The Great Shark Hunt Part 4

The NFL's official Super Bowl party -- the "incredible Texas Hoe-Down" on Friday night in the Astrodome -- was as wild, glamorous and exciting as an Elks Club picnic on Tuesday in Salina, Kansas. The official NFL press release on the Hoe-Down said it was an unprecedented extravaganza that cost the League more than $100,000 and attracted people like Gene McCarthy and Ethel Kennedy. . . Which might have been true, but I spent about five hours skulking around in that grim concrete barn and the only people I recognized were a dozen or so sportswriters from the press lounge.

Anybody with access to a mimeograph machine and a little imagination could have generated at least a thousand articles on "an orgy of indescribable proportions" at John Connally's house, with Allen Ginsberg as the guest of honor and 13 thoroughbred horses slaughtered by drug-crazed guests with magnesium butcher knives. Most of the press people would have simply picked the story off the big table in the "workroom," rewritten it just enough to make it sound genuine, and sent it off on the Wire without a second thought.

The bus-ride to the stadium for the game on Sunday took more than an hour, due to heavy traffic. I had made the same six-mile drive the night before in just under five minutes. . . but that was under very different circ.u.mstances; Rice Stadium is on South Main Street, along the same route that led from the Hyatt Regency to the Dolphin headquarters at the Marriott, and also to the Blue Fox.

There was not much to do on the bus except drink, smoke and maintain a keen ear on the babble of conversations behind me for any talk that might signal the presence of some late-blooming Viking fan with money to waste. It is hard to stay calm and casual in a crowd of potential bettors when you feel absolutely certain of winning any bet you can make. At that point, anybody with even a hint of partisan enthusiasm in his voice becomes a possible mark -- a doomed and ignorant creature to be lured, as carefully as possible, into some disastrous last-minute wager that could cost him every dollar he owns.

There is no room for mercy or the milk of human kindness in football betting-- at least not when you're prepared to get up on the edge with every dollar you you own. One-on-one betting is a lot more interesting than dealing with bookies, because it involves strong elements of personality and psychic leverage. Betting against the point spread is a relatively mechanical trip, but betting against another individual can be very complex, if you're serious about it -- because you want to know, for starters, whether you're betting against a fool or a wizard, or maybe against somebody who's just own. One-on-one betting is a lot more interesting than dealing with bookies, because it involves strong elements of personality and psychic leverage. Betting against the point spread is a relatively mechanical trip, but betting against another individual can be very complex, if you're serious about it -- because you want to know, for starters, whether you're betting against a fool or a wizard, or maybe against somebody who's just playing playing the fool. the fool.

Making a large bet on a bus full of sportswriters on the way to the Super Bowl, for instance, can be a very dangerous thing; because you might be dealing with somebody who was in the same fraternity at Penn State with one of the team doctors, and who learned the night before -- while drinking heavily with his old buddy -- that the quarterback you're basing your bet on has four cracked ribs and can barely raise his pa.s.sing arm to shoulder level.

Situations like these are not common. Unreported injuries can lead to heavy fines against any team that fails to report one -- especially in a Super Bowl -- but what is a $10,000 fine, compared to the amount of money that kind of crucial knowledge is worth against a big-time bookie?

The other side of that coin is a situation where a shrewd coach turns the League's "report all injuries" rule into a psychological advantage for his own team -- and coincidentally for any bettor who knows what's happening -- by scrupulously reporting an injury to a star player just before a big game, then calling a press conference to explain that the just-reported injury is of such a nature -- a pulled muscle, for instance -- that it might or might not heal entirely by game time.

This was what happened in Houston with the Dolphins' Paul Warfield, widely regarded as "the most dangerous pa.s.s receiver in pro football." Warfield is a game-breaker, a man who commands double-coverage at all times because of his antelope running style, twin magnets for hands, and a weird kind of adrenaline instinct that feeds on tension and high pressure. There is no more beautiful sight in football than watching Paul Warfield float out of the backfield on a sort of angle-streak pattern right into the heart of a "perfect" zone defense and take a softly thrown pa.s.s on his hip, without even seeming to notice the arrival of the ball, and then float another 60 yards into the end zone, with none of the frustrated defensive backs ever touching him.

There is an eerie kind of certainty certainty about Warfield's style that is far more demoralizing than just another six points on the Scoreboard. About half the time he looks bored and lazy -- but even the best pa.s.s defenders in the league about Warfield's style that is far more demoralizing than just another six points on the Scoreboard. About half the time he looks bored and lazy -- but even the best pa.s.s defenders in the league know, know, in some nervous corner of their hearts, that when the deal goes down Warfield is capable of streaking right past them like they didn't exist. . . in some nervous corner of their hearts, that when the deal goes down Warfield is capable of streaking right past them like they didn't exist. . .

Unless he's hurt; playing with some kind of injury that might or might not be serious enough to either slow him down or gimp the fiendish concentration that makes him so dangerous. . . and this was the possibility that Dolphin coach Don Shula raised on Wednesday when he announced that Warfield had pulled a leg muscle in practice that afternoon and might might not play on Sunday. not play on Sunday.

This news caused instant action in gambling circles. Even big-time bookies, whose underground information on these things is usually as good as Pete Rozelle's, took Shula's announcement seriously enough to cut the spread down from seven to six-- a decision worth many millions of betting dollars if the game turned out to be close.

Even the rumor rumor of an injury to Warfield was worth one point (and even two, with some bookies I was never able to locate). . . and if Shula had announced on Sat.u.r.day that Paul was definitely not going to play, the spread would probably have dropped to four, or even three. . . Because the guaranteed absence of Warfield would have taken a great psychological load off the minds of Minnesota's defensive backs. of an injury to Warfield was worth one point (and even two, with some bookies I was never able to locate). . . and if Shula had announced on Sat.u.r.day that Paul was definitely not going to play, the spread would probably have dropped to four, or even three. . . Because the guaranteed absence of Warfield would have taken a great psychological load off the minds of Minnesota's defensive backs.

Without the ever-present likelihood of a game-breaking "bomb" at any moment, they could focus down much tighter on stopping Miami's brutal running game -- which eventually destroyed them, just as it had destroyed Oakland's nut-cutting defense two weeks earlier, and one of the main reasons why the Vikings failed to stop the Dolphins on the ground was the constant presence of Paul Warfield in his customary wide-receiver's spot.

He played almost the whole game, never showing any sign of injury; and although he caught only one pa.s.s, he neutralized two Minnesota defensive backs on every play. . . and two extra tacklers on the line of scrimmage might have made a h.e.l.l of a difference in that embarra.s.singly decisive first quarter when Miami twice drove what might as well have been the whole length of the field to score 14 quick points and crack the Vikings' confidence just as harshly as they had cracked the Redskins out in Los Angeles a year earlier.

It is hard to say, even now, exactly why I was so certain of an easy Dolphin victory. The only reason I didn't get extremely rich on the game was my inability to overcome the logistical problems of betting heavily, on credit, by means of frantic long-distance phone calls from a hotel room in Houston. None of the people I met in that violent, water-logged town were inclined to introduce me to a reliable bookmaker -- and the people I called on both coasts, several hours before the game on Sunday morning, seemed unnaturally nervous when I asked them to use their own credit to guarantee my bets with their local bookies.

Looking back on it now, after talking with some of these people and cursing them savagely, I see that the problem had something to do with my frenzied speech-pattern that morning. I was still in the grip of whatever fiery syndrome had caused me to deliver that sermon off the balcony a few hours earlier -- and the hint of mad tremor in my voice, despite my attempts to disguise it, was apparently communicated very clearly to all those I spoke with on the long-distance telephone.

How long, O lord, how long? This is the second year in a row that I have gone to the Super Bowl and been absolutely certain -- at least 48 hours before gametime -- of the outcome. It is also the second year in a row that I have failed to capitalize, financially, on this certainty. Last year, betting mainly with wealthy cocaine addicts, I switched all my bets from Was.h.i.+ngton to Miami on Friday night -- and in the resulting confusion my net winnings were almost entirely canceled by widespread rancor and personal bitterness.

This year, in order to side-step that problem, I waited until the last moment to make my bets -- despite the fact that I knew the Vikings were doomed after watching them perform for the press at their star-crossed practice field on Monday afternoon before the game. It was clear, even then, that they were spooked and very uncertain about what they were getting into -- but it was not until I drove about 20 miles around the beltway to the other side of town for a look at the Dolphins that I knew, for sure, how to bet.

There are a lot of factors intrinsic to the nature of the Super Bowl that make it far more predictable than regular season games, or even playoffs -- but they are not the kind of factors that can be sensed or understood at a distance of 2000 or even 20 miles, on the basis of any wisdom or information that filters out from the site through the rose-colored booze-bent media-filter that pa.s.ses for "world-wide coverage" at these spectacles.

There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance distance -- physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. . . Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit -- physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. . . Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique mystique that blew the sacred inst.i.tution of baseball off its "national pastime" pedestal in less than 15 years. that blew the sacred inst.i.tution of baseball off its "national pastime" pedestal in less than 15 years.

There were other reasons for baseball's precipitous loss of popularity among everybody except old men and middle-aged sportswriters between 1959 and now -- just as there will be a variety of reasons to explain the certain decline of pro football between now and 1984 -- but if sporting historians ever look back on all this and try to explain it, there will be no avoiding the argument that pro football's meteoric success in the 1960's was directly attributable to its early marriage with network TV and a huge, coast-to-coast audience of armchair fans who "grew up" -- in terms of their personal relations.h.i.+ps to The Game -- with the idea that pro football was something that happened every Sunday on the tube. The notion of driving eight miles along a crowded freeway and then paying $3 to park the car in order to pay another $10 to watch the game from the vantage point of a damp redwood bench 55 rows above the 19-yard line in a crowd of noisy drunks was entirely repugnant to them.

And they were absolutely right. After ten years of trying it both ways-- and especially after watching this last wretched Super Bowl game from a choice seat in the "press section" very high above the 50-yard line -- I hope to christ I never again succ.u.mb to whatever kind of weakness or madness it is that causes a person to endure the incoherent h.e.l.l that comes with going out to a cold and rainy stadium for three hours on a Sunday afternoon and trying to get involved with whatever seems to be happening down there on that far-below field.

At the Super Bowl I had the benefit of my usual game-day aids: powerful binoculars, a tiny portable radio for the blizzard of audio-details that n.o.body ever thinks to mention on TV, and a seat on the good left arm of my friend, Mr. Natural. . . But even with all these aids and a seat on the 50-yard line, I would rather have stayed in my hotel room and watched the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing on TV; or maybe in some howling-drunk bar full of heavy bettors -- the kind of people who like to bet on every play: pa.s.s or run, three to one against a first down, twenty to one on a turnover. . .

This is a very fast and active style of betting, because you have to make a decision about every 25 seconds. The only thing more intense is betting yes or no on the next shot in something like a pro basketball game between the Celtics and the Knicks, where you might get five or six shots every 24 seconds. . . or maybe only one, but in any case the betting is almost as exhausting as being out there on the floor.

I stayed in Houston for two days after the game, but even with things calmed down I had no luck in finding the people who'd caused me all my trouble. Both Tom Keating and Al LoCasale were rumored to be in the vicinity, but -- according to some of the New York sportswriters who'd seen them -- neither one was eager to either see or be seen with me.

When I finally fled Houston it was a cold Tuesday afternoon with big lakes of standing water on the road to the airport. I almost missed my plane to Denver because of a ha.s.sle with Jimmy the Greek about who was going to drive us to the airport and another ha.s.sle with the hotel garage-man about who was going to pay for eight days of tending my bogus "Official Super Bowl Car" in the hotel garage. . . and I probably wouldn't have made it at all if I hadn't run into a NFL publicity man who gave me enough speed to jerk me awake and lash the little white Mercury Cougar out along the Dallas freeway to the airport in time to abandon it in the "Departures/Taxis Only" area and hire a man for five dollars to rush my bags and sound equipment up to the Continental Airlines desk just in time to make the flight.

Twenty-four hours later I was back in Woody Creek and finally, by sheer accident, making contact with that twisted b.a.s.t.a.r.d Keating -- who bent my balance a bit by calmly admitting his role in my Problem and explaining it with one of the highest left-handed compliments anybody ever aimed at me. . .

"I got nothing personal against Thompson," he told another NFL player who happened to be skiing in Aspen at the time: "But let's face it, we've got nothing to gain by talking to him. I've read all his stuff and I know how he is; he's a G.o.dd.a.m.n lunatic -- and you've got to be careful with a b.a.s.t.a.r.d like that, because no matter how hard he tries, he just can't help but tell the truth."

When I heard that I just sort of slumped down on my bar-stool and stared at myself in the mirror. . . wis.h.i.+ng, on one level, that Keating's harsh judgment was right. . . but knowing, on another, that the treacherous realities of the worlds I especially work in forced me to abandon that purist stance a long time ago. If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people -- including me -- would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

What was easily the most provocative quote of that whole dreary week came on the Monday after the game from Miami linebacker Doug Swift. He was talking in his usual loose "What? Me worry?" kind of way with two or three sports-writers in the crowded lobby of the Marriott. Buses were leaving for the airport, Dolphin supporters and their wives were checking out, the lobby was full of stranded luggage, and off in one of the corners, Don Shula was talking with another clutch of sportswriters and ridiculing the notion that he would ever get rid of Jim Kiick, despite Kiick's obvious unhappiness at the prospect of riding the bench again next year behind all-pro running back Mercury Morris.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the lobby, Doug Swift was going along with a conversation that had turned, along with Shula's, to money and next year's contracts. Swift listened for a while, then looked up at whoever was talking to him and said: "You can expect to see a lot of new faces on next year's [Miami] team. A lot of important contracts are coming up for renewal, and you can bet that the guys will be asking for more than management is willing to pay."

n.o.body paid much attention to the decidedly unnatural timing of Swift's matter-of-fact prediction about "a lot of new faces next year," but it was not the kind of talk designed to tickle either Shula's or Joe Robbie's rampant humours that morning. Jesus, here was the team's Player Representative -- a star linebacker and one of the sharpest & most politically conscious people in the League -- telling anyone who cared to listen, not even 12 hours after the victory party, that the embryo "Dolphin Dynasty" was already in a very different kind of trouble than anything the Vikings or the Redskins had been able to lay on them in two straight Super Bowls.

Swift's comment was all the more ominous because of his nature as the team's spokesman in the NFL Players' a.s.sociation -- a long-dormant poker club, of sorts, that in recent years has developed genuine muscle. Even in the face of what most of the player reps call a "legalized and unregulated monopoly" with the power of what amounts to "life or death" over their individual fates and financial futures in the tight little world of the National Football League, the Players' a.s.sociation since 1970 has managed to challenge the owners on a few carefully chosen issues. . . The two most obvious, or at least most frequently mentioned by players, are the Pension Fund (which the owners now contribute to about twice as heavily as they did before the threatened strike in 1970) and the players' unilateral rejection, last year, of the "urinalysis proposal" which the owners and Rozelle were apparently ready and willing to arrange for them, rather than risk any more public fights with Congress about things like TV blackouts and ant.i.trust exemptions.

According to Pittsburgh tackle Tom Keating, an articulate maverick who seems to enjoy a universal affection and respect from almost everybody in the League except the owners and owner-bent coaches, the Players' a.s.sociation croaked the idea of ma.s.s-urinalysis with one quick snarl. "We just told them to f.u.c.k it," he says. "The whole concept of ma.s.s urine tests is degrading! Jesus, can you imagine what would happen if one of those stadium cops showed up in the press box at half-time with a hundred test tubes and told all the writers to p.i.s.s in the d.a.m.n things or turn in their credentials for the rest of the season? I'd like to film that G.o.dd.a.m.n scene."

I agreed with Keating that ma.s.s-urinalysis in the press box at half-time would undoubtedly cause violence and a blizzard of vicious a.s.saults on the NFL in the next mornings' papers. . . but, after thinking about it for a while, the idea struck me as having definite possibilities if applied on a broad enough basis: Mandatory urine-tests for all congressmen and senators at the end of each session, for instance. Who could predict what kind of screaming h.e.l.l might erupt if Rep. Harley Staggers was suddenly grabbed by two Pinkerton men in a hallway of the US Capitol and dragged-- in full view of tourists, newsmen and several dozen of his shocked and frightened colleagues -- into a nearby corner and forced to p.i.s.s in a test tube?

Would Staggers scream for help? Would he struggle in the grip of his captors? Or would he meekly submit, in the interest of National Security?

We will probably never know, because the present Congress does not seem to be in the mood to start pa.s.sing "Forced Urinalysis" laws -- although the Agnew-style Supreme Court that Nixon has saddled us with would probably look with favor on such a law.

In any case, the threat of mandatory urinalysis for professional athletes will probably be hooted out of Congress as some kind of stupid hillbilly joke if Staggers ever gets serious about it. He is not viewed, in Was.h.i.+ngton, as a heavy Shaker and Mover.

When Doug Swift made that comment about "a lot of new faces on next year's team," he was not thinking in terms of a player-revolt against forced urinalysis. What he had in mind, I think, was the fact that among the Dolphin contracts coming up for renewal this year are those of Larry Csonka, Jake Scott, Paul Warfield, d.i.c.k Anderson and Mercury Morris -- all established stars earning between $30,000 and $55,000 a year right now, and all apparently in the mood to double their salaries next time around.

Which might seem a bit pushy, to some people -- until you start comparing average salary figures in the National Football League against salaries in other pro sports. The average NFL salary (according to figures provided by Players' a.s.sociation general counsel, Ed Garvey) is $28,500, almost five grand less than the $33,000 average for major league baseball players, and about half half the average salary (between $50,000 and $55,000) in the National Hockey League. . . But when you start talking about salaries in the National Basketball a.s.sociation, it's time to kick out the jams: The the average salary (between $50,000 and $55,000) in the National Hockey League. . . But when you start talking about salaries in the National Basketball a.s.sociation, it's time to kick out the jams: The average average NBA salary is $92,500 a year. (The NBA Players' a.s.sociation claims that the average salary is $100,000.) Against this steep-green background, it's a little easier to see why Larry Csonka wants a raise from his current salary of $55,000 -- to $100,000 or so, a figure that he'd probably scale down pretty calmly if Joe Robbie offered him the average NBA salary of $92,500. NBA salary is $92,500 a year. (The NBA Players' a.s.sociation claims that the average salary is $100,000.) Against this steep-green background, it's a little easier to see why Larry Csonka wants a raise from his current salary of $55,000 -- to $100,000 or so, a figure that he'd probably scale down pretty calmly if Joe Robbie offered him the average NBA salary of $92,500.

(A quick little sidelight on all these figures has to do with the price TV advertisers paid to push their products during time-outs and penalty-squabbles at the Super Bowl: The figure announced by the NFL and whatever TV network carried the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing was $200,000 per minute. I missed the telecast, due to factors beyond my control -- which is why I don't know which network sucked up all that gravy, or whether it was Schlitz, Budweiser, Gillette or even King Kong Amyl Nitrites that coughed up $200,000 for every 60 seconds of TV exposure on that grim afternoon.) But that was just a sidelight. . . and the longer I look at all these figures, my watch, and this G.o.dd.a.m.n stinking mojo wire that's been beeping steadily out here in the snow for two days, the more I tend to see this whole thing about a pending Labor Management crunch in the NFL as a story with a spine of its own that we should probably leave for later.

The only other thing -- or maybe two things -- that I want to hit, las.h.i.+ng the final pages of this b.a.s.t.a.r.d into the mojo, has to do with the sudden and apparently serious formation of the "World Football League" by the same people whose record, so far, has been pretty good when it comes to taking on big-time monopolies. Los Angeles lawyer Gary Davidson is the same man who put both the American Basketball a.s.sociation and the World Hockey League together-- two extremely presumptuous trips that appear to have worked out very nicely, and which also provided the compet.i.tion factor that caused the huge salary jumps in both basketball and hockey.

Perhaps the best example of how the compet.i.tion-factor affects player salaries comes from the ledger-books of the NFL. In 1959, the average salary in pro football was $9500 a year. But in 1960, when the newly formed AFL began its big-money bidding war against pro football's Old Guard, the average NFL salary suddenly jumped to $27,500-- and in the 13 years since then it has crept up another $1000 to the current figure of $28,500.

The explanation for all this -- according to Garvey and all the players I've talked to about it -- is rooted entirely in the owner-arranged merger between the NFL and the AFL in 1966. "Ever since then," says Garvey, "it's been a buyer's market, and that's why the NFL's average salary figure has remained so stagnant, compared to the other sports."

Garvey said he'd just as soon not make any public comment on the possibility of a players' strike next summer -- but there is a lot of private talk about it among individual players, and especially among the player reps and some of the politically oriented hard rockers like Swift, Keating, and Kansas City's Ed Podolak.

The only person talking publicly publicly about a players' strike is Gary Davidson, president of the new World Football League -- who called a press conference in New York on January 22nd to announce that the WFL was not going after the top college players and the 35 or so NFL veterans who played out their options last year -- but, in a sudden reversal of policy that must have sent cold shots of fear through every one of the 26 plush boardrooms in the NFL, Davidson announced that the WFL will also draft "all pro football players, even those under contract," and then begin draining talent out of the NFL by a simple device called "future contracts." about a players' strike is Gary Davidson, president of the new World Football League -- who called a press conference in New York on January 22nd to announce that the WFL was not going after the top college players and the 35 or so NFL veterans who played out their options last year -- but, in a sudden reversal of policy that must have sent cold shots of fear through every one of the 26 plush boardrooms in the NFL, Davidson announced that the WFL will also draft "all pro football players, even those under contract," and then begin draining talent out of the NFL by a simple device called "future contracts."

If the Boston Bulls of the WFL, for instance, decided to draft Dolphin quarterback Bob Griese this year and sign him to a future contract for 1975, Griese would play the entire "74 season for Miami, and then -- after getting a certified deposit slip for something like $2 million in gold bullion from his bank in Zurich -- he would have a round of farewell beers with Robbie and Shula before catching the plane for Boston, where he would open the 1976 season as quarterback for the Bulls.

This is only one of several hundred weird scenarios that could start unfolding in the next few months if the WFL franchise-owners have enough real money to take advantage of the NFL players' strike that Gary Davidson says he's waiting for this summer.

Why not? Total madness on the money front: Huge bonuses, brutal money raids on NFL teams like the Dolphins and the Raiders; wild-eyed WFL agents flying around the country in private Lear jets with huge sacks of cash and mind-bending contracts for any player willing to switch. . .

The only sure loser, in the end, will be the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d who buys a season ticket for the Dolphins '76 season and then picks up the Miami Herald the next day to find a red banner headline saying: GRIESE, KJICK, CSONKA, SCOTT, ANDERSON JUMP TO WFL.

Which is sad, but what the h.e.l.l? None of this tortured bulls.h.i.+t about the future of pro football means anything, anyway. If the Red Chinese invaded tomorrow and banned the game entirely, n.o.body would really miss it after two or three months. Even now, most of the games are so f.u.c.king dull that it's hard to understand how anybody can even watch them on TV unless they have some money hanging on the point spread, instead of the final score.

Pro football in America is over the hump. Ten years ago it was a very hip and private kind of vice to be into. I remember going to my first 49er game in 1965 with 15 beers in a plastic cooler and a Dr. Grabow pipe full of bad hash. The 49ers were still playing in Kezar stadium then, an old grey hulk at the western end of Haight Street in Golden Gate Park. There were never any sellouts, but the 30,000 or so regulars were extremely heavy drinkers, and at least 10,000 of them were out there for no other reason except to get involved in serious violence. . . By halftime the place was a drunken madhouse, and anybody who couldn't get it on anywhere else could always go underneath the stands and try to get into the long trough of a "Men's Room" through the "Out" door; there were always a few mean drunks lurking around to punch anybody who tried that. . . and by the end of the third quarter of any game, regardless of the score, there were always two or three huge brawls that would require the cops to clear out whole sections of the grandstand.

But all that changed when the 49ers moved out to Candlestick Park. The prices doubled and a whole new crowd took the seats. It was the same kind of crowd I saw, last season, in the four games I went to at the Oakland Coliseum: a sort of half-rich mob of nervous doctors, lawyers and bank officers who would sit through the whole game without ever making a sound -- not even when some freak with a head full of acid spilled a whole beer down the neck of their grey-plastic ski jackets. Toward the end of the season, when the Raiders were battling every week for a spot in the playoffs, some of the players got so p.i.s.sed off at the stuporous nature of their "fans" that they began making public appeals for "cheering" and "noise."

It was a bad joke if you didn't have to live with it-- and as far as I'm concerned I hope to h.e.l.l I never see the inside of another football stadium. Not even a free seat with free booze in the press box.

That gig is over now, and I blame it on Vince Lombardi.

The success of his Green Bay approach in the '60's restructured the game entirely. Lombardi never really thought about winning; winning; his trip was his trip was not losing not losing. . . Which worked, and because it worked the rest of the NFL bought Lombardi's whole style: Avoid Mistakes, Don't f.u.c.k Up, Hang Tough and Take No Chances. . . Because sooner or later the enemy will make a mistake and then you start grinding them down, and if you play the defensive percentage you'll get inside his 30-yard line at least three times in each half, and once you're inside the 30 you want to be sure to get at least three points. . .

Wonderful. Who can argue with a battle-plan like that? And it is worth remembering that Richard Nixon spent many Sundays, during all those long and lonely autumns between 1962 and '68, shuffling around on the field with Vince Lombardi at Green Bay Packer games.

Nixon still speaks of Lombardi as if he might suddenly appear, at any moment, from underneath one of the larger rocks on the White House lawn. . . And Don Shula, despite his fairly obvious distaste for Nixon, has adopted the Lombardi style of football so effectively that the Dolphins are now one of the dullest teams to watch in the history of pro football.

But most of the others are just as dull -- and if you need any proof, find a TV set some weekend that has pro football, basketball and hockey games on three different channels. In terms of pure action and movement, the NFL is a mola.s.ses farm compared to the fine sense of crank that comes on when you get locked into watching a team like the Montreal Canadiens or the Boston Celtics.

One of the few sharp memories I still have from that soggy week in Houston is the sight of the trophy that would go to the team that won the Big Game on Sunday. It was appropriately named after Vince Lombardi: "The Lombardi Trophy," a thick silver fist rising out of a block of black granite.

The trophy has all the style and grace of an ice floe in the North Atlantic. There is a silver plaque on one side of the base that says something about Vince Lombardi and the Super Bowl. . . but the most interesting thing about it is a word that is carved, for no apparent or at least no esthetic reason, in the top of the black marble base: "DISCIPLINE".

That's all it says, and all it needs to say.

The '73 Dolphins, I suspect, will be to pro football what the '64 Yankees were to baseball, the final flower of an era whose time has come and gone. The long and ham-fisted shadow of Vince Lombardi will be on us for many more years. . . But the crank is gone. . .

Should we end the b.u.g.g.e.r with that?

Why not? Let the sportswriters take it from here. And when things get nervous, there's always that smack-filled $7-a-night motel room down on the seawall in Galveston.

Rolling Stone #128, February 15, 1973 February 15, 1973

The Temptations of Jean-Claude Killy

Gray day in Boston. Piles of dirty snow around the airport. . . My c.o.c.ktail flight from Denver was right on time, but Jean-Claude Killy was not there to meet me.

Bill Cardoso lurked near the gate, grinning through elegant rimless gla.s.ses, commenting on our way to the bar that I looked like a candidate for a serious dope bust. Sheepskin vests are not big in Boston these days.

"But look at these fine wing-tips," I said, pointing down at my shoes.

He chuckled. "All I can see is that G.o.dd.a.m.n necklace. Being seen with you could jeopardize my career. Do you have anything illegal in that bag?"

"Never," I said. "A man can't travel around on airplanes wearing a Condor Legion neck-piece unless he's totally clean. I'm not even armed. . . This whole situation makes me feel nervous and weird and thirsty." I lifted my sungla.s.ses to look for the bar, but the light was too harsh.

"What about Killy?" he said. "I thought you were supposed to meet him."

"I can't handle it tonight," I said. "I've been chasing all over the country for 10 days on this thing: Chicago, Denver, Aspen, Salt Lake City, Sun Valley, Baltimore. Now Boston and tomorrow New Hamps.h.i.+re. I'm supposed to ride up there with them tonight on the Head Ski bus, but I'm not up to it; all those hired geeks with their rib-ticklers. Let's have a drink, then I'll cancel out on the bus trip."

It seemed like the only decent thing to do. So we drove around to the airport hotel and went inside, where the desk clerk said the Head Ski people were gathered in Room 247. Which was true; they were in there, perhaps 30 in all, standing around a cloth-covered table loaded with beer and diced hotdogs. It looked like a c.o.c.ktail party for the local Patrolmen's Benevolent a.s.sociation. These were the Head Ski dealers, presumably from around the New England area. And right in their midst, looking fatigued and wretchedly uncomfortable -- yes, I couldn't quite believe it, but there he was: Jean-Claude Killy, the world's greatest skier, now retired at age 26 with three Olympic gold medals, a fistful of golden contracts, a personal manager and ranking-celebrity status on three continents. . .

Cardoso nudged me, whispering, "Jesus, there's Killy." I hadn't expected to find him here; not in a dim little windowless room in the bowels of a plastic motel. I stopped just inside the door. . . and a dead silence fell on the room. They stared, saying nothing, and Cardoso said later that he thought we were going to be attacked.

I hadn't expected a party. I thought we were looking for a private room, containing either "Bud" Stanner, Head's Marketing Director, or Jack Rose, the PR man. But neither one was there. The only person I recognized was Jean-Claude, so I waded through the silence to where he was standing, near the hotdog table. We shook hands, both of us vibrating discomfort in this strange atmosphere. I was never quite sure about Killy, never knowing if he understood why I was embarra.s.sed for him for him in those scenes. in those scenes.

A week earlier he'd seemed insulted when I smiled at his pitchman's performance at the Chicago Auto Show, where he and O.J. Simpson had spent two days selling Chevrolets. Killy had seen no humor in his act, and he couldn't understand why I did. Now, standing around in this grim, beer-flavored sales meeting, it occurred to me that maybe he thought I felt uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing a red tie and a Robert Hall blazer with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons like most of the others. Maybe he was embarra.s.sed to be seen with me, a Weird Person of some sort. . . and with Cardoso, wearing granny gla.s.ses and a big grin, wandering around the room mumbling, "Jesus, where are we? This must be Nixon headquarters." We didn't stay long. I introduced Cardoso as an editor of the Boston Globe, and that stirred a bit of interest in the dealer-salesmen ranks -- they are wise in the ways of publicity -- but my neckpiece was obviously more than they could handle. Their faces tensed when I reached into the beer tub; nothing had been offered and my thirst was becoming acute. Jean-Claude just stood there in his blazer, smiling nervously. Outside in the hallway, Cardoso erupted with laughter. "What an incredible scene! What was he doing doing with those b.u.ms?" with those b.u.ms?"

I shook my head. Killy's hard-sell scenes no longer surprised me, but finding him trapped in a beer and hotdog gig was like wandering into some housing-project kaffeeklatsch and finding Jacqueline Kennedy Ona.s.sis making a straight-faced pitch for Folger's instant-brewed.

My head was not straight at that stage of the investigation. Two weeks of guerrilla warfare with Jean-Claude Killy's publicity juggernaut had driven me to the brink of hysteria. What had begun in Chicago as a simple sketch of a French athlete turned American culture-hero had developed, by the time I got to Boston, into a series of maddening skirmishes with an interlocking directorate of public relations people.

I was past the point of needing any more private time with Jean-Claude. We had already done our thing -- a four-hour head-on clash that ended with him yelling: "You and me, we are completely different. We are not the same kind of people! You don't understand! You could never do what I'm doing! You sit there and smile, but you don't know what it is! I am tired. Tired! I don't care anymore -- not on the inside.or the outside! I don't care what I say, what I think, but I have to keep doing it. but I have to keep doing it. And two weeks from now I can go back home to rest, and spend all my money." And two weeks from now I can go back home to rest, and spend all my money."

There was a hint of decency -- perhaps even humor -- about him, but the high-powered realities of the world he lives in now make it hard to deal with him on any terms except those of pure commerce. His handlers rush him from one scheduled appearance to the next; his time and priorities are parceled out according to their dollar/publicity value; everything he says is screened and programmed. He often sounds like a prisoner of war, dutifully repeating his name, rank and serial number. . . and smiling, just as dutifully, fixing his interrogator with that wistful, distracted sort of half-grin that he knows knows is deadly effective because his handlers have showed him the evidence in a hundred press-clippings. The smile has become a trademark. It combines James Dean, Porfiro Rubirosa and a teen-age bank clerk with a foolproof embezzlement scheme. is deadly effective because his handlers have showed him the evidence in a hundred press-clippings. The smile has become a trademark. It combines James Dean, Porfiro Rubirosa and a teen-age bank clerk with a foolproof embezzlement scheme.

Killy projects an innocence and a shy vulnerability that he is working very hard to overcome. He likes the carefree, h.e.l.l-for-leather image that he earned as the world's best ski racer, but nostalgia is not his bag, and his real interest now is his new commercial scene, the high-rolling world of the Money Game, where nothing is free and amateurs are called Losers. The wistful smile is still there, and Killy is shrewd enough to value it, but it will be a hard thing to retain through three years of Auto Shows, even for $100,000 a year.

We began in Chicago, at some awful hour of the morning, when I was roused out of a hotel stupor and hustled around a corner on Michigan Avenue to where Chevrolet's general manager John Z. DeLorean was addressing an audience of 75 "automotive writers" at a breakfast press conference on the mezzanine of the Continental Plaza. The room looked like a bingo parlor in Tulsa -- narrow, full of long formica tables with a makes.h.i.+ft bar at one end serving coffee, b.l.o.o.d.y Marys and sweet rolls. It was the morning of the first big weekend of the Chicago Auto Show, and Chevrolet was going whole-hog. Sitting next to DeLorean at the head table were Jean-Claude Killy and O. J. Simpson, the football hero.

Killy's manager was there-- a tall, thick fellow named Mark McCormack, from Cleveland, a specialist in rich athletes and probably the only man alive who knows what Killy is worth. Figures ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 a year are meaningless in the context of today's long-term high finance. A good tax lawyer can work miracles with a six-figure income. . . and with all the fine machinery available to a man who can hire the best money-managers, Killy's finances are so skillfully tangled that he can't understand them himself.

In some cases, a big contract -- say, $500,000 -- is really a 5-year annual salary of $20,000 with a $400,000 interest-free loan, deposited in the star's account, paying anywhere from 5 per cent to 20 per cent annually, depending on how he uses it. He can't touch the princ.i.p.al, but a $400,000 nut will yield $30,000 a year by accident -- and a money-man working for 30 percent can easily triple that figure.

With that kind of property to protect, McCormack has a.s.sumed veto-power over anyone a.s.signed to write about it for the public prints. This is compounded in its foulness by the fact that he usually gets away with it. Just prior to my introduction he had vetoed a writer from one of the big-selling men's magazines -- who eventually wrote a very good Killy article anyway but without ever talking to the subject.

"Naturally, you'll be discreet," he told me.

"About what?"

"You know what I mean." He smiled. "Jean-Claude has his private life and I'm sure you won't want to embarra.s.s him or anyone else -- including yourself, I might add -- by violating confidence."

"Well. . . certainly not," I replied, flas.h.i.+ng him a fine eyebrow shrug to cover my puzzlement. He seemed pleased, and I glanced over at Killy, who was chatting amiably with DeLorean, saying, "I hope you can ski with me sometime at Val d'Isere."

Was there something depraved in that face? Could the innocent smile mask a twisted mind? What was McCormack hinting at? Nothing in Killy's manner seemed weird or degenerate. He spoke earnestly -- not comfortable with English, but handling it well enough. If anything, he seemed overly polite, very concerned with saying the right thing, like an Ivy League business school grad doing well on his first job interview -- confident, but not quite sure. It was hard to imagine him as a s.e.x freak, hurrying back to his hotel room and calling room service for a cattle prod and two female iguanas.

I shrugged and mixed myself another b.l.o.o.d.y Mary. McCormack seemed satisfied that I was giddy and malleable enough for the task at hand, so he switched his attention to a small, wavy-haired fellow named Leonard Roller, a representative of one of Chevrolet's numerous public relations firms.

I drifted over to introduce myself. Jean-Claude laid his famous smile on me and we talked briefly about nothing at all. I took it for granted that he was tired of dealing with writers, reporters, gossip-hustlers and that ilk, so I explained that I was more interested in his new role as salesman-celebrity -- and his reactions to it -- than I was in the standard, question/answer game. He seemed to understand, smiling sympathetically at my complaints about lack of sleep and early-morning press conferences.

Killy is smaller than he looks on television, but larger than most ski racers, who are usually short and beefy, like weight-lifting jockeys and human cannonb.a.l.l.s. He is almost 6-feet tall and claims to weigh 175 pounds -- which is easy enough to believe when you meet him head-on, but his profile looks nearly weightless. Viewed from the side, his frame is so flat that he seems like a life-size cardboard cut-out. Then, when he turns to face you again, he looks like a scaled-down Joe Palooka, perfectly built. In swimming trunks he is almost delicate, except for his thighs -- huge chunks of muscle, the thighs of an Olympic sprinter or a pro basketball guard. . . or a man who has spent a lifetime on skis.

Jean-Claude, like Jay Gatsby, has "one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal rea.s.surance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced -- or seemed to face -- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you would like to believe in yourself, and a.s.sured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey." That description of Gatsby by Nick Carraway -- of Scott, by Fitzgerald -- might just as well be of J.-C. Killy, who also fits the rest of it: "Precisely at that point [Gatsby's smile] vanished -- and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. . ." with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you would like to believe in yourself, and a.s.sured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey." That description of Gatsby by Nick Carraway -- of Scott, by Fitzgerald -- might just as well be of J.-C. Killy, who also fits the rest of it: "Precisely at that point [Gatsby's smile] vanished -- and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. . ."