ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 22, 1996 TAG: 9612230152
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
It sits, forlornly most days, at the wrong end of the world's most powerful city.
When Pierre L'Enfant laid out the plans for Washington, D.C., 205 years ago, he didn't envision a 56,000-seat stadium fitting the grid pattern. Still, you can draw a west-east line straight through the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol and eventually run into RFK Stadium.
If it once fit, it no longer does. RFK is not the oldest stadium an NFL team calls home, but it is the smallest. Like most old ballparks, it reeks of stale beer and smashed peanut shells. It has been stuffed for every NFL game since 1966. Today, it will be filled with memories.
In a fitting bit of scheduling, the Washington Redskins will close RFK's 36 NFL seasons today, with the 229th consecutive sellout for the last opening kickoff at 4 p.m. The man who made the first RFK kickoff, on Oct.1, 1961, will be there, too.
Pat Summerall not only launched the first kickoff into RFK history. When Jim Kerr of the Redskins fumbled it, Summerall recovered for the New York Giants. He also kicked the first field goal in RFK history - it was D.C. Stadium then - and it turned out to be the difference as the Giants' erased a two-touchdown deficit for a 24-21 victory.
Summerall and John Madden will be wedged into RFK's telecast booth today for the Fox Network. Once you get past the heating ducts and sewer lines that run through the mezzanine booths at the stadium, Summerall said, ``you forget all of that stuff. When you're there, you can't just see the game. It's as close to playing as I've been. Franklin Field in Philadelphia was like that, but there's no place like RFK now.''
And that's exactly why the Redskins will move next season to a new 78,000-seat stadium, funded by owner Jack Kent Cooke, near Landover, Md. It will more comfortable, but it won't be the same. It's always been a hot ticket, but RFK is very cold and cramped. Take it from someone who has covered almost every Redskins home game for eight seasons.
It shakes and rattles with the crowds who have watched three Super Bowl champions, the stands undulating like the roof design above. You can get a history lesson en route, by just driving past one of our nation's most familiar tourists attractions. Take a wrong turn in the neighborhood, and you can get shot, too.
You also can learn history once you arrive. RFK didn't get its current name until June 1969, after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, but like the late attorney general, the circular ballpark named for him became a player in social change itself.
At the time the stadium was being built, Redskins founder George Preston Marshall was getting pressure from the Department of the Interior about having the only still-segregated NFL team. There were whispers the all-white Redskins might get evicted from the new stadium the year they moved in.
Then, in 1962, the Redskins drafted Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis from Syracuse, and traded Davis, a black, for another, Cleveland running back Bobby Mitchell - who became a Pro Football Hall of Famer and is the Redskins' assistant general manager. In D.C. Stadium's first season, Washington was 1-12-1, the victory coming at home in the final game of the season, over Dallas.
It's that symmetry that brings us to today. RFK was a bowl in which late coach George Allen stirred the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry. The Dallas franchise was born the year before RFK opened. Tom Landry's last coaching victory came at RFK, in 1988. The next season, Jimmy Johnson won his first NFL game there, too.
Which is why today's game, despite the NFC standings and a lack of playoff implications, hardly is meaningless. The Redskins, who are 172-103-2 at RFK, including 11-1 in the playoffs, will trot out some of their greats for farewell introductions. The Hogs again will wallow in cheers. The forecast is for a Sonny day, too.
Among the invited is Dexter Manley, the one-time pass-rushing great who recently was released from prison after a cocaine conviction. Manley was hoping to get permission to travel from his parole officer in Houston. Springing Manley for the day might be tougher than it was for the Redskins to open the way for John Riggins on coach Joe Gibbs' favorite play, the famed counter-trey.
All of the memories swirling with the wind today won't be of NFL days. The place still will be the home of the Major League Soccer champion D.C. United and perhaps a temporary diamond if Northern Virginia ever gets big-league baseball. Already, the biggest hitter who played there wasn't Sam Huff, but Frank Howard of the expansion Senators.
My keyboard crony, Doug Doughty, grew up in Washington. He remembers watching George Washington University play home football games there. In fact, the Colonials' 1961 date with VMI was the stadium's dedication game. He recalls going to Senators games every opening day, just like the president. He hasn't forgotten the afternoon he was sitting behind the visitors' dugout and Yankees first baseman Moose Skowron lobbed him a souvenir baseball.
``RFK then, when I was playing football, was supposed to be forever,'' Summerall said. ``It was like every stadium from then on would be like this. Now, it's the last of the old days.''
The only stadium used continuously by the NFL longer than RFK is Lambeau Field in Green Bay. The Bears didn't move into Soldier Field until the 1970s. Denver's Mile High was in the American Football League then. After today, however, RFK will retire from its days of glamour.
Appropriately, it already was part of the ``Over the Hill Gang.''
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. AP Redskins fans cheer the team at RFK Stadium inby CNBWashington this season. The Redskins play what is expected to be
their last game at the stadium against the Dallas Cowboys today.
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2. AP Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann is carried off
the field after he was tackled by Lawrence Taylor of the New York
Giants on Nov.18, 1985. Theismann suffered a broken leg.