LIKE ANY successful football coach, T. J. Lambert would be quick to tell you that the trouble with winning is you have to keep doing it or your ass will get fired. It’s why T. J. retired a winner. All freckle-faced, fair-skinned, red-headed, six-foot-five, 265 pounds of him. His life today consists of eating, sleeping, riding his bike, and bitching about everything on TV except Fox News.
T. J.’s politics are in line with most football coaches, but he wasn’t the greatest quote machine the press had dealt with. Most of his statements were impossible to twist into print. He’d say of an upcoming opponent, “We’re gonna hit ’em so hard in their pouches they won’t know which bathroom to use.”
Two of his statements continue to circulate through computer world.
One. How to survive as a coach in the pros: “Get your team to the playoffs every season, but never win the Super Bowl. Keep your fans hungry.”
Two. How to survive as a bigtime college coach: “Go 8-4 every season but win the Toilet Bowl.”
T. J. did better than all that. In his first head coaching job he took Southern Miss to a bowl game, which was impossible, and in his farewell coaching job he won the Super Bowl with the Tornadoes.
In between, he guided the Horned Frogs to a piece of the national championship in one poll. But he quoted the words of Bear Bryant: “You only need to win one, then your people can play-like they won ’em all.”
This was before the Bowl Championship Series got itself invented to the delight of the five major conferences. Now a school can lose all twelve games in the regular season, year after year, but still rake in millions from TV. Is that sweet enough to make a chancellor dress like a Sinclair dinosaur and dance in the street?
I expected everybody to appreciate T. J.’s thoughts on the world in general, which is why I called him at his retirement home in Horseshoe Bay to remind him about the reunion. He hadn’t answered my emails. Probably busy rooting for busted kneecaps on every hate-America buffoon in the country.
Horseshoe Bay is fifty-some miles north of Austin. A spread-out area of mansions worth millions that face a body of water combining Lake Lyndon B. Johnson with a branch of the Colorado River. T. J. and Donna Lou live in one of the two-story houses with the lake for a front yard. Five golf courses are available, but T. J. only rides his bike around them and through them.
*****
T. J. WAS a ferocious competitor as a player. A two-time All-America defensive end at the University of Tennessee. Five years All-Pro with the Giants. A savage hitter. Billy Clyde described him as “the kind of defensive player who had no patience for back-talk.”
Tales of T. J.’s lack of patience are preserved in the memories of his teammates, and friends like me.
In the seasons he was with the Giants, he became bothered that he hadn’t received a raise in two seasons. He marched into Coach Shoat Cooper’s office to discuss it. Everyone on the squad and coaching staff knew that Shoat drank four Dr. Peppers a day and each bottle was laced with a jigger of Jack Daniels.
When Shoat told T. J. he didn’t have a raise in the budget at the present time, T. J. picked up the Dr. Pepper off Shoat’s desk and chug-a-lugged it down.
As Shoat stared at him speechless, T. J. said, “Sorry about that, Coach, but being underpaid makes me thirsty.”
There was the time the Giants were in Chicago for the opening game of the season with the Bears. T. J. and Billy Clyde and two other teammates were downtown the night before the game savoring the delights of Rush, Clark, and State streets.
They were milling around on the sidewalk outside a tavern when Wiley “Wolf Hound” Dusek showed up. Wolf Hound was a rookie linebacker out of Duke. The Bears had chosen him No. 1 in the NFL draft.
Wolf Hound had already made his load that night, which caused him to say to T. J., “You’re the badass T. J. Lambert, right? Why don’t you and me get it on right now, right here, stink on stink?”
T. J. grinned at him, and said, “Wolfie Boy, you know what?”
Wolf Hound said, “What?”
T. J. said, “I don’t have time for your cheap shit.”
With that, he quickly grabbed Wolf Hound by his neck and his crotch, lifted him up over his head, and threw him away.
Yeah. Sailed him up in the air six or seven yards down the street.
Wolf Hound Dusek landed on the concrete curb and suffered a torn ACL, a fractured elbow, a broken jaw, and a chronic neck injury. He never played a down of pro ball.
And there was the time the Giants were in Dallas the night before a game with the Cowboys. I met Billy Clyde, Shake, and T. J. in a bar that a player with the Cowboys recommended. It was north of downtown, surrounded by apartments for singles. Supposedly it was a get-lucky joint, as one might have guessed from the name: Exes and Ohs.
I was having a cocktail at the bar with Billy Clyde and Shake when I saw T. J. on the dance floor in a dispute with three muscled-up, mean-looking buzz-cuts covered in tattoos. The argument appeared to be over who was going to dance with a young lady. Suddenly they decided to take the discussion outdoors.
I nudged Billy Clyde and Shake, who had their backs to the dance floor, and said, “T. J. just went outside with three bad-looking dudes. They were having a disagreement over a lady.”
Billy Clyde said, “Jesus, T. J. will kill ’em!”
He and Shake spun off their barstools and plowed their way through the crowd to go outside and prevent the mayhem. I followed them.
We arrived before any fists were flying.
“You guys don’t know who you’re dealing with,” Billy Clyde said. “This gentleman right here is Mr. T. J. Lambert of the New York City Football Giants.”
“They know that now,” T. J. said. “They want my autograph. Anybody got a damn pen?”
*****
“WHAT’S up, asshole?”
That’s how T. J. answers the phone if it’s not the governor of Texas or his wife Donna Lou.
“Just checking in,” I said. “Making sure you’re set for the reunion.”
“We’ll be there, but I don’t know why you want me. I hear you already got more celebrities lined up than California’s got wine-tasters.”
“It’s shaping up to be festive.”
“I know what would make it more festive for me.”
“What?”
“Round up some of these imbeciles who’ve ruined the NFL for me. Let me have a piece of their ass. They’re responsible for me joining Donna Lou in the den on Sundays to watch house flippers or fat girls try on wedding gowns.”
“It’s the protestors you speak of, I’m guessing.”
“Protestors, huh? If that’s how you want to dignify ’em. I’ve said from the start that any sumbitch who gets rich playing a game but won’t stand for our anthem . . . won’t show respect for the flag and country he’s lucky to be born in . . . a country that brave Americans fight and die for . . . he ought to be sent to live in a mud cave. See how he likes it. I’m not sure those kneeling turds can get me back in the audience.”
“You don’t think you’re being a trifle harsh?”
He said, “What the hell do they have to bitch about, Tommy Earl? Oh, I forgot. Social justice. You know what social justice is to them? The police officer ought to stand still and let the thug shoot him first.”
I said, “Billy Clyde and I laugh at ’em. They aren’t smart enough to know a con job if it throws a chop-block on ’em. Some hired-help activist talks political crap to ’em, and they fall for it.”
*****
T. J. said, “Those jackasses make me wish I still coached. I’d remind ’em how easy they can be replaced. There are hundreds of kids playing major college football, and they’d love to take those pro jobs. Some are better players anyhow.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “All you have to do is check out the Washington Redskins from time to time.”
T. J. said, “Like the old rodeo cowboy says, ‘It’s hard to ride ’em if you can’t get ’em in the chute.’”
“See there, Coach,” I said. “All that’s why you’ll be the reunion’s star attraction, my man.”