 12:52Speaker 2: they were a coach, they had they had it, you
- 12:56Speaker 2: know how they put the quotation marks. But wood he
- 13:01Speaker 2: was I think one of only two men and maybe
- 13:06Speaker 2: only one man who rose to the rank of captain
- 13:09Speaker 2: and the Navy from the enlistment ranks, and he had
- 13:13Speaker 2: his own ship, and he was just special. And you
- 13:18Speaker 2: know there's an old Saint Dan, if it doesn't kill you,
- 13:21Speaker 2: it's good for you. Well, I'm still here talking to you.
- 13:24Speaker 2: So what he was fairly demanding, but so was coach
- 13:28Speaker 2: Brown for that matter, and Coach Shule. I mean you
- 13:33Speaker 2: kind of if you demand excellence, I should say perfection.
- 13:40Speaker 2: I guess some of them were, but I curtailed it.
- 13:43Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's perfect, but if you seek that,
- 13:47Speaker 2: you're going to get pretty good. And you get pretty
- 13:50Speaker 2: much what you accept as a coach, and these guys
- 13:53Speaker 2: accepted nothing short of getting the job done.
- 13:57Speaker 1: Did I read correctly that you developed a friendship with
- 14:00Speaker 1: Bobby Knight when you were students at the same time
- 14:03Speaker 1: at Ohio State.
- 14:04Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I had my first two years in the
- 14:09Speaker 2: business accounting, and then I realized that it wasn't going
- 14:13Speaker 2: to work for me. I had to be a coach,
- 14:17Speaker 2: and I got back into physical education, and which was
- 14:22Speaker 2: the degree of teaching degree, and in doing so, I
- 14:26Speaker 2: piled up all these hours credits, but I didn't have
- 14:30Speaker 2: enough for major so I went back two years my
- 14:32Speaker 2: first two years of playing professional football, and these guys
- 14:36Speaker 2: were all one or two years behind me and the
- 14:39Speaker 2: great Ohio State National championship basketball team. I became friends
- 14:43Speaker 2: with all of them. I played basketball with them all
- 14:46Speaker 2: the time. They would always put me on mail nole
- 14:48Speaker 2: because I would foul him and they got a big
- 14:53Speaker 2: kick out of that. But everyone off that team we
- 14:56Speaker 2: played three or four times a week really in the
- 15:00Speaker 2: off season, everyone but Jerry Lucas. He was too dig
- 15:03Speaker 2: I'm good, and we didn't want to play with him anyhow.
- 15:07Speaker 2: But I got to be friends with Habilchek and night
- 15:13Speaker 2: and stuff like that, hanging out with him at the
- 15:15Speaker 2: man's gym because if I wasn't playing football, I was
- 15:19Speaker 2: getting my body ready to play football. And one of
- 15:21Speaker 2: the best ways I always told my defensive backs play basketball.
- 15:25Speaker 2: Only play defense and keep your position on your guy
- 15:29Speaker 2: and stay between him and in the basket all the time,
- 15:32Speaker 2: which is what you got to do on the football field.
- 15:34Speaker 2: You got to stay between that guy and the goal
- 15:36Speaker 2: line because once he gets over there, schools out. And
- 15:42Speaker 2: I was a good basketball player, I could play with
- 15:44Speaker 2: those guys. I maybe played a little rougher than they played,
- 15:50Speaker 2: but they were That was one of the trademarks of
- 15:54Speaker 2: that great Ohio State team. They were a physical team. Uh. Bobby,
- 16:00Speaker 2: he would drive me crazy because he would say, let's
- 16:03Speaker 2: go see Woody. He was. He was a very adamant
- 16:09Speaker 2: admire of wood He hates and Bobby wanted to be
- 16:12Speaker 2: a coach too, And Bobby and I would talk about
- 16:14Speaker 2: defensing our different sports all the time, keeping pressure on
- 16:17Speaker 2: the ball, and it ended up working out for both
- 16:20Speaker 2: of us. Now, he wanted to held a lot more
- 16:22Speaker 2: games than I did, but I won my share too.
- 16:25Speaker 2: But that was kind of what we came up with.
- 16:28Speaker 2: For me, it was you got to get the quarterback.
- 16:32Speaker 2: You know, you can't let him go in there and
- 16:34Speaker 2: have all day to shave or whatever back there passing
- 16:37Speaker 2: the ball. He's going to cut you up. And with
- 16:40Speaker 2: Bobby it was they have all these intricate patterns and
- 16:43Speaker 2: shot screens and posting drives and everything. He said, you
- 16:47Speaker 2: got to disrupt that with pressure on the ball. So
- 16:50Speaker 2: between the two of us we got along great. But
- 16:53Speaker 2: Bobby wouldn't say, let's go see Woody. Let's go see Woody.
- 16:56Speaker 2: I said, Bobby, we just were down there two days ago.
- 16:59Speaker 2: He's running up football team. And it wasn't the off season,
- 17:03Speaker 2: of course, when I could go back to school and
- 17:05Speaker 2: get my degree. But we became good friend and Bobby,
- 17:10Speaker 2: in my way of thinking, is probably the most misunderstood
- 17:14Speaker 2: a great coach in any sport in any Land. The
- 17:22Speaker 2: media perception of Bobby is all you hear now and
- 17:26Speaker 2: people you know that was a long time ago when
- 17:30Speaker 2: we were playing basketball together. But I wrote Bobby when
- 17:35Speaker 2: when he had his biggest problems, I said, Bobby, if
- 17:39Speaker 2: my son is ever good enough to play basketball, that
- 17:43Speaker 2: was my son's favorite game. I said, I'm going to
- 17:46Speaker 2: send him to where you are, wherever you are, because
- 17:49Speaker 2: I want you to coach my son. That's what I
- 17:52Speaker 2: believed that Bobby Night. And I'm not too sure that
- 17:57Speaker 2: I helped him at all. By exposing to the wood
- 18:00Speaker 2: he becaut. Some of Bobby's coaching techniques paralleled Woody, but
- 18:07Speaker 2: they both won a lot of games.
- 18:09Speaker 1: I was part of the Syracuse University broadcast team in
- 18:12Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven when they played Indiana in the championship game.
- 18:15Speaker 1: Had lost on the famous Keith Smart last second shot.
- 18:19Speaker 1: The day before the game, the head coaches did a
- 18:21Speaker 1: news conference. I still have the cassette recording. I don't
- 18:26Speaker 1: know if I have a cassette player to play it,
- 18:28Speaker 1: but I still have the tape of Bobby Knight speaking
- 18:31Speaker 1: reporters that day because it's the most impressive public speaking
- 18:35Speaker 1: appearance I have ever seen in my life. It was brilliant.
- 18:40Speaker 2: Bobby was a smart guy and he was a tremendous competitor.
- 18:44Speaker 2: You know, Bobby was They told him the greatest six
- 18:48Speaker 2: man in basketball. But he played as much as any
- 18:52Speaker 2: of the guys. He never missed. He had a jump shot,
- 18:55Speaker 2: it was poison. But he was great team player. Those
- 19:00Speaker 2: guys didn't care who was playing. They just all played
- 19:02Speaker 2: and they were tremendous. But Bobby was smart. He was
- 19:09Speaker 2: driven like all of us. You know, that end up coaching,
- 19:14Speaker 2: and sometimes his techniques were more befitting a football coach,
- 19:20Speaker 2: I think than a basketball coach. And it was a
- 19:23Speaker 2: different time, a different era, and I think that Bobby
- 19:26Speaker 2: would have altered a great deal of that in today's world.
- 19:31Speaker 2: But unfortunately a lot of the stories that have come
- 19:36Speaker 2: down from him, and he gave them plenty of material.
- 19:41Speaker 2: You hear about the wrong things that he did, and
- 19:44Speaker 2: Bobby did so many great things, and he was great
- 19:47Speaker 2: with the kids.
- 19:48Speaker 1: We're visiting with tickleball. Ted Carris joined the Bengals a
- 19:51Speaker 1: couple of years ago. He is the great nephew of
- 19:54Speaker 1: one of your Detroit teammates, Hall of Famer Alex Carris,
- 19:57Speaker 1: and as I chatted with Ted. Through our conversations, I
- 20:01Speaker 1: decided to read the old book Paper Lion, which focuses
- 20:05Speaker 1: on Detroit's training camp in nineteen sixty three. You come
- 20:09Speaker 1: off in that book as the coolest guy in the NFL,
- 20:14Speaker 1: guitar playing slick dancing ladies man. What do you think
- 20:18Speaker 1: of the book and your portrayal?
- 20:21Speaker 2: That was all George Plimpton, the author, he was writing
- 20:24Speaker 2: a book. He had he picked up a stick. He
- 20:28Speaker 2: would go and work out with various accomplished professional athletes,
- 20:33Speaker 2: and then he'd write the books about him. And he
- 20:36Speaker 2: had a particular style that caught the fancy of the
- 20:41Speaker 2: United States, the American reading public. And he was a very,
- 20:46Speaker 2: very successful author. And he had started out He's an
- 20:48Speaker 2: ivy league guy, and he started out in Europe as
- 20:53Speaker 2: the editor of a big fancy I mean, he was
- 20:56Speaker 2: a very erudite guy, you know. So he was entering
- 21:00Speaker 2: a different area when he went into the wrestlers and
- 21:03Speaker 2: the boxers and the football players. But it worked for him,
- 21:06Speaker 2: and I guess that was the character that he wanted
- 21:10Speaker 2: me to portray in his book. This story kind of
- 21:15Speaker 2: goes like we didn't know as a team that he
- 21:20Speaker 2: was not a legitimate candidate for the football team that
- 21:24Speaker 2: he was actually trying out for quarterback in our training camp. Well, Dan,
- 21:29Speaker 2: it took us three minutes to know this guy. He
- 21:32Speaker 2: can't walk in chew gum. You know, this guy is
- 21:37Speaker 2: not a quarterback. But he became a good friend of
- 21:41Speaker 2: mine also, and they actually they sold the rights for
- 21:45Speaker 2: the book for a movie. He made a pretty good
- 21:48Speaker 2: movie out of it, allan all and I think played George.
- 21:52Speaker 2: But they show you the difference in the way the
- 21:55Speaker 2: league has changed. After the book came out out, he
- 22:00Speaker 2: actually spent two weeks with us and training camp, went
- 22:03Speaker 2: to meetings with his hate with us. He did everything
- 22:07Speaker 2: with us, And I think it was probably it was
- 22:11Speaker 2: after the book or after the book was a movie.
- 22:15Speaker 2: They wanted to do a television special on him running
- 22:21Speaker 2: one series of downs at a at the NFL preseason game,
- 22:27Speaker 2: and so the I think it was the Cowboys. No, no,
- 22:33Speaker 2: it was the Colts. They said, yeah, you can, you
- 22:36Speaker 2: can do it, and so they couldn't get anybody to
- 22:39Speaker 2: do it with them, you know, so they they came
- 22:44Speaker 2: back to Detroit where he wrote, you know, his book,
- 22:49Speaker 2: and Joe Schmidt was our head coach. And George was
- 22:53Speaker 2: a player when Joe was a player, when George Plimpton
- 23:00Speaker 2: was trying to get back in there and do this
- 23:03Speaker 2: cut this TV series. So it wasn't serious, but it
- 23:07Speaker 2: was a you know, thirty five to forty minute the show.
- 23:11Speaker 2: And Joe said, yeah, come on, he can come on
- 23:13Speaker 2: in and play. So he actually came back to Detroit
- 23:17Speaker 2: practice with us a week and they gave him four
- 23:20Speaker 2: plays and we were playing. And so I think the
- 23:23Speaker 2: only pro game it's ever been in ourbor Stadium in Michigan.
- 23:27Speaker 2: We went up there and played a preseason game and
- 23:30Speaker 2: at halftime we went out there in the arsses. Our
- 23:33Speaker 2: number one defense went against their number one offense. But
- 23:37Speaker 2: Climpton was a quarterback. Now can you imagine any franchise
- 23:41Speaker 2: in today's world, Okay, in anything like that, But that
- 23:45Speaker 2: actually happened, and it was it was about one hundred
- 23:48Speaker 2: degrees and it was down you know how that's a bowl.
- 23:52Speaker 2: That stadium's a bowl. It was about one hundred and
- 23:55Speaker 2: twenty down there on the field. So we all said,
- 23:58Speaker 2: I don't know if this was a good dear not
- 24:01Speaker 2: planning this extra series of now, but I just thought
- 24:05Speaker 2: to myself, well, this is great. And I said, I'm
- 24:07Speaker 2: going to get out here on national TV and George
- 24:10Speaker 2: Plimpton's going to complete a pass against me. I said, Plympton,
- 24:15Speaker 2: don't you ever even think about throwing the ball? Run
- 24:19Speaker 2: it three times and we'll get out here. Well, he
- 24:22Speaker 2: passed it naturally, but unfortunately it wasn't He didn't get
- 24:26Speaker 2: the ball hardly in the air. But I could see
- 24:29Speaker 2: myself being the only one that Plimpton ever committed a
- 24:32Speaker 2: passing with.
- 24:36Speaker 1: All right, let's move to your Cincinnati years. You join
- 24:38Speaker 1: the Bengals coaching staff as a part of Forrest Gregg's
- 24:41Speaker 1: first staff in nineteen eighty. Was Forrest Gregg as tough
- 24:46Speaker 1: and no nonsense as his players make it sound.
- 24:50Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Forest was a task master. He was great.
- 24:53Speaker 2: He was He was exactly what that team need with
- 24:57Speaker 2: people forget because that air of Bengal football. One loss,
- 25:04Speaker 2: maybe it was not reflective after it was all totaled up,
- 25:08Speaker 2: was maybe not that good. But we went to the
- 25:10Speaker 2: Super Bowl twice, and we had some great teams and
- 25:13Speaker 2: always had great offenses and defense. If we could have
- 25:17Speaker 2: just gotten a little bit better, we would have won
- 25:19Speaker 2: a couple of those Super Bowls. And we could have
- 25:21Speaker 2: won both of them. It was just one play game
- 25:24Speaker 2: type of thing. But Forrest was I think exactly what
- 25:29Speaker 2: Paul was looking for. Paul had started coaching the team
- 25:33Speaker 2: when he got the franchise, and he put him right
- 25:38Speaker 2: in the playoffs. It was amazing what he did with
- 25:42Speaker 2: that team. But he then he hired Forrest, and I
- 25:48Speaker 2: had applied for employment with Paul both times that they
- 25:57Speaker 2: were of course they became a franchise, I was still playing,
- 26:00Speaker 2: but he always had had the position before I didn't
- 26:05Speaker 2: get there. So I had some guys that had played
- 26:09Speaker 2: with Forest at Green Bay, I had worked with in
- 26:15Speaker 2: Philadelphia was my first coaching and they said you should
- 26:20Speaker 2: get this. Well, I'd gone to Green Bay and worked
- 26:22Speaker 2: with Bart Starver and then but they and they all
- 26:25Speaker 2: said to Forrest, you should get this guy to coach
- 26:28Speaker 2: your dvs. And uh, that's how I was lucky enough
- 26:32Speaker 2: to get to Cincinnati because I'm a high guy, Dan
- 26:35Speaker 2: and I'd never wanted to leave Ohio and I probably
- 26:38Speaker 2: never would have Ohio. But professional athletics and professional coaches
- 26:47Speaker 2: often change addresses, and as they say, don't send your
- 26:51Speaker 2: underwear out to the dry cleaner of me because you
- 26:55Speaker 2: may not be here to claim it, but uh, it
- 27:01Speaker 2: was like manna from heaven for me when Forced said
- 27:06Speaker 2: that he would like to talk to me. And Green
- 27:10Speaker 2: Bay is not a good place for a golfer. Man.
- 27:15Speaker 1: I grew up near Buffalo.
- 27:16Speaker 2: It's about the same are I've spent a year there too.
- 27:19Speaker 2: This April the first before you know if you got
- 27:21Speaker 2: any grass on your yard because it's all snow. But
- 27:26Speaker 2: Force grag was Will Lombardi said he was the best
- 27:30Speaker 2: football player he ever coached. And I have nothing but
- 27:37Speaker 2: good words to say about Forceth grade as a player,
- 27:40Speaker 2: as a coach, and a man, a boss, someone to
- 27:42Speaker 2: work for. He was perfect and he did a great
- 27:48Speaker 2: job with that team. We were a good team.
- 27:52Speaker 1: The first of those Super Bowl appearances that you referenced
- 27:55Speaker 1: was in your second year of the nineteen eighty one season.
- 27:58Speaker 1: I asked Mike Brown once to name his most painful
- 28:02Speaker 1: loss of all the years that he's been associated with
- 28:05Speaker 1: the Bengals, and he said super Bowl sixteen because he
- 28:08Speaker 1: believes in his heart of hearts that the Bengals were
- 28:10Speaker 1: the better team. You committed four turnovers in that game.
- 28:14Speaker 1: Do you feel the same way where the Bengals the
- 28:17Speaker 1: better team and Super Bowl sixteen.
- 28:19Speaker 2: Well, super Bowl games are almost always nip and tuck
- 28:22Speaker 2: and they go down to the last possession generally speaking.
- 28:24Speaker 2: If you you know football historian, you can check it
- 28:28Speaker 2: and it's just true. It's it's a one play game
- 28:31Speaker 2: usually because both teams are excellent and they've beaten a
- 28:34Speaker 2: lot of excellent teams to be there. And that game
- 28:39Speaker 2: was a typical Super Bowl game. We moved the ball
- 28:42Speaker 2: well and the turnovers and we had a couple of turnovers.
- 28:47Speaker 2: Ken Anderson was maybe the most accurate quarterback that I've
- 28:51Speaker 2: ever been around, and he and this group of receivers
- 28:56Speaker 2: were outstanding. They just they didn't have any turnovers, and
- 29:00Speaker 2: yet in that game we had several of them. They
- 29:03Speaker 2: were down in the red red zone, which were points.
- 29:06Speaker 2: And I know I remember one drive. We had a
- 29:11Speaker 2: great running back, a powerful full back from pay Johnson
- 29:15Speaker 2: from Ohigh State, and it was unstoppable. Well, the forty
- 29:20Speaker 2: nine ers stopped him four times, and ut I didn't
- 29:25Speaker 2: think anybody could do that, but they did. So you
- 29:27Speaker 2: got to give credit to the forty nine ers on that.
- 29:30Speaker 2: But percentage wise, I would say ninety nine point ninety
- 29:35Speaker 2: nine percent of the time, we're going to score from there.
- 29:37Speaker 2: And the game was just a three or four point game. Uh,
- 29:40Speaker 2: we had every chance to win. But the interesting thing
- 29:44Speaker 2: about that, and I think I would use this story
- 29:47Speaker 2: quite often my coaching career. Both of those both of
- 29:52Speaker 2: those teams record the year before were three wins and
- 29:55Speaker 2: the rest losses. And those both of the franchises did
- 29:59Speaker 2: the enough job and coaching wise and everything. It flipped
- 30:03Speaker 2: it around, and there they were, both of them playing
- 30:05Speaker 2: in the Super Bowl. And it can happen in one year,
- 30:09Speaker 2: and I would you know, sometimes you get off to
- 30:12Speaker 2: a bad start and you just have to have some
- 30:16Speaker 2: concrete examples to give the guys to say, keep grinding,
- 30:19Speaker 2: we're getting better, and this game can flip.
- 30:22Speaker 1: You became defensive coordinator in eighty four and you're widely
- 30:26Speaker 1: credited for developing the zone blitz or the fire zone defense.
- 30:30Speaker 1: Did you literally dry it up on cocktail napkins.
- 30:34Speaker 2: Yes, that's true. That's a true story. And it did
- 30:38Speaker 2: originate in Cincinnati, Ohio, and coach Sam Wise was the
- 30:43Speaker 2: head coach. And I was very fortunate there because Sam
- 30:47Speaker 2: was an innovator too, and he was one of the
- 30:50Speaker 2: first guys to no huddle, strictly no huddle and anything.
- 30:55Speaker 2: He would try anything, and probably most of the coaches
- 31:02Speaker 2: that were the head coaches at that era, particularly, but
- 31:05Speaker 2: even today, if I came in I said, look, here's
- 31:08Speaker 2: what I want to do. I want to blitz the
- 31:09Speaker 2: little guy and drop the big guy back into past coverage.
- 31:14Speaker 2: He would say, maybe when you become a head coach
- 31:18Speaker 2: you can try that, but not on my watch. But Sam.
- 31:23Speaker 2: I drew it up for Sam and went through what
- 31:25Speaker 2: I was talking to him, and he said, yeah, let's
- 31:29Speaker 2: take a look at it. He didn't even blink an eye.
- 31:31Speaker 2: So that's how we got to practice time and to
- 31:34Speaker 2: start doing it. Probably the spark that lit the fire
- 31:39Speaker 2: i'd been thinking about. I'm always been a stats guy,
- 31:42Speaker 2: and I kept the results of every play that I called,
- 31:47Speaker 2: every defense, and we all made our own reels in
- 31:49Speaker 2: those days, and I would study and see which plays
- 31:53Speaker 2: were the most beneficial for us and which were caused
- 31:58Speaker 2: the most disaster for us. And what I found out
- 32:01Speaker 2: was the pressure place had seventy five percent of our
- 32:06Speaker 2: huge place came off of pressure on the Dagham quarterback, which,
- 32:11Speaker 2: as I said earlier in this discussion, of Bobby Knight,
- 32:14Speaker 2: and I had that figure it out before either one
- 32:17Speaker 2: of us were coaching, but the other the flip side
- 32:22Speaker 2: of that was the biggest damage place where these pressure
- 32:26Speaker 2: plays and everybody blitzed in man coverage in those days,
- 32:30Speaker 2: and if one guy slipped and they picked up the blitz,
- 32:32Speaker 2: somebody was wide open. And it was never for a
- 32:35Speaker 2: twelve yard gain, it was for a sixty or seventy
- 32:38Speaker 2: yard game. So I al said, I would like to
- 32:42Speaker 2: find a way to keep this pressure on the quarterback
- 32:45Speaker 2: but still have a guy or two with his eyes
- 32:48Speaker 2: available to see, Oh my buddy slipped down over there.
- 32:51Speaker 2: I better get the hell over there and help him out.
- 32:54Speaker 2: And we found a way to a safer way to blitz.
- 32:59Speaker 2: And that is not my quote. Bill Rangebarker was a
- 33:03Speaker 2: great defensive coach. He has a great Ohio background, and
- 33:08Speaker 2: I wouldn't say we were friends, but we're definitely closer
- 33:13Speaker 2: than acquaintances because if you were from Ohio, you were
- 33:16Speaker 2: a good friend of mine. And Bill had retired from
- 33:21Speaker 2: coach and he he was the coach of the great
- 33:27Speaker 2: Miami Dolphins defense. Yeah, and he was he was the
- 33:32Speaker 2: guy that he was a great contributor. Let's say to that,
- 33:37Speaker 2: to that record. In fact, they'll be the only undefeated
- 33:40Speaker 2: professional team ever. But I would I would look him
- 33:45Speaker 2: up because he got into education and was an athletic
- 33:49Speaker 2: director and several different schools. And in those days, as
- 33:54Speaker 2: as scouts or as coaches, we played a much bigger
- 33:59Speaker 2: role in the in the draft than they do now.
- 34:01Speaker 2: And we did a lot of the scouting of our
- 34:04Speaker 2: which I liked. You know, you learned the people coming
- 34:07Speaker 2: out of college and you thought might fit with your
- 34:11Speaker 2: style of defense. And you had to do a lot
- 34:14Speaker 2: of traveling, but I at leastwise and they were going
- 34:19Speaker 2: to listen to what you had found, and you would
- 34:22Speaker 2: have an input. Would you have the final say no,
- 34:25Speaker 2: I'm not saying that, but you could really impact the
- 34:28Speaker 2: thinking of the team, which I liked. But I would
- 34:31Speaker 2: look up. When I was anywhere close to friends of mine,
- 34:36Speaker 2: I'd go in and see him. While I was working
- 34:38Speaker 2: a kid out for the draft, and Arnsbarker was in Florida,
- 34:44Speaker 2: I think pretty sure the University of Florida, Gainesville, not
- 34:48Speaker 2: Florida State, but it's one of the others sometimes, Stan,
- 34:53Speaker 2: I'm right there with you. The synopsis don't quite hook,
- 34:58Speaker 2: but I think he was at Florida and I spent
- 35:02Speaker 2: a little time, and I said, Bill, I watched everybody's film,
- 35:06Speaker 2: and I watched yours a lot, and I said, I
- 35:09Speaker 2: like some of the things you did. And I've been
- 35:11Speaker 2: trying to find something that would apply in today's game
- 35:18Speaker 2: versus particular pass offenses that we're playing against now, a
- 35:23Speaker 2: pressure on the quarterback without giving up the big, big place.
- 35:28Speaker 2: And Bill looked at me across the desk and he said, Dick,
- 35:31Speaker 2: all I was looking for was a safer way to blitz.
- 35:35Speaker 2: And soon soon as the words came out of his mouth,
- 35:38Speaker 2: I said, oh, that's exactly what I'm looking for. And
- 35:42Speaker 2: Bobby and I used to have our cheeseburgers and dying coach,
- 35:45Speaker 2: you know, after playing basketball for three hours, and we'd
- 35:49Speaker 2: be talking about the same type of stuff and how
- 35:51Speaker 2: could you do it? So I then, because I was
- 35:54Speaker 2: on the road scouting, I was going from Florida to
- 35:58Speaker 2: Los Angeles, which is you know, somebody I told me
- 36:03Speaker 2: just the other day said, well, didn't you just draw
- 36:05Speaker 2: that up in our flight or something on him. I
- 36:09Speaker 2: said no. It was a four and a half hour
- 36:12Speaker 2: flight and we ran out of cocktail nap, but that's
- 36:16Speaker 2: when I started it had his birth there, and the
- 36:21Speaker 2: hard part was linking it up with the coverage. And
- 36:25Speaker 2: the idea was pretty easy that would work, you know,
- 36:29Speaker 2: pressure from the quarterback, and yet he doesn't have the
- 36:31Speaker 2: quick outlet right away any place. And what they were
- 36:35Speaker 2: all trained at that time was if this guy's blitzing,
- 36:38Speaker 2: this guy breaks off, he's going to be wide open.
- 36:40Speaker 2: And they had it down. Walsh was one of the
- 36:45Speaker 2: big motivators in that way to attack the blitzers, and
- 36:50Speaker 2: so I spent a lot of time on it. And
- 36:55Speaker 2: if it hadn't been for coach, weis saying, yeah, go
- 36:58Speaker 2: ahead and do it, because there were several times we
- 37:01Speaker 2: went off the diving board into an empty pool because
- 37:06Speaker 2: it was hard to sink up. And in fact, you
- 37:09Speaker 2: never quit coaching it, and actually until I retired, because
- 37:13Speaker 2: somebody would come up with a pattern that hurt what
- 37:16Speaker 2: you were doing and you had to get the patch
- 37:20Speaker 2: on the leak in the tire. So that's coaching though.
- 37:23Speaker 2: And it did come from Cincinnati and we were running
- 37:29Speaker 2: it in eighty four. I would say it was when
- 37:32Speaker 2: we started running it and I just crossed my fingers
- 37:35Speaker 2: the first time I called it in a preseason game,
- 37:38Speaker 2: and the quarterback took his hot hot key and throw
- 37:43Speaker 2: it to the tight end broken out and Ray Griffin
- 37:45Speaker 2: intercepted it and ran back sixty five yards for a touchdown.
- 37:48Speaker 2: I said, I think we got something there.
- 37:53Speaker 1: It occurs to me those cocktail napkins would be worth
- 37:55Speaker 1: a lot of money if you had held on to them.
- 37:58Speaker 2: I think they're all in the toilet, old for Southeast Wyoming.
- 38:03Speaker 1: Now much more with Dick to come, including something he
- 38:08Speaker 1: would do for Zach Taylor if asked. But first, here's
- 38:12Speaker 1: a quick reminder that the Bengals Booth podcast is brought
- 38:15Speaker 1: to you by pay Corps, proud to be the Bengals
- 38:17Speaker 1: official HR software provider, by Alta Fiber future Proof Fiber
- 38:22Speaker 1: Internet designed to elevate your home, business and community to
- 38:25Speaker 1: a new level, and by Kettering Health the best care
- 38:29Speaker 1: for the best fans. Kettering Health is the official healthcare
- 38:32Speaker 1: provider of the Bengals. So David Fulcher joined the team
- 38:37Speaker 1: at eighty six. How much is he responsible for what
- 38:40Speaker 1: the zone Blitz or the fire Zone ultimately became.
- 38:44Speaker 2: Oh, he was a prime mover once I kind of
- 38:49Speaker 2: had the formula worked out, and the formula was pretty
- 38:52Speaker 2: sim simple. Mathematically, you could four as a normal rush.
- 38:57Speaker 2: Sometimes people rush three and at the extra cover guy
- 39:01Speaker 2: and in red zone now they're even rushing to Now
- 39:04Speaker 2: it's something I would never do. I'd i'd rush eight
- 39:07Speaker 2: before I ever rushed too. But they do it in
- 39:10Speaker 2: today's game. Uh. But uh, I saw what what we
- 39:18Speaker 2: were working with, and I said, well I can. I
- 39:21Speaker 2: can take five from anywhere as long as I get
- 39:26Speaker 2: containment on the side away from them, and I'm going
- 39:30Speaker 2: to overload protection and and then I can do whatever
- 39:35Speaker 2: I want with that pressure and still have an area
- 39:38Speaker 2: of situation in behind it. So uh, expressing them on
- 39:44Speaker 2: a piece of paper mathematically is easy. But in actual
- 39:49Speaker 2: getting to match up what the offensive coordinators are doing
- 39:53Speaker 2: with their routes and picks and stuff, it was. It
- 39:56Speaker 2: was a task. But when you started getting special athletes,
- 40:03Speaker 2: and I always tried to match our defensive scheme with
- 40:11Speaker 2: the athletes that we had. I I wasn't a strong
- 40:15Speaker 2: proponent of here's the way we're going to do this,
- 40:18Speaker 2: and you learned how to do this wellll not. People
- 40:22Speaker 2: were all different, and we all backpedal different, and we
- 40:25Speaker 2: all turned different and we have different strengths and minuses.
- 40:29Speaker 2: And my thought was, aren't we going to be the
- 40:33Speaker 2: best defense we can be if I'm asking them to
- 40:36Speaker 2: do the things that they do the best? So that
- 40:38Speaker 2: was always was a guy named Force on that. So
- 40:41Speaker 2: but once you got a guy like Folcher who actually
- 40:44Speaker 2: the closer you could get him to the ball, the
- 40:46Speaker 2: more places he was going to make. He was a
- 40:49Speaker 2: fine safety and good in space. One of our best intercepted,
- 40:53Speaker 2: believe it or not, but you put him close to
- 40:55Speaker 2: the line of scrimmage, he was going to cast a problem.
- 40:58Speaker 2: And that's the guy that got me thinking, I can
- 41:01Speaker 2: do anything in the world with this guy and protecting
- 41:05Speaker 2: behind with an area concept, and we can cause some problems.
- 41:11Speaker 2: In the Super Bowl that we lost in eight, that's
- 41:16Speaker 2: not right in eighty eight thinking, I think it was
- 41:21Speaker 2: three to three and a half against the forty nine
- 41:24Speaker 2: ers again and Volture had made ten plays in the
- 41:27Speaker 2: first half. But I had another guy like that in
- 41:33Speaker 2: Pittsburgh by the name of Paula Mala. But see, I
- 41:37Speaker 2: had already been down that road. And those kind of
- 41:41Speaker 2: guys are perfect for this because the opponent's not expecting
- 41:45Speaker 2: the safety to come that much, you know, and when
- 41:47Speaker 2: he does, the other safety had to go to get
- 41:50Speaker 2: over and get his coverage, and then they would just
- 41:53Speaker 2: break him away. That was the way they answered the
- 41:56Speaker 2: safety blitz because they couldn't they couldn't account for everybody
- 42:00Speaker 2: faking around up there and here comes a corner, here
- 42:03Speaker 2: comes a safety. So it's not rocket science, but getting
- 42:08Speaker 2: it put together it took me a little while.
- 42:11Speaker 1: That eighty eight Super Bowl, super Bowl twenty three, he
- 42:14Speaker 1: only gave up three points through three quarters to Montana
- 42:17Speaker 1: and Rice and that great forty nine ers offense, and
- 42:20Speaker 1: then unfortunately they scored two touchdowns in the fourth including
- 42:23Speaker 1: the game. Whether we're thirty four seconds to go, it's
- 42:26Speaker 1: been thirty seven years. Is there anything about that game
- 42:29Speaker 1: that sticks under your craw to this day.
- 42:32Speaker 2: Yeah. I had a defense Coach Weis told me, said,
- 42:37Speaker 2: I know when they're going to go to Rice, and
- 42:40Speaker 2: he said, whatever you do, I want you to get
- 42:42Speaker 2: me a defense that'll stop Rice on a particular play.
- 42:46Speaker 2: And I said, okay, coach. So I got it. This
- 42:50Speaker 2: thing where I had three guys on him. One guy
- 42:52Speaker 2: whacked him at the line of scrimmage and another guy
- 42:55Speaker 2: worked outside to the boundary and another guy worked over
- 42:59Speaker 2: in side to the middle of the field. I said,
- 43:02Speaker 2: there's no way they can get a ball in there
- 43:03Speaker 2: to him. So in that last drive that they had
- 43:07Speaker 2: after we ran to kickoff back to take the lead,
- 43:12Speaker 2: we got them either a penalty or a sack, and
- 43:15Speaker 2: they were in first or second down and long and
- 43:18Speaker 2: and coach Weis says, Dick said, this is this is
- 43:22Speaker 2: going to Rice. I said, okay, Coach, I said, because
- 43:25Speaker 2: if I had to put that menu on him, everybody
- 43:28Speaker 2: else had to go man to man, you know. So
- 43:30Speaker 2: I kind of crossed my fingers and I said, here
- 43:32Speaker 2: we go. It's my boss said, And we had them
- 43:36Speaker 2: all bracketed. There were so many Bengals over there, and
- 43:40Speaker 2: one guy broke and hit the other guy, who knocked
- 43:43Speaker 2: the other guy off, and all of our guy fell down,
- 43:45Speaker 2: and of course Rice picked it off and ran over
- 43:48Speaker 2: the middle of the field and got down the bout.
- 43:50Speaker 2: That's how they got down there to get their points.
- 43:53Speaker 2: So I wouldn't call that. I would have dissipayed my
- 43:57Speaker 2: boss's instructions. But it shows you that those types of
- 44:03Speaker 2: games are one play games, and a bounce here or there.
- 44:07Speaker 2: I mean, you could run that play into that defense
- 44:12Speaker 2: fifty times, and maybe Rice would make a fantastic cat
- 44:16Speaker 2: for a twelve yard game. Well he ran it forty yards.
- 44:21Speaker 2: I do remember that Rice was special. He was special.
- 44:25Speaker 1: You got your head coaching opportunity in two thousand. I
- 44:28Speaker 1: know you didn't win as many games as you would
- 44:30Speaker 1: have liked, but are you glad you got the chance
- 44:32Speaker 1: to run the show?
- 44:33Speaker 2: Definitely, because I ended up with a forty five year
- 44:37Speaker 2: coaching career and it was getting pretty late at that time,
- 44:43Speaker 2: you know, and I said, well, I'm just gonna have
- 44:45Speaker 2: to be a good defensive backfield coach because that's the
- 44:48Speaker 2: way it is, because it's probably not going to get
- 44:50Speaker 2: my opportunity. And let's face it, when you go into coaching,
- 44:53Speaker 2: you want to be the guy that runs the whole thing.
- 44:56Speaker 2: And so I've always been grateful for that opportunity, and
- 45:02Speaker 2: I think we had things started in the right direction.
- 45:04Speaker 2: They drafted Palmer the next year and went on how
- 45:08Speaker 2: many straight years that they made the playoffs, so they
- 45:11Speaker 2: didn't inherit a completely empty food locker.
- 45:16Speaker 1: Your first win as a head coach was October twenty second.
- 45:19Speaker 1: Two thousand had featured one of the most incredible individual
- 45:23Speaker 1: performances in NFL history, as Corey Dillon ran for two
- 45:26Speaker 1: hundred and seventy eight yards on a day where the
- 45:29Speaker 1: team only completed two passes. You played and coached in
- 45:32Speaker 1: the NFL for nearly sixty years, was that the best
- 45:35Speaker 1: example of the other team knowing what was coming and
- 45:40Speaker 1: not being able to stop it.
- 45:42Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember that game. We'd had a terrible start
- 45:47Speaker 2: to the season and we were losing by huge margins,
- 45:52Speaker 2: and it was a pretty dismal locker room, to be
- 45:56Speaker 2: honest with you, and our head coach, Bruce Couslin, I
- 46:01Speaker 2: went came back. I was lucky enough to be a
- 46:04Speaker 2: good friend of Bruce's and I came back to coach
- 46:06Speaker 2: for him with him, and uh, he resigned early in
- 46:12Speaker 2: the year. I think after the second game, the third game.
- 46:15Speaker 2: We've been traumced in all of them, and I said, well,
- 46:21Speaker 2: we're gonna we gotta have something that we can get
- 46:23Speaker 2: our sink our teeth into, at least, I said, because
- 46:27Speaker 2: everybody's down. And uh, I knew we had a good
- 46:31Speaker 2: running back and Corey Dillon and I knew we had
- 46:33Speaker 2: a pretty good offensive line, and uh, you know, the
- 46:36Speaker 2: NFL's a passing league. I said, we're not going to
- 46:39Speaker 2: pass that much. Fellas, we're going to run the football.
- 46:42Speaker 2: We're going to run it down their throat. We're going
- 46:44Speaker 2: to establish what we're going to be. And uh that
- 46:48Speaker 2: team fought that whole year and uh, I think we
- 46:51Speaker 2: got the maybe six did we get the six wins? Uh? Uh?
- 46:57Speaker 2: And uh I was proud of that, the way that
- 46:59Speaker 2: they they battled through that situation. But that day we
- 47:07Speaker 2: played Denver and they were good. They had a tremendous
- 47:11Speaker 2: record and they had only the only video they had
- 47:14Speaker 2: of us. We were throwing the ball forty forty five
- 47:18Speaker 2: times a game, so that's what they were preparing to defend.
- 47:21Speaker 2: And here they came up with this massive off tackle
- 47:24Speaker 2: pound ground and you know, we got some good bounces
- 47:28Speaker 2: and stuff like that, but it fit what we could do.
- 47:33Speaker 2: And a lot of times when the team is going
- 47:37Speaker 2: bad and they lose their coach, the players will come
- 47:43Speaker 2: together and say, hey, this ain't the coach. You know,
- 47:47Speaker 2: this is a group situation. We got to do better,
- 47:50Speaker 2: and it brings home to us how far off the
- 47:55Speaker 2: mark we are, and that group as a whole said,
- 47:58Speaker 2: we're better than than With that point, differential shows. So
- 48:06Speaker 2: we did the best we could do and we only
- 48:08Speaker 2: got two years. As I remember, So got me back
- 48:12Speaker 2: to working on his own blitz, which was pretty good
- 48:15Speaker 2: for me.
- 48:16Speaker 1: We're visiting with Hall of Famer Dick Lebow. When former
- 48:19Speaker 1: players talk about you, there's a combination of love and respect.
- 48:22Speaker 1: I don't hear very often from players when they talk
- 48:25Speaker 1: about their coaches. How did you manage to connect so
- 48:29Speaker 1: well with your players?
- 48:31Speaker 2: I don't know the answer to that. I always wanted
- 48:34Speaker 2: to be a coach, which I've spoken to you about,
- 48:38Speaker 2: and I watched coaches, but I said to myself, I
- 48:46Speaker 2: was blessed enough to play fourteen years in NFL, four
- 48:50Speaker 2: years at high State, four years in high school. That's
- 48:54Speaker 2: twenty two years of playing football. I'd seen a lot
- 48:58Speaker 2: of coaching situations. I'd seen a lot of interaction between
- 49:02Speaker 2: coaches and players, and I knew I'd been on the
- 49:07Speaker 2: receiving end of some great coaching and receiving end of
- 49:10Speaker 2: what I thought was not the right way to do something.
- 49:12Speaker 2: But you know, when you're with the team, you do
- 49:14Speaker 2: you got to do it. That's that's step number one.
- 49:18Speaker 2: Everybody does the same thing. It's for the good of
- 49:20Speaker 2: the team. But I said, I know this, when I
- 49:27Speaker 2: get my chance to coach, I'm going to coach the
- 49:30Speaker 2: way I wanted to be coached and the type of
- 49:33Speaker 2: coaching that I reacted to the most. So I had
- 49:37Speaker 2: on the job training all those years of planning. I
- 49:41Speaker 2: was thirty five years old when I started looking for
- 49:43Speaker 2: a job, and they would say, well, you don't have
- 49:45Speaker 2: any experience. I said, oh, well, wait a minute, Wait
- 49:48Speaker 2: a minute, I've been in the factory for thirty five
- 49:51Speaker 2: years here. But that's Mike McCormick, who I met in
- 50:01Speaker 2: the training camp at Oberlin College, I think is where
- 50:05Speaker 2: we trained in Cleveland for the Cleveland Browns, and he
- 50:08Speaker 2: was an All Pro tackle for the Browns offensive captain,
- 50:14Speaker 2: and he was taking his first year as the head
- 50:17Speaker 2: coach at Philadelphia Eagles and he hired me, and I
- 50:22Speaker 2: of course interviewed for a defensive backfield coach, but he
- 50:25Speaker 2: hired me as a special teams coach, which I did
- 50:29Speaker 2: for him, and I was grateful because at that time
- 50:32Speaker 2: it was an entry position and I got my foot
- 50:35Speaker 2: in the door at least. And after that three years,
- 50:39Speaker 2: I don't care if I ever see another punter kick
- 50:41Speaker 2: off as long as I lived, but that's how I
- 50:44Speaker 2: got into coaching.
- 50:46Speaker 1: You were recently a guest on Cam Hayward's podcast. Despite
- 50:51Speaker 1: loathing the Pittsburgh Steelers, I enjoyed listening to it immensely.
- 50:55Speaker 1: You shared a story that's probably well known in Pittsburgh,
- 50:58Speaker 1: but I had never heard it. It's two thousand and five.
- 51:02Speaker 1: You're the defensive coordinator of the Steelers. It's the final
- 51:05Speaker 1: game of the regular season. The team needs a win
- 51:08Speaker 1: to clinch a wild card playoff berth and that day,
- 51:11Speaker 1: your defensive players showed up wearing throwback number forty four
- 51:17Speaker 1: Detroit Lyons jerseys, your old jersey, as a tribute to you.
- 51:22Speaker 1: I think they paid three hundred bucks apiece to get them.
- 51:25Speaker 1: They were the legitimate jersey. Were you flabbergasted when you
- 51:29Speaker 1: saw your defensive players wearing those?
- 51:32Speaker 2: Oh well, they didn't wear them that evening, but I
- 51:36Speaker 2: was completely overwhelmed. And what they did was, with the
- 51:42Speaker 2: assist of the equipment managers, they took these fine wood
- 51:48Speaker 2: hangars and they hung my jersey outside of all their lockers,
- 51:55Speaker 2: And when you walked into that locker room to get
- 51:58Speaker 2: ready for the game, could just see forty four La
- 52:01Speaker 2: bau in Honolula blue and silver all around the room,
- 52:07Speaker 2: and it was a it was like something off a
- 52:10Speaker 2: movie scene, you know. And I looked at it and
- 52:13Speaker 2: it's done me and I said, oh my god. I said,
- 52:18Speaker 2: this is so flattering, you know. And I went and
- 52:22Speaker 2: I didn't do it. I just stumbled into my locker room,
- 52:25Speaker 2: coaches locker room back in the corner, and I sat
- 52:28Speaker 2: there for a minute. I said, oh, I said, I'm
- 52:31Speaker 2: not sure this is real good. So I went down
- 52:35Speaker 2: and I got our our captain's Larry Foot and James Fergir.
- 52:40Speaker 2: I said, get everybody together, so all the defense came in.
- 52:45Speaker 2: I said, man, I said this this is overwhelming to me,
- 52:48Speaker 2: and it's just such a great honor. But I'm going
- 52:51Speaker 2: to tell you one thing. We better win this damn game.
- 52:57Speaker 2: I said. I may not even have a job, but
- 53:04Speaker 2: I wrote a book about the eight defense that set records.
- 53:07Speaker 2: I don't think are ever going to be touched because
- 53:09Speaker 2: of the way they played defense and the rules of
- 53:11Speaker 2: the game in today's NFL, but that particularly a group
- 53:16Speaker 2: of guys. They were just strong in every position and
- 53:18Speaker 2: they gave up no big plays. I don't think it's
- 53:20Speaker 2: going to happen, happen again. And there were a lot
- 53:25Speaker 2: of quotes in that book from the guys that I coached,
- 53:30Speaker 2: and it was the same feeling I got reading that
- 53:34Speaker 2: that I got that night when I saw those jerseys
- 53:36Speaker 2: sitting around there. And I can say this, all I
- 53:42Speaker 2: ever wanted to do as a coach was to have
- 53:46Speaker 2: my players accept me the way they did now. The
- 53:51Speaker 2: age differential. I never gave that a thought because I
- 53:55Speaker 2: knew I had to back the background and the exposure
- 54:03Speaker 2: to instruct people on defensive football. I mean, that's all
- 54:07Speaker 2: I'd done all my life, and I was always confident
- 54:12Speaker 2: that I could help any player that I saw. I
- 54:16Speaker 2: would study him athletically. They're all fairly gifted athletically, or
- 54:20Speaker 2: they wouldn't be in training camp in an NFL football team.
- 54:25Speaker 2: But we all have strength and we all have weaknesses,
- 54:28Speaker 2: and I would try to get everyone in a position
- 54:32Speaker 2: where they could apply their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
- 54:37Speaker 2: And I over the period, I mean, just think how
- 54:41Speaker 2: many plays and movies and game films I'd been through.
- 54:46Speaker 2: I could help kids. And I found out that when
- 54:50Speaker 2: you're helping an athlete, he didn't care how old you are.
- 54:55Speaker 2: He wants to be better, he wants to get his
- 54:58Speaker 2: turn in the spotlight to So that's my only answer
- 55:03Speaker 2: for my longevity. That I could help them. I could.
- 55:06Speaker 2: I knew when I was telling them, and generally speaking,
- 55:09Speaker 2: in a game, after getting burnt enough myself personally on
- 55:15Speaker 2: the field and getting beat a lot in those years
- 55:20Speaker 2: with the Bengals and those we lost quite often, you
- 55:25Speaker 2: learn a lot, and you, if you're smart enough, you
- 55:29Speaker 2: just learned from what you can learn from and forget
- 55:32Speaker 2: the rest of it and go on to the next game,
- 55:35Speaker 2: the next play. And that stood me in good stead
- 55:39Speaker 2: because almost anything they were doing that hurt us. I knew.
- 55:43Speaker 2: I knew, I'd seen it before, I'd been hurt by
- 55:46Speaker 2: it before, and I knew how to stop it. I
- 55:49Speaker 2: just didn't have it prepared for that game because it
- 55:51Speaker 2: was by surprise, so I could adjust it pretty quick
- 55:55Speaker 2: and it kept me employed for a long time.
- 55:58Speaker 1: So for the record, you did win regular season finale
- 56:01Speaker 1: with the Jerseys in two thousand and five, and then
- 56:03Speaker 1: the following week you beat the Bengals with Pittsburgh in
- 56:07Speaker 1: the playoff game in Cincinnati where Carson Palmer got hurt.
- 56:10Speaker 1: I've got to ask you about something. After that game,
- 56:13Speaker 1: Bill Kawer mockingly did a Woday chant in the locker
- 56:18Speaker 1: room celebrating the win for Pittsburgh. Was that a little
- 56:21Speaker 1: uncomfortable for you just because of your Bengals ties?
- 56:26Speaker 2: Well at that particular time. No, because when my paycheck
- 56:32Speaker 2: came out on Monday, it had a Rooney not Brown
- 56:37Speaker 2: on the bottom line. But I still favored today the
- 56:46Speaker 2: Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Cincinnati Bengals. Those are
- 56:51Speaker 2: my three teams. I root equally hard so much in
- 56:56Speaker 2: my life in those three low cows. When they play
- 57:01Speaker 2: each other, I can't lose, and that's the only way
- 57:06Speaker 2: I know, because they were all so instrumental. And what
- 57:12Speaker 2: ended up. You know, I still can't believe it to
- 57:17Speaker 2: say this, but by golly, I do every now and then.
- 57:20Speaker 2: I'm in the Hall of Fame. Man. I can't believe it.
- 57:23Speaker 2: And it's all a product of where I've been, in
- 57:27Speaker 2: the fact that the Good Lord gave me a memory
- 57:30Speaker 2: that I could remember when I screwed up.
- 57:33Speaker 1: A few more questions for Dick Lebow. I was playing
- 57:36Speaker 1: in a charity golf tournament a couple of years ago,
- 57:38Speaker 1: and I was on the same team as Jimmy Burrow,
- 57:41Speaker 1: and when he heard that you were playing in that event,
- 57:45Speaker 1: he stepped down the accelerator on that golf car. We
- 57:47Speaker 1: went racing over several holes so that he could catch
- 57:51Speaker 1: up with you. Tell me about your connection with Jimmy Burrow,
- 57:54Speaker 1: and then obviously what you think of his son, Joe.
- 57:59Speaker 2: Well, I think the most accurate passer that I've ever seen,
- 58:03Speaker 2: and I go back to the nineteen fifties in Norm
- 58:08Speaker 2: Van Brocklin and Johnny Uniteds and those guys that they
- 58:12Speaker 2: couldn't move to get out of their way, but they
- 58:14Speaker 2: could throw that ball through the eye of a needle. Again,
- 58:17Speaker 2: there were thirty one players on the teams, and there
- 58:21Speaker 2: were two quarterbacks on There were twelve teams, so there
- 58:25Speaker 2: were twenty four quarterbacks in America that could pass the
- 58:28Speaker 2: ball accurately enough to have a job. Those guys were fantastic.
- 58:33Speaker 2: Burrow as the most accurate guy I've ever seen, and
- 58:38Speaker 2: that college team that won the national championship, it was
- 58:44Speaker 2: unfair and Joe would just put that ball and those guys,
- 58:49Speaker 2: they were all gifted, and that was I'm glad I
- 58:54Speaker 2: didn't have the assignment of trying to Curtail, and let's
- 58:57Speaker 2: put it that way. I've always been a huge fan
- 59:01Speaker 2: of Joe Burrow, and I've never got the meeting. Every
- 59:05Speaker 2: time it's going to happen, something comes up, but I'll
- 59:09Speaker 2: get a meeting before it's over. I know, Jimmy is
- 59:13Speaker 2: one of my favorite players that I ever coached. Like
- 59:17Speaker 2: I said earlier, in the National Football League, the coaches
- 59:22Speaker 2: did a lot of the scouting. They didn't have the
- 59:25Speaker 2: staffs that they had, they didn't have the money that
- 59:27Speaker 2: they had to pay all the people they've gotten now.
- 59:31Speaker 2: And when the season was over, you got a week
- 59:34Speaker 2: and then you started getting ready for the draft, and
- 59:37Speaker 2: you traveled once once you got closer to the draft
- 59:40Speaker 2: time and work these players out. And that's how the
- 59:44Speaker 2: combine came about. That people were spending all this money
- 59:47Speaker 2: flying all around the country was bring them in to
- 59:50Speaker 2: the Central's point and that's how that happened. But I
- 59:55Speaker 2: would look at video and see the players that I
- 1:00:00Speaker 2: wanted to go see, and Jim Burrow was a safety
- 1:00:03Speaker 2: for Nebraska, and he wasn't very big, and he was
- 1:00:09Speaker 2: tougher nails and smarter than tomorrow. And those are just
- 1:00:14Speaker 2: the kind of players that I found that you win
- 1:00:17Speaker 2: with you win with players that are unselfie tough and smart.
- 1:00:22Speaker 2: And I don't mean that they can split an atom
- 1:00:25Speaker 2: or anything like that. They're football smart and they they're
- 1:00:29Speaker 2: intuitive and they can react to range of motion and angles,
- 1:00:34Speaker 2: and that's all the secondary play is. So I went
- 1:00:38Speaker 2: out and met Jim Burrow and he's just a very
- 1:00:43Speaker 2: impressive person. And I knew what his coaching staff thought
- 1:00:48Speaker 2: of him. And he was maybe not big, but he
- 1:00:53Speaker 2: never missed his tackling. He was such an aggressive player
- 1:00:58Speaker 2: and he went after it with so much aff. He
- 1:01:00Speaker 2: always got his sky down. So going back and getting
- 1:01:04Speaker 2: ready for the draft and everything, he said, why are
- 1:01:06Speaker 2: you Burrow? You got him up here up here? I said,
- 1:01:08Speaker 2: I think he can play, and I think he just
- 1:01:12Speaker 2: played one year in America, but he played like nine
- 1:01:15Speaker 2: or ten I think in up in Canada, and I
- 1:01:19Speaker 2: think he could have played. I never was in a
- 1:01:21Speaker 2: position enough to give him another job. But when Jim
- 1:01:26Speaker 2: retired from playing, his former college coach came to IIU
- 1:01:33Speaker 2: in Athens, and Jim went down there to run his
- 1:01:36Speaker 2: defense for the coach's defense for him. And that's how
- 1:01:40Speaker 2: Joe Burrow as a youngster a toddler, came to grow
- 1:01:44Speaker 2: up in Athens, OHI and become mister football for Ohio.
- 1:01:48Speaker 2: So I knew Joe long before Joe knew anything about
- 1:01:54Speaker 2: Dick Lebo because of who his dad was. And I
- 1:01:58Speaker 2: followed Ohio you and Jimmy was a fantastic coach and
- 1:02:03Speaker 2: had great defenses. And then Joe went to Ohigh State
- 1:02:09Speaker 2: and they lost him to LSU and he became I
- 1:02:14Speaker 2: think the best college quarterback passer that they would ever be.
- 1:02:17Speaker 2: I mean, he never threw a bad ball, and the
- 1:02:20Speaker 2: more important it was, the more he produced. So I've
- 1:02:25Speaker 2: always had a family interest in that group, and I
- 1:02:28Speaker 2: want to meet Jim's wife also because I only know
- 1:02:32Speaker 2: Jim and the whole day Gum family, but I love
- 1:02:34Speaker 2: them all.
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: All right, Robin and Joe, if you're listening, Dick Lebeu
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: wants to meet the both of you. Dick, you famously
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: used to recite the poem Twas the Night before Christmas
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: by memory for your players in Pittsburgh for many many years,
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: and the whole thing so it takes like six or
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: seven minutes to recite. You live in Cincinnati now. If
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: Zach Taylor called you in December and asked you if
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: you would be willing to share that with his players,
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: would you consider it?
- 1:03:02Speaker 2: Oh, I'd do it in a minute, I do it.
- 1:03:05Speaker 2: That's a that's a poem for my family. When I
- 1:03:08Speaker 2: was a kid growing up, most our family was matriarch driven.
- 1:03:16Speaker 2: My dad was a great dad, but the women were
- 1:03:19Speaker 2: the organizers and the planters. And he had three sisters
- 1:03:24Speaker 2: and my mom and Christmas was we didn't have anything.
- 1:03:30Speaker 2: But you would have never believe that when Christmas came around,
- 1:03:33Speaker 2: you thought we were the Rockefellers. I mean, the women
- 1:03:36Speaker 2: would go into dead all year long so that they
- 1:03:41Speaker 2: could buy presents for the kids. And I wanted to
- 1:03:47Speaker 2: thank them for instilling the spirit of Christmas and the
- 1:03:51Speaker 2: goodwill to men, and and hey, it's a big planet
- 1:03:54Speaker 2: and there's a lot of people on it, but there's
- 1:03:56Speaker 2: room for everybody if we'll just take consideration for each other.
- 1:04:00Speaker 2: And I wanted them to know that I got the message.
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: And I said, well, I know what I'll do. I'll
- 1:04:06Speaker 2: learn the poem the night before Christmas. Well, I didn't
- 1:04:10Speaker 2: realize how many verses there where. It took me a
- 1:04:14Speaker 2: long time, but I started saying it for my family,
- 1:04:19Speaker 2: and then I always preached to our players that a
- 1:04:23Speaker 2: team is a family, and the family is the team.
- 1:04:25Speaker 2: I said, I should say the night before Christmas for
- 1:04:28Speaker 2: my defense. That's the only thing that I had the
- 1:04:30Speaker 2: authority to mandate, so I would do it for the defense.
- 1:04:36Speaker 2: And Bill Cowher said to me, he said, Coach said,
- 1:04:42Speaker 2: I heard that you said the night before Christmas for
- 1:04:45Speaker 2: the defense. I said I did. He said, why didn't
- 1:04:47Speaker 2: you do it for the whole team. I said, well, Coach,
- 1:04:49Speaker 2: I didn't think that was probably my call. He said, oh,
- 1:04:52Speaker 2: I want you to do it again, Okay, I said yeah.
- 1:04:55Speaker 2: So I started doing it actually for the old team
- 1:05:00Speaker 2: in Cincinnati and then in Pittsburgh also, and most of
- 1:05:06Speaker 2: those kids that I coach that you know, you drop
- 1:05:08Speaker 2: out of sight, they go all over the country, but
- 1:05:10Speaker 2: when you meet eventually the first question out of their
- 1:05:14Speaker 2: mouth are you still seeing the night before Christmas? And the
- 1:05:17Speaker 2: answer is yes, I still am. It's just a family thing.
- 1:05:22Speaker 2: I love Christmas, I love consideration for your fellow man. Basically,
- 1:05:28Speaker 2: that's how I look at it, all, right.
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: Final question. I do a segment every week on the
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: pregame show called fun Facts that ends with this question,
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: if you could meet anybody in history, living or deceased.
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: Who would that person be? It might be Ben Hogan. I
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: got to say hell oh to him one time. He
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: was notorious for being focused on the golf course. He
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: never even spoke to the guys he was playing with.
- 1:06:01Speaker 2: And when they first built the golf course in Akron
- 1:06:06Speaker 2: that there's still a hole major League golf tournaments on.
- 1:06:10Speaker 2: I drove up there to see him, and I ended
- 1:06:14Speaker 2: up before it was over. I followed him, I think
- 1:06:17Speaker 2: four different rounds on four different golf tournaments, but on
- 1:06:21Speaker 2: this particular one on the thirteenth hole, he never missed
- 1:06:27Speaker 2: a fairway, but he drove this ball over into the
- 1:06:29Speaker 2: rough on the right, and you know the fairways and
- 1:06:32Speaker 2: Russ roped off at PGA tournament. So I saw there
- 1:06:37Speaker 2: was nobody going down the right side of this road
- 1:06:40Speaker 2: this hole because it was so far out of the
- 1:06:42Speaker 2: way from where the course pattern went back to the left.
- 1:06:46Speaker 2: And I took off. I saw where the ball ended up,
- 1:06:49Speaker 2: and I said, I'm going down there because he's got
- 1:06:52Speaker 2: to do something. That ball's right at the rope. So
- 1:06:55Speaker 2: I was about three feet away from his golf ball,
- 1:06:58Speaker 2: and I was the only person over there and there
- 1:07:01Speaker 2: was a rope in me and Hogan and his caddy
- 1:07:05Speaker 2: can walking up and the ball was ugly down in
- 1:07:09Speaker 2: this rough down. Behind him, he was in the middle
- 1:07:12Speaker 2: of a bunch of trees and he had a little
- 1:07:13Speaker 2: tree in front of him, and then a higher tree,
- 1:07:16Speaker 2: oh about seventy five yards on up the fairway from that,
- 1:07:19Speaker 2: and in this in this day and age, it was
- 1:07:22Speaker 2: like a four hundred and sixty yard part four, which
- 1:07:25Speaker 2: is today's only driving an ad arm for him, but
- 1:07:29Speaker 2: it was more than that then. So I'm not moving
- 1:07:33Speaker 2: and I know they're going to move me. But so
- 1:07:35Speaker 2: he walked up. I could see in his bag and
- 1:07:38Speaker 2: I saw the club he took out. But he as
- 1:07:40Speaker 2: he walked up, he looked at me and he said,
- 1:07:44Speaker 2: that's not very good, is it? Looking at his lie
- 1:07:47Speaker 2: And I said, no, sir, mister Hogan, it's not very good.
- 1:07:50Speaker 2: I baby. It wasn't like a conversation or nothing. He
- 1:07:54Speaker 2: just turned away and he walked up. Because there were
- 1:07:56Speaker 2: people on the green. He smoked a cigarette all the
- 1:07:59Speaker 2: time then, and he's up there smoking a cigarette and
- 1:08:02Speaker 2: waiting until they got off the greame. It took maybe
- 1:08:06Speaker 2: seventy eight minutes before they could clear the green. He
- 1:08:09Speaker 2: walked back to that golf ball. He took out this
- 1:08:12Speaker 2: little dinky ass five wood type club. I don't know
- 1:08:17Speaker 2: what it was, but of course I said, Hogan on it,
- 1:08:20Speaker 2: and he just threw that cigarette on the ground, stepped
- 1:08:24Speaker 2: up there. He wired that golf ball out underneath the tree,
- 1:08:28Speaker 2: out of that long rough underneath the tree in front
- 1:08:31Speaker 2: of him, over the tree up and there was a
- 1:08:34Speaker 2: little walkway up between two big bunkers up to the green,
- 1:08:38Speaker 2: right up through that walkway, right up on the green.
- 1:08:41Speaker 2: He didn't look back, sake back, picked up a cigarette,
- 1:08:44Speaker 2: took off that. But he for golfers, he's probably the
- 1:08:53Speaker 2: greatest mystique character of all, at least wise in my
- 1:08:58Speaker 2: mind as a golf fan.
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: That gives me chills just picturing Ben Hogan pulling that off.
- 1:09:04Speaker 2: You should have seen a shot. Yeah, it was unbelievable.
- 1:09:08Speaker 2: When he hit a golf ball I'd been watching mom up.
- 1:09:12Speaker 2: It made a different sound than anybody I've ever heard,
- 1:09:15Speaker 2: and I've heard a lot of great players hit golf.
- 1:09:18Speaker 1: Balls sweet spot of the club every time.
- 1:09:20Speaker 2: I swunk every time, It's just a different sound. Dick.
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: This has been such a pleasure for me. I can't
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: can't thank you enough. It's just been a joy to
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: talk to you. I really appreciate your time.
- 1:09:32Speaker 2: Thank you, Dan. I've admired your work and you're working
- 1:09:35Speaker 2: with one of my very very dear friends, and Dan
- 1:09:38Speaker 2: Dave Lapham and the two of you guys. You just
- 1:09:41Speaker 2: do a great job and I know that you have
- 1:09:45Speaker 2: the same loyalty to the Brown family and the Bengals
- 1:09:48Speaker 2: that I have. So good luck to you this.
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: Year, Pal, I hope you enjoyed that as much as
- 1:09:54Speaker 1: I did. And that's going to do it for this
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- 1:10:27Speaker 1: I'm Dan Hord and thanks for listening to the Bengals
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: Booth Podcast