Post by TheShadow on Apr 2, 2006 6:39:21 GMT -5
www.mercurynews.com
By Mark Emmons
Mercury News
Ted Hendricks is 58 now, living the quiet life of a young retiree in Chicago, mostly spending his time traveling and hitting the celebrity golf circuit.
And to hear him tell it, most of the eccentric stories about him in those hell-raising, carousing, kicking-butt-and-taking-names days of the 1970s and '80s Raiders are just that: stories. Not that there's not an element of truth to some, Hendricks conceded. But they just seem to grow with time.
``They always get exaggerated,'' said Hendricks, who will be inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame on Tuesday night. ``It's like some big fish story.''
But then you start asking around, and friends confirm one tale after another. Such as how he:
• Rode a horse onto the field at training camp -- in full uniform and helmet, carrying an orange traffic cone as if it were a lance. ``Teddy looked like he was ready for a joust,'' former teammate Phil Villapiano said.
• Showed up at practice one Halloween wearing a pumpkin carved into the shape of a helmet, and once stood on the sideline at a Monday night game wearing a grinning Harlequin mask.
• Wasn't keen on his nickname, the Mad Stork, and preferred to be called Kick-'Em-In-The-Head Ted, after an incident in practice when he . . . well, more on that later.
``Not all those stories were exaggerated,'' said former Raiders coach John Madden. ``He did so many goofy things that it's hard to keep them straight.''
Hendricks earned his place in Canton by revolutionizing the linebacker position with his 6-foot-7 size and knack for being in the right place at the right time. But he also struggled with life after football. Cliche or not, friends say Hendricks' wilder side was tamed with the help of a woman.
Maybe that explains why Hendricks seems inclined to put at least a little distance between the man he is now and the character he was. Asked if he really was that crazy, Hendricks responded with a vague ``Oh, I don't know about that.''
So who exactly was Ted Hendricks?
``Ted,'' Madden said, ``was out there.''
Playing days
• On field or off, it was all a game
Hendricks picked up the Stork moniker at the University of Miami. The middle guard was nicknamed Mad Dog and soon everybody was getting labeled mad-something. Hendricks, with his lanky frame, got saddled with Stork.
``That's the perfect name for him,'' Villapiano said. ``If you look at a stork in a pond, it's got those long, skinny legs and that beak to catch fish. That's what Teddy could do. He would reach over people. He was pretty much unblockable.''
And he was unconventional. Born in Guatemala (his father worked for Pan Am), he graduated 72nd out of 1,400 students from his South Florida high school. He majored in physics at Miami and probably was too smart to be hitting people for a living.
Hendricks also seemed too thin, at 220 pounds, to play in the NFL. But after stints with the Colts and the Packers, Hendricks -- with his devilish, gap-toothed grin -- found his calling in silver and black. It was the era of the Snake (Kenny Stabler), the Assassin (Jack Tatum), the Tooz (John Matuszak) as well as Lyle Alzado and others who studied their playbooks by the jukebox light.
``It is amazing the way people have latched on to our generation of players,'' Hendricks said. ``We certainly were different from the players of this day and age. It seems more like a job for them.''
For Hendricks, football was mostly about fun. Madden called him perhaps the brightest guy ever to play in the NFL, someone who understood the game plan even before it was out of the coaches' mouths.
``But that's also why he'd get bored,'' Madden added. ``So he had to do things to take care of that boredom. I was always big on just being ready to play on Sunday, and then play like hell. He was the epitome of that. He may do something goofy on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. But there was no one more ready to play when the game began.''
He was the perfect Raider -- playing hard on the field and harder off it.
Hendricks once arranged to have the wedding of a favorite barmaid officiated by Raiders defensive tackle Art Thoms.
``It was a beautiful thing and Teddy was the best man,'' Villapiano said. ``Of course Art wasn't ordained, so little do those people know that they're not married -- courtesy of Ted Hendricks.''
He earned his preferred nickname -- which teammates shortened to Kick-'Em -- when he accidentally booted fullback Marv Hubbard in the noggin during practice, knocking him out cold. There were no hard feelings. Later, Madden was about to fine Hendricks for missing a bed check before learning the reason: the linebacker had been on the town consoling Hubbard, who had just been cut.
Villapiano remembered how he, Matuszak, Hendricks and Otis Sistrunk would go to a nearby Hilton after practice. Villapiano and Matuszak, who played on the left side, would order a ``left side'' drink -- a quadruple Chivas on the rocks. Hendricks and Sistrunk would order a ``right side'' drink -- a quadruple Crown Royal on the rocks.
``And then we'd go out from there,'' Villapiano said. ``It was nuts.''
By the time he was done after the 1983 season, Hendricks had played in 215 consecutive games, blocked 25 kicks, recovered 16 fumbles, intercepted 26 passes and played on four Super Bowl winners.
But football was easy compared to life afterward.
Calming down
• Good relationship gets him `in tune'
Hendricks got divorced. There were business failures. He made a living mostly by being Ted Hendricks.
When he went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, in 1990, a newspaper article depicted him as a sad figure, someone who was drinking too much and needed to enter rehab. About that time, it was reported later in ESPN The Magazine, Hendricks awoke one night on a Lake Tahoe ski slope, naked except for one of his Super Bowl rings.
``Thank God,'' Villapiano said, ``he found Linda.''
In a phone interview, Hendricks was reticent to say much about life after football other than that he disagreed with the characterization of him as a lost soul. ``I didn't end up that way,'' he said.
But he credits Linda Babl, a longtime friend who became his girlfriend, for being a positive influence. In the mid-1990s he moved to Chicago, where she was a high school administrator.
``Being isolated up here was a good thing,'' he said. ``I guess it got me more in tune with what was really important in life.''
That's about as introspective as Hendricks will get. But Villapiano said Babl ``reeled in Teddy'' at the right time.
``The Ted Hendricks who would show up for a golf tournament tomorrow is not the Ted Hendricks who would show up 10 years ago,'' Villapiano said. ``He's just as much fun. But he got to a point in life where he decided to refine things a little bit.
``Look, John Matuszak is not with us anymore. Lyle Alzado is not with us anymore. We're glad Ted Hendricks is still with us. We all have a streak in us. You didn't play for the Oakland Raiders unless there was a streak in you. But Teddy controlled his.''
It wasn't always that way. Hendricks recalled the day he took that horse right up to Madden and the rest of the team on the practice field.
``I rode up and said, `OK, Coach, I'm ready,' '' Hendricks said. ``But Madden and the players had no reaction. They already had seen everything.''