Washington Post sports columnist (and now PTI and MNF host, too!) Tony Kornheiser announced today that he is taking a buyout from the Washington Post. WaPo sports blogger Dan Steinberg writes:
I've said this before, in several contexts, but when I moved from Newark, Del. to D.C. in 1998 as a miserable non-profit researcher who had never lived in a major media market, suddenly I was reading Kornheiser, Wilbon, Boswell, Jenkins and all the rest every day, and I was amazed. It was impossible for me to get my non-profit research done, because I spent all morning reading The Post sports section, before the Web was sort of the future. It absolutely made me want to leave non-profit research and become some manner of sportswriter, although first I decided to sell cheese for a while. But this paper's Sports section in the late '90s, and presumably for years and years before that, was something pretty special that actually made you anxious to open that stupid plastic bag in the morning.
A bit later, he followed up with this:
First off, for those who weren't here at the time, or who were here and can't get enough, or who grew up in Western New York as Bills fans and still remember Super Bowl XXVI as one of life's great tragedis, here's the link to an old but still workable Bandwagon homepage. Lots of Bandwagon columns to read. Different time. But my D.C.-based friends who were adolescents in those days speak of the Bandwagon series as the most important brush with sports journalism of their lives.
I know I don't normally do much sport blogging here, but if TK is leaving the Post, I need to make an exception.
I cannot even begin to describe to you just how important Kornheiser's columns were to me growing up as a teenager in the suburbs of DC. Back then, I was obsessed with the Washington Redskins. (So obsessed, in fact, that I put my name on the infamous 20-year season ticket waiting list. It took me over 15 years, but last year I finally got the call. But I live in Boston? So what?!? There are trains, planes, and automobiles, people! And thus the boy gave birth to the man...) And given that my teenage years spanned roughly 1981 to 1991, it was a very, very good time to be obsessed.
Its really not an exaggeration to say that my mood at school on Monday was determined entirely by how the Skins played the previous day. But not Tuesday. Never Tuesday. Because Tuesday was the day Korneiser's football column appeared in my Post, and somehow he always had a way of making everything alright. On the rare occasion when they lost, no matter how badly, Tony could always find a way to make me laugh. And more importantly, to give me hope that next Sunday my guys - our guys - would find a way to make everything alright.
And when they won? When they won, reading Kornheiser was almost a religious experience. (Remember, I was 16 the year we torched the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. And yes, for the record, the second quarter of that game are the most magical 15 minutes of football that have ever been or will ever be played.) His columns were hilarious. And triumphant. And epic. Lord were they epic.
The trick was that he wrote like he was one of us. When you read his columns you felt like he understood. No, like he knew. It wasn't that he was like one of us, but that he was one of us. And there he was, this guy writing in the Washington Post, the paper that took down a president, interviewing your heroes, and he too bled burgundy and gold. He got it, and he got to hang out with them, too. I mean, what could possibly be cooler to a nerdy little 16 year boy than that? Nothing, that's what. Nothing.
My love for TK's columns didn't end with high school, of course. I took it with me to college, although in the days before this magical internet thing you had to work to get your fix. Most days I didn't get a paper, but on Tuesdays I would make an exception. For TK, you had to make an exception.
And then came 1991, the Bandwagon, and that amazing 17-2 run. Right out of the gate, we knew it was going to be a special year. 45-0 against the Lions on opening day. Then a win over the hated Dallas Cowboys on their home turf in week two, followed by another shutout. You knew - you just knew - that season we were going to be unstoppable.
And so Kornheiser fired up The Bandwagon, a series of columns that are now legendary in Washington sports. There were Bandwagon bumper stickers, shirts, hats, and eventually even a real mobile-home-turned-Bandwagon that TK drove all the way with us to the Super Bowl.
Sadly, sometimes I wasn't able to get a copy of the Post, but my dad back in NoVa? He always had my back. Always. He saved all the bandwagon sports sections for me, and I'd read 'em whenever I was back. Didn't matter if they were about games 4 or 5 weeks old, no way. I'd read every word, four or five times over. (Thanks dad! I don't know how I would have gotten through that one without you!)
And now Kornheiser has decided its time to go. But you know what? That's OK. Because since the Bandwagon he's taken on PTI, and from there MNF, too. I'll miss his Skins columns come football season, no doubt about that. But I'll keep watching PTI every night, and I know my dad will, too. TK is DC, after all. He's one of us, god bless 'em. We'll miss you, TK. We really will....
For those who've never seen the Bandwagon before, here's one small part. This is the column that launched the madness. September 24, 1991. Lots of inside jokes in there, but you know what? Even after all these years, they still get me.
4-0: Strike Up the Band(Wagon)Now do you believe me?
Four weeks ago I told you that the line for the Super Bowl bandwagon formed here.
And did you get on? Noooooo.
Those of you who shivered in your shoes all week, warning about catastrophe because Cincinnati was "the best 0-3 team in the league," well, you can exhale. Now they're the best 0-4 team in the league.
You said the 45-0 shalumpfing of Detroit was meaningless, because the Lions were completely pathetic, and probably wouldn't win a game all year. So I guess that 3-1 record in the standings is a misprint. Then, you said the victory over the Cowboys at Dallas proved nothing because Dallas was young and overrated and easy pickings for a composed veteran team. But Dallas is 2-0 on the road, which ties it for the best in the NFL. Then, you said the 34-0 excavation of Phoenix should be dismissed because Phoenix was playing its third straight game on the road. But the week before Phoenix beat Philadelphia on the road by 16, and nobody else has beaten the Eagles all season. Now, of course, you're going to insist that beating Cincinnati should be ignored because, hey, who have the Bengals beaten, huh?
I guess I don't have to worry about any of you getting in line ahead of me at the Eddie Bauer snowshoe counter. I guess none of you is making plans to go on that Fabulous Bud Grant's Midnight Ice-Fishing Cruise of the 10,000 Lakes. I guess none of you is eagerly awaiting The Mary Richards And Rhoda Morganstern Swinging Minneapolis By Candlelight And Mush Dogs Tour.
Wise up. For your benefit I'm doing this again, and doing it slowly:
Right now the Redskins are the best team in the NFL.
Most points.
Most shutouts.
Widest gap between points-for and points-against: plus 88. Gretzky wasn't plus 88!
The 1927 Yankees, Andy. The 1927 Yankees.
Excuse me, Tony, you're not usually such a homer. How come you're being so nauseatingly sweet to the Redskins? I mean, honestly, it's to barf. Are they paying you?
For the record, they're not paying me. But I have been issued a parking pass and barbeque privileges for The Squire's, ahem, private D.C. alley.
I know this makes you nervous. But why? Would you rather be 0-4? Sam Wyche is 0-4. Why do you think he runs around like such a maniac? If he had a good team, he'd coach in a chaise longue. Last week Wyche took pains to declare that winning isn't everything, that life offered alternatives -- golf and tennis, for example. Did you ever notice how the football coaches who say that winning isn't everything are the ones who aren't winning? Not to put too fine a point on it, Sammy, but 0-4 puts you closer and closer to that every day golf and tennis paradise. (I am amused to hear so many people whining about the ethics of Wyche's no-huddle offense, like it's somehow a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. They're not going for Miss Congeniality out there. Of course you want to keep the Redskins from substituting on defense. Of course you want to tire them out. Matt Millen looked like Walter Brennan trying to get to the sidelines on passing downs. I haven't seen guys sucking wind like this since the home movies of the Sir Edmund Hillary expedition.)
I know what you're thinking now. You're thinking, oh sure, they're 4-0. But the joy ride is over. The hard part of the schedule begins now, with the Monday night game against Philadelphia. So let's convene another meeting of the Coach "Joe" Gibbs Gloom And Doom String Quartet And Day Of The Locusts Chorale. The Eagles are off to their best start since 1981. Look at that Sack-Happy defense: Only 43 points allowed, second best in the whole league. Look at that offense: "Geritol" Jim McMahon is playing like he did when he led the Bears to the Super Bowl, and now he's got Roy "Geezer" Green to throw to. You know what happened the last time the Redskins played Philadelphia on a Monday night -- the infamous "Body Bag" game. Mark Rypien will be lucky to walk off the field without a full body cast and a guide dog. Plus, there's even more incentive for the Eagles to win now because of what the Redskins did to them in the playoffs last year. So, uh, Joe, we make the Eagles what, a 49-point favorite? Randall Cunningham? Who's he? Oh, he'd hurt you now and again with his scrambling, but McMahon is a savvy veteran, and knowing that he's staying in the pocket has to make his offensive line more comfortable, and blah-blah-blah.
Puh-leeze.
Jim McMahon is a doofus.
The Redskins win this game.
And that will just make you crazier, won't it? The Redskins will be 5-0, and you'll look for ways to undermine it. You'll invent totally absurd paranoid conspiracies: "In a sense this hurts us for the future, because if Rypien continues to play well we won't be able to get a good look at Humphries and Conklin, and we may get rid of the wrong guy." Or, "Sure, Lohmiller's kicking well now, but what if somebody poisons John Brandes' pregame meal, and he can't deep snap? Or what if they send some goon to Rutledge's house to break his holding fingers? Ditka would do that, I know he would." There, that ought to keep you crazies busy.
Gibbs has said that for every win he'd give the players one day off during the bye week. I figure the Redskins for 7-0, so I'm signing up for Russ Grimm's Week-Long Trans-Canadian Motorcross Goose Hunt And Long Ball Driving Jubilee, and I'm taking the bandwagon with me.
What I wouldn't give for another spin in the bandwagon. Man... There's always next year, right? Opening Day: September 4 @ the New York Giants. Funny, that. The Redskins vs. the RNC? That guy McCain doesn't stand a chance.
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