Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 26, 1994 TAG: 9408260068
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``He had some down times and he had some up times, but to the end he was in good spirits and was always talking about the day he would be cured and the day he would move forward with his life,'' Bucs vice president Richard McKay said.
``He very much looked forward to the 1994 season. I can't tell you how important it was to him. He wanted very much to be a part of it. As it is now, he'll just be a fan.''
Culverhouse, 75, died from heart failure in New Orleans, where he had been undergoing treatment since last week. He met with his players for the final time three weeks ago and spoke last weekend to McKay, who heads day-to-day operation for the franchise that had the NFL's worst record over the past decade.
``I've constantly heard the criticism that Hugh Culverhouse does not want to win and he's not a competitor. Nothing could be farther from the truth,'' McKay said.
``The wins and losses - I can't argue with that, I can't argue with the past, but I can certainly argue with the allegation that he wasn't a competitor. ... The last 18 months typified his life. He was going to fight it. I never heard him say, `I'm not going to beat this.' I never saw him getting upset about it. He took his treatments, he took what was in store for him and he kept going.''
Culverhouse paid $16 million for one of two expansion teams that began play in 1976. He was the only owner in club history and resisted the temptation to move the franchise when attendance dipped or sell to parties wanting to relocate the Bucs.
After a biopsy performed in January 1993 confirmed the recurrence of cancer, he asked law partner Stephen Story and friends Jack Donlan and Fred Cone to serve as trustees empowered to make major decisions regarding the franchise.
There has been speculation for months that the Bucs might be sold after Culverhouse's death. Story said in a statement, however, that the trustees are committed to the owner's goal of ``providing a winning team for the fans of Tampa Bay.''
Although the Bucs were perennial losers, Culverhouse's expertise in business and legal matters endeared him to his peers and he remained one of the league's most influential owners until he removed himself from active management of the team in 1990.
The one-time tax attorney for Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo was the head of the NFL's Financial Committee through the strikes of 1982 and 1987, and was one of the owners who established the league's bargaining policy.
``We in the NFL have lost a loyal and trusted friend in Hugh Culverhouse,'' commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. ``He was unselfish in his dedication to league matters. ... He contributed enormously to the Florida community in which he lived.''
Fans often made fun of Culverhouse's high-pitched Southern drawl and choice of clothing color schemes, and they never forgave him for such personnel blunders as drafting but failing to sign Bo Jackson and allowing quarterback Doug Williams to leave Tampa Bay after leading the team to three playoff berths in four years.
The Bucs, who reached the NFC championship game in 1979, haven't made the playoffs since 1982 - Williams' last year with the team. Most critics blamed Culverhouse for failing to hire ``football people'' to run the organization.
Coach Sam Wyche said the perception of the owner as a penny pincher who wasn't concerned about improving the team's won-loss record was wrong.
``Sometimes you've got a target on your chest when you're affluent, when you are powerful and when you've got the means,'' said Wyche, the fourth coach Culverhouse hired in an effort to turn around a once-proud franchise that weathered an 0-26 beginning to come within one victory of reaching the Super Bowl in its fourth season.
by CNB