Tooz-days with the Raiders

[TheShadow]

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By Pat Toomay
Special to Page 2


Editor's Note: In last week's episode, Pat Toomay describes his first
season with the Raiders, 1977, which was unexpectedly his personal best. He
led the AFC in sacks and helped propel Oakland to an 11-3 regular-season
record.


Nineteen seventy-seven was a banner year for me -- the proverbial
"career" year, as sportswriters like to describe it. Although I didn't find
out until much later, I ended up leading the AFC in sacks. Week after week,
it seemed, I could do no wrong. Floating in the mist of that euphoria, it
was easy to ignore signs that suggested I might be inhabiting something
other than a pro football paradise. Things were going too well to pay
attention to such trivialities. Yet the signs were there. Moreover, they
were portentous. I suppose it was inevitable that they would constellate
around the figure of John Matuszak.


When I joined the club after being traded from Tampa, my impression of
Tooz was that, under the beneficent guidance of John Madden and Al Davis, he
had miraculously shed his bad boy image and settled down to become a
productive member of a team. That was what press reports seemed to indicate.
That was the scuttlebutt circulating throughout the league. However, as I
got to know my teammates and began to hear their stories, it quickly became
clear that the reality of the situation was far more complicated than the
hype.


As it happened, it was Al Davis who suggested the Raiders pick up
Matuszak after he was cut by the Redskins at the end of the 1976 preseason.
Asked why he'd let Matuszak go, Redskins coach George Allen had famously
replied, "Vodka and Valium, the Breakfast of Champions." Still, the Raiders
took a chance. Having lost three defensive linemen to season-ending
injuries, they were in dire need of a big body to play the 3-4 front, which
they'd been forced to adopt because of lack of personnel. No better
candidate was available than Tooz.


"When he arrived, I wasn't about to talk to him about his past,"
Madden reflected later. "In his travels, every coach and every amateur
psychologist had lectured him. He was more experienced at hearing that
speech than I was at giving it. He had a reputation as a disruptive
influence, but I hadn't phoned George Allen or the coaches in Kansas City
and Houston for his report card. Whatever he did that they got rid of him
for, if he did it with us, he was gone, too. If you know too much about a
guy, you tend to prejudge him, to hold his past against him. I wasn't a
psychiatrist or psychologist. I was a football coach. If you play football
for me, good. If you screw up, goodbye."


This was a public declaration, so, to a certain extent, it was
protective. The truth was, Tooz pushed the envelope from the beginning, and
more than a few players wondered how long Madden would have put up with it
had the club's power equation been different.


The club's power equation. For years, Raiders critics had hammered at
it. In Oakland, they held, Al Davis was the real force, while everyone else
was a puppet. Even -- and especially -- Madden. After all, Madden was only
31 when he was hired as linebacker coach; he was only 33 when he took over
the team. So he was just a kid. Moreover, he was a big, unsophisticated lug
of a kid, who had no pedigree and no real head coaching experience. Thus, he
was a perfect candidate for the manipulative Davis. He was mere putty in
Davis' hands. What else could he have been?


Critics would admit that Madden knew football, that he was no dummy by
any stretch. But they maintained that if Madden wanted the Raiders head
coaching job, he had to play ball with Davis. It was as simple as that.
Madden had to implement Davis' philosophy at every turn. Was it Madden who
loved wild-card players? No, it was Davis who loved 'em, because Davis
himself was a wild card. So Madden had no choice but to be the good father
to those nutcases. He was the way he was because he had to be. What coach in
his right mind would put up with a player such as John Matuszak?


However wrong the critics would ultimately turn out to be, this
question did rear its head -- and it did so on Tooz's very first day of
practice. As a general rule, Madden wanted new players to fit in when they
arrived, to join the circle with the other players rather than try to be a
leader. Tooz, however, had other ideas. On that first day, ever the showman,
Tooz dressed with the other players but delayed joining them on the field.
Then he sprinted out of the locker room, screaming, "AAARRRGGGHHH!" at the
top of his lungs. Even Davis got nervous. Standing next to Ted Hendricks,
sort of thinking out loud, he mumbled, "Jeez, I wonder if John's worth the
gamble?" Hendricks gave him a you've-got-be-kidding look. "Al, what
difference will one more make?"


For the most part, Tooz behaved himself that first season. Reportedly,
Madden once had to order off the team plane two bimbos who were brought on
by a tipsy Tooz, and there was an incident in which Tooz got under Madden's
skin during practice and had to be reminded who was running things. But
these were mild irritations relative to what the season held for the
Raiders. As the club drove to its first Super Bowl title, Tooz played big
and he played hurt. Filling a key position, he was vital to the team's
success. In a game where loyalty is prized, Tooz created capital for
himself. It wasn't long, however, before he started to spend it.


"Keeper of the Tooz" was what the job ultimately came to be known as,
and I suppose I was an early candidate for the position (if an unsuspecting
one), because Tooz and I were paired up as road roommates after Duane
Benson, my training camp roommate, was waived at the end of the '77
preseason. I've described my first night with Tooz in Part IV of this
series, and that's pretty much how it went until the fourth regular season
game, when we traveled to Cleveland to play the Browns.


Because Cleveland was a long flight for us, we left for the game on
Friday, instead of our usual Saturday departure, to allow time to acclimate
and to recover from jet lag. Arriving at the hotel early Friday evening, I
grabbed a bite from the team buffet before heading up to the room to relax.
My roommate, I noticed, had met some friends in the lobby. After making only
a token appearance at the buffet, Tooz headed out with them.


Up in the room, I read, watched TV, until around midnight, when I
started to drift off. Then a key sounded in the lock, the door flew open,
and in staggered Tooz. He was ripped. Hardly able to stand, he was slurring
his words. "Quaaludes" was the word that popped into my mind. Weaving as he
stood there, Tooz looked around, as if to get his bearings. He had the
appearance of a man who'd been hit on the head with a hammer. To his right
was our open closet in which hung a single shirt. The shirt belonged to me.
A Pendleton flannel, it was one of the few nice shirts I owned and the only
one I'd packed for the trip.


"Ohhhh! What a puuurrrty shirt!" Tooz exclaimed. At which point he
took off all his clothes, yanked my shirt off its hanger and tried to pull
it over his head. Of course Tooz was 6-foot-8 and weighed more than 300
pounds, while I was 6-5 and weighed a little under 250, so my shirt wasn't
going to fit him -- and it didn't. As Tooz struggled to squeeze his massive
biceps through the shirt's skinny sleeves, both armpits ripped out, leaving
the shirt in tatters. I groaned, as Tooz, still naked except for my shirt,
wandered out into the hallway and began banging on doors.


In the room, I lay there, wondering what I should do. Before I could
make a decision, however, Tooz was back, only now he seemed more disoriented
than ever. Staggering over to the window, he tripped, losing his balance.
For an instant, it appeared he might slam his head against the wall, but he
recovered, grabbing the curtains for support. But then the curtains ripped
away and down went Tooz, crashing through the table to land with a thud on
the floor. I helped him up, pushed him toward his bed. Collapsing on the
mattress, Tooz reached for the telephone. "Gotta .. calll ...Tammmmmpaaa
..." he mumbled. Then he murmured the name of his ex-wife.


Taking advantage of his confusion over how to dial long distance, I
hurried over to the door and peeked out. I knew I needed help and, as it
happened, thingy Romansky, our equipment manager, was walking by. "Romo," I
said. "Where's George? I need a hand with Tooz." George was George Anderson,
our veteran trainer. I was sure George would know what to do.


"I'll go get him," Romo said. "He's down in the bar."


Back in the room, as I was explaining to Tooz the nuances of dialing
long distance, someone banged on the door. "Dammit, open up!" said the
agitated voice. I opened the door and in fell George, tumbling to the floor.
As it turned out, George had been sitting in the bar for hours. As Snake
would put it, he'd been "overserved."


"Toomay, what in the hell are you trying to do to me!" George yelped,
as he scrambled to his feet. "Jesus Christ!"


By now it was almost 1 a.m. As George moved to Tooz, another knock
sounded at the door. I opened it and there stood Doc Fink, grinning as he
held up his little black bag. Thank God, I thought. Finally, some real help.
But Doc Fink was a little giddy himself, since he'd also been down in the
bar, drinking with George.


"Tooz, you big dummy, what are you doing?"


"Valiuuum," Tooz groaned.


Abruptly, Doc Fink turned to me. He was all business. "We won't be
giving Tooz any Valium," he said. "We may give him something he might think
is Valium. But we won't be giving him any real Valium. I'm sure you've heard
of the placebo effect. That's what'll calm him down."


I nodded. George suggested I sleep next door in his room. So I did.


The next morning, when I came out for breakfast, George was curled up
in the fetal position on the floor in front of Tooz's door, sound asleep. No
doubt he'd spent the night there, to make sure Tooz stayed in. I stood there
staring at him. This was nuts, I knew, but it was also oddly touching. Sad,
too, in a way. But touching all at the same time. And nuts. Mostly, it was
nuts. I thought: Thank God we don't have to play today.


Downstairs, as I sat eating breakfast, Madden pulled up a chair. He
had a pained expression on his face, as if he'd swallowed something sour.
Leaning forward, elbows on knees, he said, in a low voice, "I'm sorry about
what happened last night. It won't happen again. From now on, you'll have
your own room."


"Thanks," I said.


Of course, the following day, as we smoked the Browns 26-10, Tooz
played well. In pro football, performance is always a great mitigator.
However, that Friday night in Cleveland would not be forgotten.


Coming attractions: In Part 8 of his series, Toomay looks at
everything that contributed to the Raiders' disastrous performance in the
AFC championship game against the Broncos ... and how what happened after
that game told him that the Raiders' long and unconventionally successful
run was about to become history.


Former NFL defensive end Pat Toomay played in the league for 10 years
(1970-79) with the Cowboys, Bills, Bucs and Raiders. He is the author of two
books, The Crunch and the novel On Any Given Sunday.