Character Men–Great players can build their

CHARACTER
great players can
build their legacies with
excellence on the field…
and antics off of it.
S
by Lisa Altobelli
ome possessed fun-loving nicknames like
Broadway Joe, The Fridge, and Prime Time.
Others were a bit more hard-nosed — like the
men themselves — such as Concrete Charlie,
Mean Joe Greene, and Night Train Lane.
On occasion, entire lines became notorious with labels
like the Fearsome Foursome, the Hogs, and the New York
Sack Exchange. And then there are those select few so
renown they can be readily identified by just one word:
Butkus. Riggins. Favre.
“MAD DUCK”
218 SUPER BOWL XLV
KARRAS
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“DEACON ”
JONES
Their impact on the playing field
is indisputable. So, too, is the behind- thescenes aura they created and cultivated. It
may have been their showmanship in full view
of a crowd, or their unflinching toughness
that pushed them through injuries no
one knew about, or even their innate
sense of humor that gave them license to
pull off tension-easing pranks on teammates. Whatever the reasons, they are
revered as pro football’s ultimate “character
men,” those players blessed with exceptional
talent and larger-than-life personalities that transcended the game.
Illustrations by Jack Davis
M
ost teams are likely to have one or two such characters, but the
Super Bowl XX-winning Chicago Bears accumulated a locker room full
of them, starting with their head coach: the cigar-chomping, lockerpunching, headset-kicking, Sergeant Slaughter of a leader, Mike Ditka.
The former Pro Bowl tight end nicknamed his players “The Grabowskis”
to exemplify the blue-collar work ethos of the city, but this team
was made up of anything but.
His 15-1 Bears had superstars/characters like Walter Payton
(Sweetness), Jim McMahon (the Punky QB), and William Perry
(Fridge), who excited a nation and were showered with endorsement
opportunities, hawking everything from paintball guns to NutraSweet
and gaining a recurring “Da Bears” skit on Saturday Night Live.
Defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan was a character all to himself
and oversaw a unit that featured the fearless “Samurai” Mike Singletary
and Steve “Mongo” McMichael among others. They were confident,
too. What other team would have the chutzpah to record a song, “The
Super Bowl Shuffle,” in the middle of the regular season?
Yet onto the Super Bowl they shuffled, where they took over the
host city of New Orleans. The ringleader was McMahon, with his
trademark Revo shades, headband, and Jack Nicholson smirk, and
whom Payton dubbed as “Your Outrageousness.” The QB lived up to
his moniker with late-night reveling on Bourbon Street and even
dropped his drawers to display his black-and-blue posterior to a news
helicopter to “show ’em where it hurt.” His counter was Perry, the gaptoothed, gargantuan defensive lineman who joked on his signing day,
“I’ve been big ever since I was little.”
Their 46-10 domination of the overmatched Patriots only added
to the mystique. “The number one factor in that game was the fact
that we put an A-B-C offense out there against a Ph.D defense,” said
then-Patriots coach Raymond Berry.
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Y
et while the Bears took things to unprecedented levels, the
game has always had characters. In the 1930s and 1940s, Redskins QB
Slingin’ Sammy Baugh rifled the game into the forward pass era, while
beasts like Bears fullback Bronislau “Bronko” Nagurski tore through the
opposition, and according to Giants tackle Steve Owens, was “the only
man I ever saw who ran his own interference.”
In the 1950s, the most comical player in the league was Colts tackle
Art “Fatso” Donovan. The Bronx native was as well known for his
offbeat one-liners as he was for his All-Pro defensive play, and once
claimed that if he ever wanted to get pumped up for a game, he would
just drink a case of beer. Decades after his playing days were over,
Donovan became a favorite on the late-night talk circuit, introducing
himself to a whole new generation of fans.
During that same era, the Lions locker room was entertained by the
antics of quarterback Bobby Layne and his frequent off-field companion,
tackle Alex “Mad Duck” Karras. “When I was a rookie, I went with
Layne to get a tube of toothpaste and didn’t get back for three days,”
said guard Harley Sewell.
While Layne may have needed the occasional headfirst dunk into a
barrel of water to get ready for battle, he routinely delivered and became
known as the “toughest QB who ever lived.” Tex Maule wrote in the
Dec. 2, 1957, issue of Sports Illustrated, “The cocky, tough Texan is generally regarded as the finest clutch player ever in professional football. His
ebullient behavior off the field has never affected his play; he works as
hard after a long night of living it up as he does after a full night’s sleep.”
Two of football’s most feared players of the 1960s were linebackers
Dick Butkus of the Bears and Ray Nitschke of the Packers. Butkus played
with intensity on every down, saying, “I wouldn’t ever set out to hurt
anyone deliberately unless it was important — like a league game or
something.” In the 1976 classic Rocky, Sylvester Stallone’s running
companion, his bullmastiff dog, was named Butkus as a nod to the
legendary linebacker. Nitschke, rumored to have been able to take
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“BROADWAY
JOE ”
lug nuts off a car with his teeth, also was
celebrated in cinematic history, his mention
coming in Brian’s Song when cancer victim
Brian Piccolo said not to worry because “the only
thing he was allergic to was Nitschke.”
Some of the best characters in the league are the
ones who can talk a good game as well as play it. It
was an art form perfected by David “Deacon” Jones,
a member of the Rams’ “Fearsome Foursome” that
was rounded out by Rosey Grier, Lamar Lundy, and
Merlin Olsen. While Jones was called the “Secretary
of Defense” and became known for his fierce head slaps (that
were made illegal in 1977), his other moniker was the “Secretary of
Smack.” Jones explained, “Some guys rattle with smack.”
Another quirky character was Conrad Dobler, an offensive guard for
the 1970s Cardinals who made a living out of suspect moves, but unlike
Jones, downplayed the yapping. “You have to get just the right comment
to make them mad,” said Dobler. “Verbal abuse could take all day —
a faster and more efficient way to aggravate and intimidate people is to
knock the stuffing out of them.”
And that he did — stomping, biting, and once punching “Mean”
Joe Greene in the face and kicking Olsen. Dobler is also infamous for
jumping into a coffin “just to see how comfortable it was,” but it was
Olsen who put him in the grave, albeit fictionally on TV, when he starred
in the Father Murphy series and had the camera linger on a headstone in
a cemetery scene that read, ‘Conrad Dobler. Gone, But Not Forgiven.’
W
a wild contraption that allowed
you to jump rope and lift a barbell at the same time.
Bradshaw also worked his way into movie roles in Cannonball Run and
Smokey and the Bandit II, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame in 2001, the first Pro Football Hall of Famer so honored.
But while Bradshaw may have a star, he’s among numerous enigmatic
football players who transferred their talents to the screen. Back in the
1920s, Red Grange starred in two silent films and then in a miniseries
about his exploits called The Galloping Ghost. Other successful tough
guys-turned-actors were Butkus in My Two Dads, Karras in Webster,
John Matuszak in The Goonies, and Bubba Smith in the Police Academy
franchise. Even Jim
Brown, considered
by many as the
finest running
back in league
“THE
FRIDGE”
hile these tough guys had their glory, there’s nothing like the
celebrity quarterback to up the ante, and no one embodied that
more than the fur coat-wearing, pantyhose-endorsing, actressdating New York Jet, Joe Willie Namath. It began when
“Broadway Joe” was bold enough to make “The Guarantee”
that he would lead his team to victory against the Colts in
Super Bowl III, but the fact that he was able to back up
that claim catapulted him into a cult hero.
Another charismatic quarterback who parlayed his
Super Bowl success into celebrity status was the Steelers’
Terry Bradshaw, at one time derisively nicknamed the
“Bayou Bumpkin” and who took his share of abuse for his
southern twang and aw-shucks demeanor. But Bradshaw was
smart enough to cash in on his four Super Bowl rings by
endorsing everything from Qualar toupees to the ‘Jog & Lift’—
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“THE
history, announced his retirement from the
game on the set of The Dirty Dozen in 1966.
Some players used their athletic prowess
to continue to entertain fans in the world
of pro wrestling. Nagurski ruled as a
three-time heavyweight champ in the
1940s, while the Bears’ McMichael
became known in World Championship
Wrestling for his pile driver finishing move
called the “Mongo Spike.” Other prominent
gridders who stepped into the wrestling ring
and enjoyed a degree of success included
Karras, “The Big Cat” Ernie Ladd, “Wahoo”
McDaniel, Bill Goldberg, and Kevin Greene. Lyle
Alzado managed to combine the two by playing a
wrestler in the 1988 TV sitcom Learning the Ropes.
JOKESTER”
O
ne reason so many of these characters became popular
enough to receive offers after football was the fact that they
were given much longer leashes in an era without bed checks,
fines, or cell phone cameras to record their every transgression.
Coaches were also in on the levity. It was Bum Phillips who
said, “Winning is only half of it. Having fun is the other half.”
John Madden opined, “The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules
there are for players to break.” And it was Bucs coach John McKay who
addressed bed checks, or in his case, lack thereof, saying, “You usually
wind up staying up all night, or until your best players come in.”
Sometimes a player would attempt to take (or fake) control himself,
like before Super Bowl XV when the Raiders’ Matuszak mandated that
his teammates stay in to prepare for the game against the Eagles, but he
himself stayed out in New Orleans all night. When asked later about
the contradiction, he justified his actions by saying, “That’s why I was
out in the streets. To make sure no one else was.”
As coaching legends go, there’s no one more revered than Packers
patriarch Vince Lombardi, but even he had his own “five o’clock club”
where he relaxed with a few beers after practice and went so far as to
invite the media to kick back with him daily. This “club” tradition was
carried on by one of the greatest characters of all time—Redskins running back John “The Diesel” Riggins. Riggins actually lived in a shed by
the practice fields for a stint and kept it fully stocked for his comrades.
The arrival of the touchdown celebration came in the 1970s when
the Oilers’ Billy “White Shoes” Johnson debuted his “Funky Chicken”
end zone dance, and was then taken up a notch in the 1980s when the
Bengals’ Ickey Woods showcased his “Ickey Shuffle.” Defensive dances
became part of the landscape when the Jets’ Mark Gastineau—part of
the “New York Sack Exchange” with Joe Klecko, Marty Lyons, and
Abdul Salaam—regularly engaged in a “sack dance” after a takedown.
Deion “Prime Time” Sanders intensified the hype in the 1990s. A
force on the field as a shutdown corner who split time as a Major League
Baseball player, he also dabbled in music by recording his own hip-hop
album and was regularly joined by his close friend, MC Hammer, on the
Falcons sideline.
Sanders was the prototype for today’s characters such as Terrell
Owens and Chad Ochocinco, who bring a heightened level of showmanship to the game with their premeditated touchdown celebrations
222 SUPER BOWL XLV
with classics like T.O.’s popcorn dump and
Ochocinco’s Riverdance. And even while the NFL has taken steps to
rein in the more outrageous displays, players continued to find entertaining ways to express themselves within the rules.
S
howmanship aside, the one thing all true characters possess is a pure
love for the game of football, and no one loves it more than Brett Favre—
so much so that he’s had a heck of a time retiring from it. Favre has
always been a fan favorite for his laid-back attitude and incredible ability.
“I couldn’t believe how loose — and I mean l-o-o-s-e — he was for
a young guy who had just been traded for a first-round pick,” recalls
then-Packers assistant coach Jon Gruden, after he picked Favre up from
the airport to meet with the team in 1992. “I think the first question he
asked was, ‘Do they have any fried okra around here?’ I think the second
thing he wanted to know was where he could get a beer.”
Favre is also known as a guy who thoroughly enjoys a practical joke,
which only further endeared him to his teammates — whether in
Green Bay, New York, or Minnesota.
“His jokes are actually really childish, which made him so fun,” says
former Packers teammate Mark Tauscher. “He would put a whoopee
cushion down or get an air horn and blow it in a guy’s ear. Those were
the stupid things he did that made him such a great leader. It wasn’t like
he was ever above anybody. He was one of the guys and I think that was
something that he thoroughly enjoyed.”
But Favre also had a good teacher. When he arrived at Super Bowl
XXXI in 1997, which also happened to be in New Orleans and against
the Patriots, his back-up was none other than McMahon, who prepped
him thoroughly on antics—something he had so handily mastered with
the Bears more than a decade earlier. q
Lisa Altobelli currently writes for ESPN.com and previously covered the NFL
for six years at Sports Illustrated.
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