Page 7 - lw3708

If I was out there to look good, I'd put
on white shoes and wear a mustache. It
doesn't make a particle of difference to PRONOUNCE IT "TANKER-RAY"
me if I throw a completed pass off the
wrong foot or pick up 10 yards by rush-
ing like Dagwood Bumstead trying to
catch a bus. I've seen quarterbacks who
try to take that extra step to be in per-
fect position to unload a pass and the
next thing they know they're trying to
breathe under 800 pounds of linemen.
You don't always have time to look like
Rudolf Nureyev out there. I've seen some
quarterbacks who fold up beautifully,
go tinder with great grace and style, but
I always wondered why they didn't try
to salvage some yards first.
Everybody knows some of my passes
flutter. I throw a few ducks. One rea-
son is that I don't bother using the laces.
Some sportswriters have theorized that
this is because I learned to pass by heav-
ing lettuce heads in Salinas, and there
are no laces on lettuce. The truth is that
the laces vary from ball to ball and this
can throw you off. I just grab the seed
and fling, and sometimes I even com-
plete a few. Then I'll pick up the papers
after the game and find out that I passed
without finesse. Last year I read this com-
plaint so often that I finally went to our
star wide receiver, Gene Washington,
the best in the business, and I said,
"Gene, does it bother you that my pass-
es wobble sometimes?"
"Listen, man," he said, "I don't care
if the ball spirals or not. I don't care if
it flutters or not, if the tip is up or
down or which end of it says Wilson. I -~. -~
just want it to be there when I'm there." ~f).
The funny thing is that I threw may- ?/~
be t~o perfect spirals in the whole 1969- -~J
70 season. One of them was in a key
-~
game against the Rams, and Eddie Mea- fi
dor intercepted it. The other was in a cru- :'
cial play in the Super Bowl, and I spi-
raled the ball 69 yards and over Gene's
head. If I'd thrown one of my typical
knuckleballs, Gene would have been able
to catch the pass and you'd have seen
one of the most hellacious plays-and
maybe a different ending for the Super
Bowl. Maybe not, too. The way those
Kansas Cities played, it's hard to imag-
ine anybody beating them that day. But
if we'd only-no, I don't say it. Que
sera, sera, as Doris Day and my moth-
er used to say. That means, "If the frog
had wings, he wouldn't have to jump."
Super Bowl loss or not, I look back
on Minnesota's last season as a suprem_e
continued
35 DISTILLED & BOTTLED IN LONDON, 100% GRAIN NEUTRAL SPIRITS. 94.6 PROOF. IMPORTED BY JAMES M. McCUNN & CO., INC., N. Y.