Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 6, 1993 TAG: 9303060085
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
SOME RACING FRIENDS HAD INKLING GIBBS MIGHT QUIT
Friday morning, only hours before Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs told the world he was leaving football, he gave NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip a small clue of the momentous announcement to come.Gibbs had asked Waltrip to join him at the Holiday Inn here to speak to about 600 people at an 8 a.m. prayer breakfast. The coach waited until the end of the breakfast before dropping the hint.
"The only thing he said, when I was leaving, was that he had some hard decisions to make over the next few days," Waltrip said. "And I was wondering what he meant."
For Waltrip, as for many sports fans, Gibbs' announcement of his resignation Friday afternoon was a bolt out of the blue.
But to those in the NASCAR Winston Cup series who know him well, there were many indications that Gibbs, 52, was approaching the end of his illustrious football coaching career.
For Larry Camp, the public relations director for Gibbs' Winston Cup team, the telling moment came on the Tuesday before the Daytona 500, when they were flying back to Daytona Beach after the coach had spoken to some 1,700 people at an auto dealer's convention in Miami.
The coach had kept the crowd riveted with his motivational speech. He had sold hundreds of copies of his autobiography.
"In the airplane," Camp said, "he looked at me and he said, "How much of an impact do you think I would have with a crowd like that if I was not a coach? How much impact would I have if I was, say, a broadcaster?"
"I said, `Coach, you'll be even bigger in their eyes than you are now,' " Camp recalled.
For Jimmy Johnson, the general manager of Hendrick Motorsports, who showed Gibbs the NASCAR racing ropes and has become a close friend, the realization came last summer as the coach prepared to leave racing for his hermit-like existence in football.
"He told me, `You know, for six months of the year, I very rarely get to see any of my family.' " Johnson said.
Last July at Pocono, Gibbs' final race before returning to football, he was wistful about leaving racing.
"This has been a real thrill for me and my family," he said as he reviewed his first NASCAR season. "I think we all really got caught up in it and love it. I'll miss this. It's given me kind of mixed emotions going back to football."
He talked of the "tremendous negatives and tremendous positives" of football, but he used the word "negatives" first.
"It's a constant, relentless pressure - you got to do better than last year - and the criticism you have to deal with," Gibbs said at Pocono. "But it's also got tremendous positives to go along with it. That's the football life, really.
"Who knows? Maybe something happens that will keep me in it a long time. But if you ask me standing here, I don't think I'll be a [Don] Shula or [Tom] Landry or [Chuck] Noll kind of guy. They seem to have a better temperament for the long haul."
In the garage Friday at Richmond International Raceway, those in the NASCAR racing family who know Gibbs best said they were sure his family was his primary reason for leaving football.
"The family side of Joe is probably more important that anyone ever imagined," Johnson said. "I think that's it in a nutshell."
"He feels he needs to spend more time with his family," said the Rev. Max Helton, who conducts the Sunday morning prerace chapel service in the garage that Gibbs faithfully attends. "I know the Redskins are going to miss Joe and his influence. But I'm sure his wife, Pat, is excited. And I know he really thought it through well."
One NASCAR official remembers Gibbs talking at Daytona last month about the difference between being in the pits in racing and on the sidelines in football.
"He said, `You know, my wife can stand right there beside me. And my kids can be right there. They can't do that in football.' "
The wear and tear of his final football season likely influenced his decision.
Several preseason holdouts got the season started on a troublesome note, and an onslaught of injuries prevented the Redskins from becoming the dominant team they were in 1991, when they won the Super Bowl.
Dale Jarrett's exciting last-lap victory in the Daytona 500 last month was a huge thrill for Gibbs and his race team. But it probably wasn't a significant factor in Gibbs' decision.
"I don't think that had anything to do with it," said Jarrett's crew chief, Jimmy Makar. "Since the end of the football season, I knew he was debating on some things. And I know the last [football] season physically wore on him maybe a little harder than the others."