[Vision2020] Fanfare for a Common Man

[Tom Hansen]

>From the "Life of Reilly" column (by Rick Reilly) of the February 10, 2006
edition of Sports Illustrated.

You Seahawks fans have got to admit that Steelers head coach Bill Cowher is
likable.

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Fanfare for a Common Man
By Rick Reilly

Get Tagliabue on his cell! Call an emergency meeting! File a grievance!
Something so disturbing and wrong happened on Sunday at the Super Bowl that
heads must roll! 

A simple, humble man became the Super Bowl XL hero. 

Can't be! Aren't Super Bowl heroes supposed to wear $7,000 Italian suits,
flash enough bling to make Stevie Wonder's eyes hurt and have egos so big
they follow in their own Escalades? Don't they come with a wife, a
girlfriend and a posse? The closest this bumpkin has ever been to a posse is
Bonanza. 

Take a good look at this guy -- Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher. He's
got the nose of a nearsighted boxer, rock-pile teeth and a mustache stolen
from the Village People. For Super Bowl week he wore flood-ready khakis,
logoless tennis shoes and what looked like a $40 watch. "On TV we've seen
what he's been wearing," said his 18-year-old daughter, Lauren, who, like
the rest of the family, didn't get to Detroit until game day. "And we're
like, That's 'cause none of us are there!" 

It's not just his wardrobe that's straight out of Mayberry. It's his
integrity, too. Cowher, 48, won't do ads, books or billboards. Doesn't want
the attention. Won't move into a fancier house. Won't miss watching Lauren
and her 14-year-old sister, Lindsay, play high school basketball, just as he
regularly watched Meagan, who now stars for Princeton. 

Madison Avenue must be reaching for their Tums. We have to make a star out
of this clunk? 

But like it or not, after 14 years of trying, Cowher has finally slain his
Super Bowl beast, beating the Seattle Microchips 21-10 at Ford Field. He led
a team with a second-year quarterback and an overweight running back to
eight straight victories -- the last four on the road in the playoffs --
winning the Super Bowl as a sixth seed, the equivalent of cutting the Hope
diamond with a fork. 

Here was his moment at the 50-yard line, the dessert cart rolled out just
for him. He grabbed his three daughters and his wife, Kaye, right there,
with a minute still left on the clock. He'd waited 14 years; he wasn't
waiting anymore. And in the greatest huddle of his life he screamed, "I just
want you to know that you four mean more to me than anything in the world!
And at the count of three we're all going to do a giant high five!" 

And they did. 

And that's when the big galoot cried like the mother of the bride. 

Well, you might have too, if on the way to your desk every workday for a
decade and a half you'd walked past four Lombardi trophies that somebody
else had won. And how would you like to have lost four AFC Championship
Games at home and one Super Bowl, setting the record for Most Times, Chin
Kept Up? 

And that's why, when Cowher finally snagged the Big One on Sunday, it was an
utter befuddlement to him. No coach in history has had as many
regular-season victories (143) without winning a Super Bowl. He'd always
dressed for blizzards. What was he supposed to do at the beach? 

After an hour of giving credit to everybody but himself, he finally found
himself almost alone in the coaches' locker room. He got butt-naked for a
shower, changed his mind, sat down on a folding chair, lit up a very fat
cigar and stuck it in the middle of a smile that you could've seen from
Pluto. 

Fess up: Would you have been complete without a Super Bowl win? 

"To be honest, all those championship-game losses hurt me so bad, I stopped
thinking about titles," he puffed. "I just refused to think about a
championship. I learned to think about the game and nothing else. Nothing
about what it meant. I just always prepared myself for the worst. I never
let myself think about what it'd be like to win a Super Bowl. I didn't want
to be hurt again." 

Sorry, Bubba, you're stuck with it, and good luck finding somebody in the
league who's not happy for you. 

"Everybody talked all week about how we were trying to win this for Jerome
[Bettis]," said linebacker Joey Porter. "That's true. But we wanted this
just as much for Coach.... To finally win it all, that erases all the doubt
about this man." 

Cowher wasn't going to get cocky. "Tomorrow night I'm back to being an
assistant coach," he admitted. "My four women tell me what to do, and I do
it." He was scheduled to sit in yet another drafty high school gym the very
next night, watching his daughters play basketball, parade or no parade. 

"It'll be great to have him home," said Lauren. "We can dress him again."

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Take care, Moscow (you, too, Vandals).

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
UI '96

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails." 

- Unknown