I’m off to
Canton, Ohio, this weekend. A lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan, I’m making my
pilgrimage to help welcome Troy Aikman to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He’ll
be inducted Saturday, along with Rayfield Wright, Warren Moon, John Madden,
Harry Carson, and the late Reggie White. I’ll be wearing Cowboy blue on this
trip, and I know I’ll be flooded with memories of the many wins Aikman
orchestrated behind center for Dallas. (He won more games in the 1990s — 90 —
than any other quarterback has in any other decade.) But as I plan my trip here
in Memphis, and consider the latest class to be given football’s highest honor,
I find myself remembering a fellow Tennessean, and wishing Reggie White might
come down for this one special day.
An ordained
minister, White was given the somewhat oxymoronic nickname, “Minister of
Defense,” as a senior at the University of Tennessee. Recruited by Johnny
Majors, White left his native Chattanooga for the Big Orange in 1980 (a year
after my parents — UT alumni — moved our family from Knoxville to Southern
California). White grew into that fabled nickname by becoming the most fearsome
pass-rusher Neyland Stadium had seen since the days of Doug Atkins. As great as
White became during his college days (he was named SEC Player of the Year and an
All-America as a senior in 1983), his Volunteer teams couldn’t match the
standard. As a 12-year-old, very out-of-place UT fan, I may have seen White at
his college nadir, a 43-7 drubbing at the hands of Marcus Allen and the USC
Trojans in the L.A. Coliseum on September 12, 1981 (Allen rushed for 211 yards
on his way to the Heisman Trophy). That ’81 team would finish 8-4 after beating
Wisconsin in something called the Garden State Bowl. White’s senior campaign in
1983 was marginally better, Tennessee beating Maryland in the Florida Citrus
Bowl to finish 9-3.
Turning pro
in 1984, White followed Herschel Walker’s path and snubbed the National Football
League for the upstart United States Football League, signing to play for the
expansion Memphis Showboats. Think about that: high school ball in Chattanooga,
college in Knoxville, pro ball in Memphis. If there is a face of Tennessee
football for perpetuity, it has to be that of Reggie White. Big number 92
compiled 23.5 sacks over his two years in Memphis, leading the ‘Boats to the
USFL semifinals in 1985, the league’s final season. (During a visit here to see
my grandmother, my dad and I saw a June 1984 game between Memphis and the
Birmingham Stallions. Reggie White was 0-2 with a Murtaugh in the stands.)
When the USFL
folded, White landed where he belonged, with an old-school NFL franchise (the
Philadelphia Eagles), soon to be coached by a defensive mastermind (Buddy Ryan).
It should be noted that between Memphis and Philadelphia, White played in 31
football games in 1985. Over his eight years in Philly, White became his era’s
Deacon Jones, arguably the greatest pass-rusher the NFL had ever seen.
If White is
the face of Tennessee football, he’s also the face of NFL free agency, as he
became the most prominent player to leap teams in 1993, the first year of
unfettered free agency. Having taken the Eagles to the brink of Super Bowl
dreams, White partnered with Brett Favre to help the Green Bay Packers end
almost 30 years of broken dreams, winning Super Bowl XXI in January 1997. White
would dance across the game’s ultimate stage a year later, then retire after the
1998 season as the NFL’s all-time sack leader.
As he neared
age 40, White made some decisions that raised eyebrows, on the field and off. He
invoked insensitive stereotypes — from behind the pulpit no less — by
suggesting, for example, that Hispanics were more accustomed to living as large
families than other ethnic groups. As beloved and kindhearted as White was his
entire career in the public eye, his followers took the comments more as the
weak utterances of naivete than any mean-sprited attack they might otherwise
have been considered. But they ruined any chances White had at a career in front
of the camera. When he came out of retirement to play one more year (2000) with
the Carolina Panthers, you had to wonder if this minister felt somewhat
defrocked when away from the gridiron.
Reggie White
died in his sleep the day after Christmas, in 2004. He was the victim of cardiac
arrhythmia, compounded by sleep apnea, an all-too-deadly disorder casually
dismissed as intense snoring by most of us. Exacerbating the sorrow sure to be
felt this weekend in Canton is the knowledge that, had White not come back for
that last quarterback chase in Charlotte, he would have been alive for his Hall
induction, in August 2004.
My heart will
be racing for Troy Aikman this weekend as six men are immortalized for their
otherworldly football talent. The lump in my throat? That’ll be for Reggie
White.
