Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 4, 1993 TAG: 9309040032
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JIM DUCIBELLA LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The truth is that if not for some long-forgotten track coach at Loyola University in New Orleans, the only Petitbon ever to set foot on the floor of an NFL stadium would have been John, who spent two seasons with the Cleveland Browns in the mid-1950s. Brother Richie's football career would have ended when he finished playing quarterback for a state championship team in high school.
There would have been no stellar career as a two-way player at Tulane University. No $10,000 first contract with the Chicago Bears. No Pro Bowls. No classic interception in a wind-swept end zone of Wrigley Field near the end of the 1963 NFL title game.
George Allen never would have phoned the Houston Oilers and asked them to hire Petitbon as secondary coach. Four years later, Petitbon never would have returned to Washington as defensive coordinator under Jack Pardee and never would have had the notion that he could advance beyond the anonymous ranks of pro football assistant.
Richie Petitbon would have been what he wanted to be from the time he was 17 - or, rather, what he and his father agreed he should be.
A dentist.
The man Redskins fans expect to put his heart and soul into winning for them originally found football too physically demanding. Track, at which he also excelled, was much easier on his then-reed-thin body.
He accepted a track scholarship to Loyola in 1956, after wrangling a promise from the coach that he'd run only the 100- and 200-yard events. But Petitbon soon found himself entered in the quarter-mile.
"I remember saying, `Football is tough, but I don't know if it's as tough as the quarter-mile,' " Petitbon says. "Had they let me run the 100-yard dash, I'd be a screwed-up dentist today, with lots of malpractice suits."
Petitbon's smartest quarter-mile run came the day he dashed down the street to transfer from Loyola to neighboring Tulane.
It was at Tulane that he dived into football, playing safety and quarterback well enough to make All-Southeastern Conference and to be drafted by the Bears.
In 14 NFL seasons at safety - 10 with Chicago, two with the Los Angeles Rams and two with the Redskins - the only teeth Petitbon removed were with his forearms. He studied Papa Bear himself, George Halas, whom he calls "the toughest man I ever met." He studied under a pair of the sport's most eccentric geniuses, Clark Shaughnessy and Allen.
Shaughnessy's incredible paranoia - "he never let anyone take notes during meetings," Petitbon says, "because he was scared someone would steal his ideas" - taught him to welcome input from others.
But someone he never met, and only watched closely for two years, has had a significant influence on him. More, maybe, than even Petitbon realizes.
"John Wooden was the greatest coach in any sport," says Petitbon, who became a UCLA basketball fan while with the Rams in 1969-70. "He won with all types of players and all types of strategy."
Wooden, who guided the Bruins to 10 NCAA championships, wrote extensively on the mechanics of winning and leadership, his "Pyramid of Success."
Halas. Shaughnessy. Allen. Wooden. Is it enough? Can Petitbon succeed where so many others in his position have failed?
Read Wooden. Listen to Petitbon. One thing emerges: The Wizard and the would-be dentist walk the same philosophical road. It's the best news nervous Redskins rooters could hope to hear.
Wooden says: "The leader sees through the eyes of his followers."
When Petitbon thought the players had tired of training-camp drudgery, he stunned them by giving them a day off. They talked about it for days, how good it felt for the boss to see that they were working hard and to reward them.
He was mindful of how broken and bruised they were after the weekly Wednesday night scrimmage - and how Wednesday night was boys' night out among the team drinkers. So he had an aide invite the players' wives and families to come to Carlisle, Pa., for a weekly pizza party.
"You speak the same language," Petitbon says. "They know you've been through everything they've been through and you understand how hard it is."
During the final weeks of the 1992 season, Gibbs said how surprised he was that so few players took advantage of his open-door policy.
Most Redskins liked Gibbs. He was a friend, and they recognized and respected his ability to guide them to the head of the class. He was their coach.
Petitbon is family. He may never have been paid more than $100,000 a season, and he played at a time when something as natural as drinking water during practice was a sign of weakness. But he played the game at the highest level.
"Richie and I have a closer relationship than Joe and I did, though we got along fine," defensive tackle Eric Williams says. "Richie relates to us."
"It was a natural transition, Gibbs to Richie," says defensive end Charles Mann. "When Coach Gibbs left, I never thought there was anyone better for the job than Richie."
Wooden says: "He must keep his emotions under control to think clearly at all times. He can do this and still be a fighter who lets the players know he is with them at all times."
As a Bear, Petitbon set five club records for interceptions, while playing in four Pro Bowls. In the '63 title game against the Giants, his end-zone interception of Y.A. Tittle's pass late in the fourth quarter sealed Chicago's first championship in 17 years.
"I perform under pressure; I did as a player," Petitbon says. "Not that I played any better, but I always played the same. A lot of people choke.
"The excitement doesn't bother me at all. I think the bigger the excitement, the more other people have problems with it. It doesn't seem to affect me."
Sid Gillman, a former NFL head coach and a Pro Football Hall of Fame member, claimed recently that one reason the Redskins have been so successful despite comparatively modest talent is that Petitbon is the NFL's best at making critical, game-turning halftime adjustments.
On the bus ride from the hotel to the Metrodome the day of Super Bowl XXVI, assistant coach Larry Peccatiello approached Petitbon with a scheme he thought would work against quarterback Jim Kelly's Buffalo Bills. Peccatiello drew it on a piece of paper as the bus lurched down the icy Minneapolis streets.
Petitbon liked it, but he waited until halftime to show it to the players. With the scheme fresh in the Redskins' minds, he called for it on the Bills' first snap of the third quarter. Linebacker Andre Collins came on a blitz the Redskins hadn't shown before and Kelly, panicked, dumped the ball directly at Kurt Gouveia. The linebacker intercepted and nearly ran for a touchdown.
Wooden says: "Prepare for your opponents, but never worry about them. Let them worry about you."
If he chose to, Petitbon could see opponents everywhere he looked.
There's the shadow of Gibbs, winner of three Super Bowls and unquestionably one of the NFL's best coaches ever.
There's the mantle of mediocrity that so often falls on the man who follows a legend. Call it the Phil Bengtson-Ed Biles-Les Steckel-Bill Austin Syndrome.
Bengtson (20-21) followed Vince Lombardi in Green Bay. Biles (8-23) followed Bum Phillips in Houston. Steckel (3-13) followed Bud Grant in Minnesota. Austin (6-8) followed Lombardi in Washington.
There's the pressure of owner Jack Kent Cooke, whose favorite ploy is to appear at the team's annual Welcome Home Luncheon and guarantee the Redskins' participation in the Super Bowl.
There are the fans, and their expectations.
There are the reporters, and their evaluations.
There are 27 other teams, and their aspirations.
Petitbon couldn't care less.
"A lot of people put too much pressure on themselves with this, `I gotta win, I gotta win' attitude," he says. "What they're really saying is, `I'm afraid to lose.' I am not afraid to lose.
"If you worry too much, you're not prepared to do what you have to do to win."
One thing Petitbon admired about Wooden was his ability to change tempo, to keep an opponent off balance.
"In football, you do it with the blitz, the unexpected, maybe a fake punt or something like that," he says. "You've got to come to grips with the fact that they're going to hit some big plays, you're going to hit some big plays.
"The trick is to hit more big plays than they do."
Wooden says: "Be flexible enough to be able to adjust to the environment and the occasion."
Petitbon, who likes to bet the horses, smiles when asked if he's a gambler.
"That term's been used to describe me before," he says.
Cornerback Darrell Green claimed Petitbon's biggest gamble came in Super Bowl XXVI. Conventional wisdom was to lay back and react to Buffalo's no-huddle offense.
Petitbon ordered just the reverse.
"The whole scheme was a gamble," Green says. "We were very aggressive. That was not what Buffalo was used to seeing. And it worked.
"If there's one thing he's known for, it's a risk-taker. It's what Petitbon has done and what he will do. And that's exciting."
Wooden says: "Give each player the treatment he earns and deserves. A coach who is not a sound and honest man has no place . . ."
Petitbon's honesty brought him - and the Redskins - loads of trouble during the off-season. It was Petitbon's idea to bring in Art Monk for the talk in which football's all-time leading receiver was told his skills had eroded and he would start the season on the bench.
The coach's intention, he says, was to do it quietly, away from TV cameras and microphones and tape recorders. Then someone - both parties claim it was the other side - leaked details of the conversation to the media.
The fans took Monk's side. Eventually, their anger led to a preposterous training-camp ritual in which they accorded Monk thunderous ovations every time he made even the simplest catch.
"The easiest thing would have been to say everything will be business as usual," Petitbon says, "but I don't think that would have been fair to Art. He's meant so much to this organization, always been a class guy. I thought it was our duty - really - to let him know how we felt about his status."
Even though the Monk incident exploded in his face, Petitbon vows not to change. Most of his players say they appreciate that.
"As long as you are always honest and say it the way it is, people can accept," he says. "They may not like it at the time, but on the whole, players will respect it."
Wooden quotes Wilferd A. Peterson, author of "The Art of Leadership": "The leader has a sense of humor. He has a humble spirit and can laugh at himself."
The play Petitbon remembers most is not what you'd expect from a member of four NFL championship teams.
It's 1958. Petitbon is a quarterback/safety/kick-returner for a Tulane team that will win but two games. Rival Mississippi is in town, 3-0 and on its way to the nation's No. 3 ranking.
Fourth quarter, four minutes to play. Ole Miss has just taken a 12-8 lead. Petitbon fields the kickoff.
"I made a little move and I'm in the clear, going for a TD," he says, recalling the moment. "At their 12-yard line, I thought someone was catching me and I turned to look. When I did, I stumbled and fell down on the 9-yard line. We never got in.
"When I looked at the film, there was no one around. The nearest guy was at the 35. I could have stopped and walked in.
"I ran a red light going home that night and this cop pulls me over and looks at my license. Suddenly, he gives it back and says, `I was at the game. You've had enough trouble for one night.' It was the first - and last - break a cop's ever given me."
Wooden says: "Psychiatrists tell us that two possible symptoms of insanity are delusions of grandeur and delusions of persecution."
Petitbon has neither.
"I have a job to do and my criteria is to do whatever I think is best for the Redskins," he says. "Some of my decisions may not be right, but there's never been anyone in this league who was perfect. Never. No one.
"I've never gone nuts over a game and I never will. I'm calm as a lamb. You'll see."
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