THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240371
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Memo to Jerry Jones, Jeffrey Lurie and the rest of the NFL's self-admiring, ultra-arrogant new breed of team owner: Buying the horses does not qualify you to drive the wagon train.
Jones' petty spat with coach Jimmy Johnson over who got the credit for rebuilding the Dallas Cowboys cost Johnson his job and, probably, robbed the Cowboys of a chance at pro football history.
Barry Switzer played Howdy Doody to Jones' Buffalo Bob. The team was turned into the Buffalo Bills, one step shy of ultimate success.
And Philadelphia's Lurie is trying to hire a coach before employing a general manager. Few blueprints for disaster are as full-proof.
Jones and Lurie probably will learn the hard way, if at all. Too bad. The Super Bowl XXIX encounter between San Francisco and San Diego offers a two-team example of sound '90's management strategy.
Take Alex Spanos. He had everything anyone could want, a fortune he built himself, dollar by dollar; a rock-solid marriage of 46 years; four children and 12 grandchildren; ownership of a pro football team; the best general manager in the game in Bobby Beathard and a head coach, Bobby Ross, that the GM had hand-picked.
What he didn't have was happiness.
The San Diego Chargers were killing him, eating away at his soul. Day after day for more than a decade, Spanos, 70, had gone to team headquarters and worked on making his beloved Chargers a winner.
When it didn't happen, he took comfort by telling himself that he knew business. He knew the bottom line. In the '50's, he had turned one catering truck into a construction empire that rivalled anything on the west coast.
When it came to the Chargers, he wasn't just a hands-on owner. He was hands-in, hands-over and hands-across. So what if that meant infuriating Beathard, a universally respected architect of success with the Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins. Who cared if Beathard was about to quit? Whose team was it, anyway?
And then Faye Spanos walked into the family kitchen one day last offseason, sat beside Alex, and offered her first comment in more than four decades about one of her husband's business dealings.
``Something's wrong,'' she said. ``Things are not going right.''
Soon, the children were there, reinforcing their mother's opinion.
``My entire family was telling me,'' Spanos says, shaking his head. ``I looked at myself and I said I can't believe I'm hearing this from my family.''
But he heard, because when family talks, Alex Spanos listens. Not long after, he turned over the team to son Dean. And Dean's first act was to allow Beathard to do the job he'd been hired to do, to offer him more leeway than he'd enjoyed in his four previous seasons with the Chargers.
Beathard disposed of high-profile players like receiver Anthony Miller and fullback Marion Butts. He brought in 10 new starters, an unthinkable turnover had the elder Spanos not relinquished control.
The Chargers spent upwards of $22 million last offseason, signing new players, restructuring old contracts.
Alex Spanos sat back and watched it unfold. In silence. He promises that even if the Chargers hadn't won the AFC West and achieved their first Super Bowl ever, he would have reacted the same way.
``Looks like you can teach an old dog new tricks,'' Dean Spanos jokes.
Up the coast, Eddie DeBartolo, Jr., had watched Spanos try to juggle six balls with one hand. The two families were close, business associates, friends.
Years ago, etiquette, protocol and the desire to keep the competitive edge prevented DeBartolo from telling Spanos that he should stand back and allow the experts to take over.
Frankly, he hoped his example would have influenced Spanos. Guiding the family shopping-center empire and the 49ers was proving too vexing even for DeBartolo, a high-octane achiever who at 35 was capturing national humanitarian awards it had taken other recipients more than twice as long to merit.
The 49ers were his, and he craved putting his distinctive stamp on them. He also knew the organization couldn't survive at the high level he sought unless he backed away.
Knowing he didn't want to vacate the family headquarters in Youngstown, Ohio, DeBartolo dispatched right-hand man Carmen Policy to San Francisco in 1991.
``I'm blessed that he agreed to go,'' DeBartolo said.
It was Policy's ingenious plan that restocked the 49ers with one Pro Bowl-caliber player after another while still trimming $18-20 million to fit under the league's salary-cap regulations.
It was Policy who wanted to go after cornerback Deion Sanders when baseball went on strike; Policy the only person in the NFL who thought he had a chance at landing the flamboyant defensive back who was named the league's defensive player of the year.
It was Policy who created the atmosphere in which veterans like receiver Jerry Rice restructured their contracts so the team could afford a practice squad.
And it will be Policy, DeBartolo insists, who will handle future negotiations with Sanders, Rice, quarterback Steve Young on down to the third-string waterboy.
``I like Carmen negotiating contracts,'' DeBartolo explained. ``There's no problem with my ego. No problem with who gets the credit. It's not going to happen.
``He's enabled me to sleep at night because I know there is someone there who is looking out for my best interest.''
Spanos couldn't agree more - finally. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Eddie DeBartolo Jr., Left, Alex Spanos,[right]
by CNB