On January 31, 1988, Doug Williams became the first Black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl. The lead-up to the historic moment was full of drama. Doug Williams, Joe Gibbs, former front office staff and more talk about what took place during those important days. Hail Tales: Stories from Washington Football History Apple Podcast: bit.ly/HailTalesApple Spotify: bit.ly/HailTalesSpotify
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to San Diego and Super Bowl twenty two, and
I'll Washington Redskins and a Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Broncos and Williams Donkey Senors be teams or.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Eighty Williams records.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
Washington junch dorming back Williams deep for senders again to catch.
Speaker 5 (00:24):
Doug Williams hasn't voted the MVP of the game.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Look at his teammates surrounding Doug Williams last week for
the Washington Redskins and Doug Williams in particular.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Washington is the Super Bowl champion after thrashing the Denver
Broncos forty two to ten. Doug Williams becomes the first
black quarterback to both start and win a Super Bowl.
That Super Bowl in San Diego was quite the game,
and today we won't be talking about it. Instead, we're
(01:01):
going to dive into how we got to that day
at Jack Murphy Stadium and really what happened in the
fourteen days between the nineteen eighty seven NFC Championship and
Super Bowl twenty two. This is Hail Tails Stories from
(01:25):
Washington Football History. Episode one Surprise Roommates, Media Madness, and
the Super Bowl Hero You've never heard of Doug Williams's
story of lifting that trophy on January thirty first, nineteen
(01:45):
eighty eight, may as well start with a finish. That
is the end of the United States Football League. The
USFL was a pro football league in the US that
played a spring summer schedule for eighty six season. The
USFL owners wanted to move their schedule to the fall
in an attempt to directly compete with the NFL. It
(02:08):
was a risky decision that ultimately didn't pay off. Washington, though,
as sportswriter Rick Snyder explains, benefits from the fiasco.
Speaker 6 (02:19):
The USFL folds the year before, and that really sets
them up in eighty seven because they pick up Doug Williams.
Not only Doug Williams for a million dollars. They had
to call Cook at home and say, you know, listen,
we want to sign this backup quarterback. Cooke didn't get
away of that, but they said to a million dollars,
which was huge money back then.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Coach had a plan, he was scheming.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
I'm coach Joe Gibbs. Now I look at myself as
a risk in and commander for a number of years,
a totally fifteen.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Coach had worked with Williams down in Tampa Bay, which
was important, but more significant coach Gibbs advocation for Williams
because he believed so hard in the Signal callers talents.
That belief led Tampa Bay to take Williams in the
first round of the nineteen seventy eight draft, which made
(03:12):
the Grambling State star the first black quarterback to be
drafted in the first round. And here Gibbs was advocating
for him again.
Speaker 7 (03:20):
When we got Doug. The thing I loved about having
Doug a veteran guy, and of course I had a background
with him, knowing what kind of guy was and performer.
What I love to have with a young quarterback playing,
I love to have a veteran backup behind him. Of course,
(03:42):
Doug fit perfectly for that.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Williams, the veteran is set to be the backup and
Jay Schrader, the young guy, is the starter. But Christine Brennan,
who covered the team for the Washington Post, recalls the
uncertainty at the position you.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Had, the witching of quarterbacks basically back and forth, back
and forth, true uncertainty if Jay Schrader would keep the
job or if Doug Williams would get a chance, and
Doug got a chance, and Jay was back.
Speaker 7 (04:11):
Then Doug, and as the year went, it just became obvious.
Towards the end of that year, Doug had had a
chance to play a few times for US, played extremely well,
and we kind of felt like the further we went
in the season, it became more obvious that we felt
like Doug would be the ideal quarterback for us to
(04:33):
start playing. And so it was just the process is
that year took place.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Doug Williams is the starter in the nineteen eighty seven
playoffs almost right away, as the team's then director of
media relations, John Canosa remembers, there's this rumble about the
history Williams could make that begins to crescendo. If Washington
kept winning and Williams kept playing how he was playing,
(05:02):
he'd be the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Everybody knew it was, you know, it was one of
those things that was just so obvious. We'd only it's
not like we had fifty Super Bowls. That was twenty two,
so we'd only had twenty one games up to that point,
and it wasn't you know, you didn't have to do.
Speaker 8 (05:25):
A whole lot of research. Everybody knew that that was
the case.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
On January seventeenth, nineteen eighty eight, Washington beats the Vikings
in the NFC Championship and it becomes real, this is happening.
A black quarterback is going to start a Super Bowl
for Shaq Harris, one of William's closest friends. The magnitude
(05:53):
of the moment dawned on him right away.
Speaker 9 (05:56):
I can remember when we won the championship game and
how excited he was, how excited I was, how excited
everybody reknew.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
Tied Doune want him back to pack looking.
Speaker 10 (06:11):
Look he throws into the ends all that the cup time.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
That night they got break.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
O, the Reds get break game away with five fifteen
A do it looks like they're gonna go Super.
Speaker 10 (06:21):
Bowl like a Sert day.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I'm going through it.
Speaker 9 (06:24):
So, you know, so so proud of him. So we
spend a lot of time I think sharing sharing that moment,
and I think after that, Doug was able to refocus
and start focusing on the business at hand, the Denver Broncos,
which was there, you know, a real challenge there because
(06:46):
so many people was reaching out to him and he
was representing so much.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
I had already written and we'd certainly talked on TV
shows about Doug and his place in history, i e.
As a black man playing what even back then was
still seen as a white man's position, and the important
markers in history were already there in my mind. But
now the nation was going to find out about it.
(07:19):
This was going this is going wide. This was going
from Washington. A story that was a football story, a
story that was building over several months, and then now
it's going to go to a national audience, and not
just a sports audience, but a cultural audience and a
(07:42):
historic audience in the sense of what Doug Williams means
not just in sports, not just in Washington, but not
just in football, but now in history and in our
cultural history in our country. And so you know, I
was well aware of all that, but there was still
a real improbable nature to the whole thing. Washington really
did this, Joe Gibbs really pulled this off. This team
(08:04):
is going to the super Bowl.
Speaker 8 (08:05):
You know, when that game was over, it I realized
that I was going to be playing in the Super Bowl,
you know, being the first black quarterback. To be honest
with you, at that time didn't really hit me. It
was just the fact that I was going to have
a chance to play in the Super Bowl. That was
the most important thing to me. As the days went along,
the week went along, then you realize that you're the
first black quarterback, and I realized that that particular time
(08:27):
is probably going to be some media and everybody else
is going to be looking to do an interview with
which you know, and I didn't want to do that,
so I just stayed away.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
During that first week of Super Bowl prep in Washington.
Williams does not stay at his own house.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
I didn't go home. I went to one of my
friend's apartment and I stayed there because you know, I
knew I didn't want nobody coming by my house. Whether
they did and I don't know, but I didn't want
no knocks on the door or anything like that. I
just went to Big Herd. We called him called No
Way to Love a Big Herd, and we was teammates
(09:06):
at Gramlin, but he lived up here, and you know,
Big Harry was a guy that I mean talking about
running with somebody. That's who I ran with most of
the time. And all the boys used to call him
the oldweight lover because he was about six six at
that time, about about three hundred pounds, so they called
him oldweight level. So that's who I hung with. You know,
something to be done.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
He was there, So Williams was going to and from
Big Herbs for practice, and the rest of the Burgundy
and Gold, from the team to the business personnel are
also doing what they need to do to get ready
for San Diego.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
The good news was.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It wasn't our first rodeo, and Joe Gibbs was really
good at you know, we got one week to handle
all the family stuff, all the travel, all the logistics,
and then we have that second week when we're actually
in San Diego to focus on football and practice in
preparation and get into as close to a normal work
(10:06):
week as humanly possible. You know, it's a super Bowl,
it's not possible. But Joe was a stickler for routine
and we had to do everything when we got to
San Diego. He wanted everything just like.
Speaker 8 (10:17):
It was a normal work week. Now the week of
the Super Bowl. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Charles Man, three time Super Bowl champion and four time
Pro Bowler.
Speaker 8 (10:34):
I mean, I'm getting goosebumps thinking about that because don't
get to talk about that much.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But we had the fiercest practices.
Speaker 7 (10:44):
I'll tell you they were so physical that I actually
cut practice short. I said, our guys are ready.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I mean it was like they were.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
You know, we actually were physical in practice. We ran
offensive plays and roughly the same number of defensive plays
against each other. And I remember that thing being so physical.
A couple of times, like on those Wednesday practices, I
cut practice short and I said, we're going to get
(11:16):
somebody hurt.
Speaker 9 (11:16):
He's got it.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
They were ready.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
The practices aren't the only part of that week that
are intense. Media Day ahead of Super Bowl twenty two
is a whole other animal. On that Tuesday, all the
Washington players load up on buses to go to Jack
Murphy Stadium, where reporters from around the country had the
(11:47):
chance to ask questions and Doug Williams is swarmed.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
The schools you grew up in were finally integrated.
Speaker 8 (12:03):
You know. I had no problem with the media as
long as they was asking civilized courtions and things like that.
And you know, it was only one courtion that came up,
and to be honest with you, it did not bother me.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
The question, how long have you been a black quarterback?
Speaker 8 (12:21):
I knew the guy who asked the course, and he
was from originally from Jackson, Mississippi, who covered Gramlin in
Jackson State during that time. Her name is Butch Jones.
Since since then, buch Jones, blessed soul has passed away.
But Busch Jones called me before he passed. He was
telling me all the medical issues that he was having.
But he told me he appreciate the way I handled
(12:42):
the question because what he asked me was you know,
how long had I been a black quarterback? And the
way it came out, and I told him, you know,
since I left Gramlin now, and that's was the truth.
But I knew what he was trying to say, and
I didn't. I wasn't gonna make him look bad or
anything like that because I understood where he was from,
and I just say, hey, you know, since I left
(13:03):
Graham and that's that's when I became a black quarterback.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Though so much of the attention was focused on Williams
that day, fun fact, that's not where the concern of
Director of media Relations John Canoza.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Was Douglas predictable, Dexter not so much.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
I'm Dexter Manley nineteen eighty one to nineteen ninety. John's
a young guy and be quite frank with to be candid,
I did. I didn't.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I wasn't listening to John on media day.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
I was.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I was around Dexter.
Speaker 8 (13:47):
If it was Charlie, yes, if it was bothered that
to the joke gift, I've got to listen.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
To that in turn, whatever he was, it was a
big thing is we didn't want to do anything to
fire up to Denver broncos it's all about shock value.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And then so then we had to have meetings with Dexter. Okay,
if you don't want to answer a question, you don't
answer a question. Okay, but then you say next question
and you go. So Dextra is the one that was
that was being schooled up.
Speaker 8 (14:15):
It wasn't a strategy. It's just off the cuff, as
I say, it went in different and that's about it.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Doug again, I had no concerns at all.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Amidst all that outside noise while getting ready for the
biggest game he'd ever play in, Williams found ways to
stay grounded and be in a good headspace. Loved ones
in San Diego helped with the lighthearted and positive energy.
Robert Williams was so excited for his brother Doug the first.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Game that they played in the championship where they had
played in Minnesota. Dugs and all the money home that
he had earned from that game, and told my mother
to bring all all of us who wanted to come.
And I think I can remember I went a little
earlier to San Diego, but my mother and others came later,
(15:08):
and they brought twenty one on aile plan to San Diego.
We flew into La and we had a friend had
a mobile home there and he picked us up and
brought us his house. Well, we had a lot of
food there and enjoyed each other. Then we drove on
into San Diego and we spent a week there.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
And you know, Doug Williams wasn't the only member of
his family doing something for the first time that week.
Speaker 8 (15:36):
My mom probably was my mom first time flying.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
So that must have meant was that our first time
watching you play for Washington?
Speaker 8 (15:45):
That was that was our first time watching me play
for Washington.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
His family there was just a reminder of how ready
Williams was for this moment.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Doug had a lot of confidence, and we all had
a lot of confidence in it growing up. One of
the things that I stressed my brothers and the sisters
as well, have come of this and believe that you
can do it, And that was one of those persons
who works hard and believe that you could do it well.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Williams was feeling good above the neck mentally as the
week wore on. Physically, above the neck was a different story.
On Saturday morning, the day before the Super Bowl, Williams
wakes up with toothpain that cannot be ignored and in
(16:34):
steps this guy.
Speaker 10 (16:40):
Hello, my name is Barry Rudolph, and I wish the team.
Dennis during the glory years from nineteen eighty three to
nineteen ninety five travel with the team mostly everywhere they went.
And actually that was it was an unusual thing because
(17:01):
not all football teams had a dentist that traveled with them,
but the Redskins were forward thinking and they had an internist,
an orthopedic surgeon, and a dentist as physicians on call.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
That weekend in San Diego, doctor Rudolph would be called
on to perform what might be described as one of
the most important dental surgeries in the history of sports.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
Started out about two or three weeks before the Super Bowl,
which was I guess January thirty first, nineteen eighty eight.
And once we I think, once we beat the Minnesota
Vikings and we knew we were going to the Super Bowl.
I called a dental school friend of mine. It was
(17:47):
about ten years I had seen him, we were classmates,
and I knew he practiced in the San Diego area,
and I knew obviously we were going to be playing
in San Diego. And I thought, well, let me try
to plan ahead and case we have any kinds of emergencies.
So I called my friend Dave, and I said, hey, Dave,
I'm going to be coming out to San Diego in
(18:08):
about three weeks. And Dave said to me, oh, no, no,
don't come out. Then I said, well why not. He goes, Oh,
it's going to be a mob scene and if we
have the Super Bowl here and it's going to be crazy.
And I said, no, Dave, you don't understand. He said,
I'm coming out because I worked for the Redskins and
I'm involved with the Super Boy. He goes, oh, okay.
So I said, the reason that I'm calling you is
because in case I have a dental emergency. I want
(18:31):
to know if it's okay if I use your office.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Dave says sure and thank goodness for that. Fast forward
to the Saturday before the game, Doctor Rudolph is out
getting breakfast with Dave. He comes back to the hotel
room and his wife tells him that head trainer Bubba
Tire just called, and of course.
Speaker 10 (18:51):
You know, my radar went up and I was, Oh,
what's going on? So I said, she said, but don't worry.
Bubba said it's only Doug Williams, and I went, oh,
you know.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Doctor Rudolph rushes to the practice facility.
Speaker 10 (19:06):
Joe Gibbs came over to me and said that Doug
was having a horrible time at practice this morning and
he couldn't focus in on the plays. He was forgetting things.
He was having all sorts of trouble. So when Joe
Gibbs went over to Doug and said, Hey, Doug, what's
going on?
Speaker 5 (19:24):
You know?
Speaker 10 (19:25):
Doug said, well, you know what, I hadn't slept very
well in the last couple of weeks, and Joe came
up and said, listen, I need you to do something
for this guy because he's not you know, we're going
to have practice, going to be over at noon, and
then whatever you can do would be great. I spoke
to my friend Dave and I said, listen, we need
to go to your office. We need to figure out
what's going on. So and we get in there and
(19:46):
we take a look. We take an X ray of
Doug's jaw, and we look and we see that he's
got a five unit bridge on the lower right side.
So I don't want to get two technical from a
dental standpoint, but.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Basically Williams needs a root canal.
Speaker 8 (20:05):
I'd never had a root invale, you know. Growing up,
we couldn't afford to go to the dinner talk about
root canal anything. Now that's my first time ever having
anything done like that.
Speaker 10 (20:15):
Long story short. It took about five and a half
hours of work to get this resolved.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Add in some post op painkillers, some antibiotics, and that
should have been the end of it. Should have well.
Speaker 10 (20:31):
I went back to my room and I called a
colleague of mine in Washington, DC, and I said he
was a root canal specialist, And I said, I want
to know if there's anything that I did.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
This is what I did.
Speaker 10 (20:43):
Is there anything else that you would have done in
addition to what I did, because the game is on
the line and I needed to know if there was
anything else, anything that I missed. And he said, nope,
what you did was perfect. That's just what I would
have done everything. That's the best you can do. Blah
blah blah. And that was the end of it. But
about two or three hours later, I get a call
from the PR Department, I think it was John Canosa
(21:06):
at the time, and he says to me, he said,
what you did for Doug Williams is all over the news.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Doctor Rudolph cannot figure out how this happened. How did
this get out? As a medical professional working for an
NFL team, he is keenly aware of the sensitivity of
this matter.
Speaker 10 (21:26):
So I scratched my head and I called my friend
Dave and I said, did you call the news media?
And he said, nope, I didn't do that. I wouldn't
do that. Finally it dawned on me, well, the only
person that I talked to about this was this person
in DC, and so I called that person back and
he said to me, nope, I didn't say anything. I
didn't tell anybody. And then I hung up. About half
(21:47):
an hour later, he calls me back. He goes, well,
I want you to know that I didn't say anything,
but my wife was on the.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Phone when you called, and that wife just might have
told somebody in the media. The story breaks, and I think.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
The idea was to keep it quiet, and then I
think through some crazy set of circumstances. Next thing you know,
it became a big deal in the papers, and every
day I was kind of out of it.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Nobody in the organization apparently other than doctor Barry Rudolph
and maybe our trainer Bubba's higher but nobody told Jack
can Cook.
Speaker 8 (22:29):
Nobody told John can Cook.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Nobody told Joe Gibbs that Doug was having.
Speaker 8 (22:34):
A root canal done.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
The day before the Super Bowl, John can Cook called
me into his office and said, I need you to
go find Doug and make sure Doug's okay. So, you know,
I went up to Doug's room and Doug was in
there with family and friends. He may have had six
or eight people in the room, and he said he
felt great.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Williams is on the mend. Day has turned tonight and
it's time for Game day eve Rituals Gibbs style.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
We had a joint chapel service with the Denver Broncos
Saturday night, which was unprecedented. But Joe Gibbs and Dan
Reeves were very close, and so we actually had a
chapel service with our players and Denver Bronco players that
wanted to attend, which was most unusual. And then after
(23:25):
that chapel service, and we had a team snack and
then bust over to the Lawrence Welk Resort Village.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
The Lawrence Welk Resort Village, Ladays and gentlemen.
Speaker 8 (23:41):
It's the Lawrence Well Show.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
We always take a team the night before and try
and get someplace quiet, but.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
It is almost impossible to find a hotel for this
many people for one night in one hundred and fifty
mile radius. Somehow, John Kent Cook finds this resort developed
by a famous television band leader, Lawrence Welk, and so.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I actually went up and scoped it out and looked
at it like it's and it was a timeshare. And
so people checked out on Saturday and checked in on Sunday,
and on Saturday night, all these bungalows are empty, and
we're like, well, wait a minute, we can make we
can make that work, and we were we were the
(24:29):
only ones there. It may have been the most peaceful
place on the planet.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
The night before Super Bowl, the team and coaches are
zend out and ready for Sunday. Williams is able to
get rest and maybe more importantly, is able to indulge
in his special pregame tradition and woke up.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
In the middle of the night. I had a bag
of hersy kisses that I always eat these kisses, and
I'm trying to find out man, I got to find
a way in. I took those kisses and I they
were last one of them. Stayed up a little longer,
you know. I finally went to sleep. Woke up the
next morning. It was breakfast time, went to breakfast, and
by that time we loaded the bus and drove in
to San Diego to the stadium, Jack Murphy Stadium, and
(25:15):
I felt pretty good, no pain at all. It was
a great day.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Our congratulations for Joe Gibbs, the Redskins, last week for
the Washington Redskins, and Doug Williams in particular.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
This episode was narrated, produced, and researched by me Hannah Liechtenstein,
senior copywriter for the Washington Commanders. It was produced and
edited by Jason Johnson. Executive producers ra El and Teen,
Ryan Joakum, and Kevin Klein. Graphics designed by Roman Schumann
and Rackim Smith. Social media by Maggie Antulis and Rebecca Solsbach.
(25:54):
Alumni relations help comes from Tim Hightower and Caroline Deco.
Special thank you to Dallas Taylor and Katie Montellione. Thank
you to our guests for their contributions, and thank you
for listening.
Welcome to San Diego and Super Bowl twenty two, and
I'll Washington Redskins and a Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Broncos and Williams Donkey Senors be teams or.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Eighty Williams records.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
Washington junch dorming back Williams deep for senders again to catch.
Speaker 5 (00:24):
Doug Williams hasn't voted the MVP of the game.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Look at his teammates surrounding Doug Williams last week for
the Washington Redskins and Doug Williams in particular.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Washington is the Super Bowl champion after thrashing the Denver
Broncos forty two to ten. Doug Williams becomes the first
black quarterback to both start and win a Super Bowl.
That Super Bowl in San Diego was quite the game,
and today we won't be talking about it. Instead, we're
(01:01):
going to dive into how we got to that day
at Jack Murphy Stadium and really what happened in the
fourteen days between the nineteen eighty seven NFC Championship and
Super Bowl twenty two. This is Hail Tails Stories from
(01:25):
Washington Football History. Episode one Surprise Roommates, Media Madness, and
the Super Bowl Hero You've never heard of Doug Williams's
story of lifting that trophy on January thirty first, nineteen
(01:45):
eighty eight, may as well start with a finish. That
is the end of the United States Football League. The
USFL was a pro football league in the US that
played a spring summer schedule for eighty six season. The
USFL owners wanted to move their schedule to the fall
in an attempt to directly compete with the NFL. It
(02:08):
was a risky decision that ultimately didn't pay off. Washington, though,
as sportswriter Rick Snyder explains, benefits from the fiasco.
Speaker 6 (02:19):
The USFL folds the year before, and that really sets
them up in eighty seven because they pick up Doug Williams.
Not only Doug Williams for a million dollars. They had
to call Cook at home and say, you know, listen,
we want to sign this backup quarterback. Cooke didn't get
away of that, but they said to a million dollars,
which was huge money back then.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Coach had a plan, he was scheming.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
I'm coach Joe Gibbs. Now I look at myself as
a risk in and commander for a number of years,
a totally fifteen.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Coach had worked with Williams down in Tampa Bay, which
was important, but more significant coach Gibbs advocation for Williams
because he believed so hard in the Signal callers talents.
That belief led Tampa Bay to take Williams in the
first round of the nineteen seventy eight draft, which made
(03:12):
the Grambling State star the first black quarterback to be
drafted in the first round. And here Gibbs was advocating
for him again.
Speaker 7 (03:20):
When we got Doug. The thing I loved about having
Doug a veteran guy, and of course I had a background
with him, knowing what kind of guy was and performer.
What I love to have with a young quarterback playing,
I love to have a veteran backup behind him. Of course,
(03:42):
Doug fit perfectly for that.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Williams, the veteran is set to be the backup and
Jay Schrader, the young guy, is the starter. But Christine Brennan,
who covered the team for the Washington Post, recalls the
uncertainty at the position you.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Had, the witching of quarterbacks basically back and forth, back
and forth, true uncertainty if Jay Schrader would keep the
job or if Doug Williams would get a chance, and
Doug got a chance, and Jay was back.
Speaker 7 (04:11):
Then Doug, and as the year went, it just became obvious.
Towards the end of that year, Doug had had a
chance to play a few times for US, played extremely well,
and we kind of felt like the further we went
in the season, it became more obvious that we felt
like Doug would be the ideal quarterback for us to
(04:33):
start playing. And so it was just the process is
that year took place.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Doug Williams is the starter in the nineteen eighty seven
playoffs almost right away, as the team's then director of
media relations, John Canosa remembers, there's this rumble about the
history Williams could make that begins to crescendo. If Washington
kept winning and Williams kept playing how he was playing,
(05:02):
he'd be the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Everybody knew it was, you know, it was one of
those things that was just so obvious. We'd only it's
not like we had fifty Super Bowls. That was twenty two,
so we'd only had twenty one games up to that point,
and it wasn't you know, you didn't have to do.
Speaker 8 (05:25):
A whole lot of research. Everybody knew that that was
the case.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
On January seventeenth, nineteen eighty eight, Washington beats the Vikings
in the NFC Championship and it becomes real, this is happening.
A black quarterback is going to start a Super Bowl
for Shaq Harris, one of William's closest friends. The magnitude
(05:53):
of the moment dawned on him right away.
Speaker 9 (05:56):
I can remember when we won the championship game and
how excited he was, how excited I was, how excited
everybody reknew.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
Tied Doune want him back to pack looking.
Speaker 10 (06:11):
Look he throws into the ends all that the cup time.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
That night they got break.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
O, the Reds get break game away with five fifteen
A do it looks like they're gonna go Super.
Speaker 10 (06:21):
Bowl like a Sert day.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I'm going through it.
Speaker 9 (06:24):
So, you know, so so proud of him. So we
spend a lot of time I think sharing sharing that moment,
and I think after that, Doug was able to refocus
and start focusing on the business at hand, the Denver Broncos,
which was there, you know, a real challenge there because
(06:46):
so many people was reaching out to him and he
was representing so much.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
I had already written and we'd certainly talked on TV
shows about Doug and his place in history, i e.
As a black man playing what even back then was
still seen as a white man's position, and the important
markers in history were already there in my mind. But
now the nation was going to find out about it.
(07:19):
This was going this is going wide. This was going
from Washington. A story that was a football story, a
story that was building over several months, and then now
it's going to go to a national audience, and not
just a sports audience, but a cultural audience and a
(07:42):
historic audience in the sense of what Doug Williams means
not just in sports, not just in Washington, but not
just in football, but now in history and in our
cultural history in our country. And so you know, I
was well aware of all that, but there was still
a real improbable nature to the whole thing. Washington really
did this, Joe Gibbs really pulled this off. This team
(08:04):
is going to the super Bowl.
Speaker 8 (08:05):
You know, when that game was over, it I realized
that I was going to be playing in the Super Bowl,
you know, being the first black quarterback. To be honest
with you, at that time didn't really hit me. It
was just the fact that I was going to have
a chance to play in the Super Bowl. That was
the most important thing to me. As the days went along,
the week went along, then you realize that you're the
first black quarterback, and I realized that that particular time
(08:27):
is probably going to be some media and everybody else
is going to be looking to do an interview with
which you know, and I didn't want to do that,
so I just stayed away.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
During that first week of Super Bowl prep in Washington.
Williams does not stay at his own house.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
I didn't go home. I went to one of my
friend's apartment and I stayed there because you know, I
knew I didn't want nobody coming by my house. Whether
they did and I don't know, but I didn't want
no knocks on the door or anything like that. I
just went to Big Herd. We called him called No
Way to Love a Big Herd, and we was teammates
(09:06):
at Gramlin, but he lived up here, and you know,
Big Harry was a guy that I mean talking about
running with somebody. That's who I ran with most of
the time. And all the boys used to call him
the oldweight lover because he was about six six at
that time, about about three hundred pounds, so they called
him oldweight level. So that's who I hung with. You know,
something to be done.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
He was there, So Williams was going to and from
Big Herbs for practice, and the rest of the Burgundy
and Gold, from the team to the business personnel are
also doing what they need to do to get ready
for San Diego.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
The good news was.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It wasn't our first rodeo, and Joe Gibbs was really
good at you know, we got one week to handle
all the family stuff, all the travel, all the logistics,
and then we have that second week when we're actually
in San Diego to focus on football and practice in
preparation and get into as close to a normal work
(10:06):
week as humanly possible. You know, it's a super Bowl,
it's not possible. But Joe was a stickler for routine
and we had to do everything when we got to
San Diego. He wanted everything just like.
Speaker 8 (10:17):
It was a normal work week. Now the week of
the Super Bowl. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Charles Man, three time Super Bowl champion and four time
Pro Bowler.
Speaker 8 (10:34):
I mean, I'm getting goosebumps thinking about that because don't
get to talk about that much.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But we had the fiercest practices.
Speaker 7 (10:44):
I'll tell you they were so physical that I actually
cut practice short. I said, our guys are ready.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I mean it was like they were.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
You know, we actually were physical in practice. We ran
offensive plays and roughly the same number of defensive plays
against each other. And I remember that thing being so physical.
A couple of times, like on those Wednesday practices, I
cut practice short and I said, we're going to get
(11:16):
somebody hurt.
Speaker 9 (11:16):
He's got it.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
They were ready.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
The practices aren't the only part of that week that
are intense. Media Day ahead of Super Bowl twenty two
is a whole other animal. On that Tuesday, all the
Washington players load up on buses to go to Jack
Murphy Stadium, where reporters from around the country had the
(11:47):
chance to ask questions and Doug Williams is swarmed.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
The schools you grew up in were finally integrated.
Speaker 8 (12:03):
You know. I had no problem with the media as
long as they was asking civilized courtions and things like that.
And you know, it was only one courtion that came up,
and to be honest with you, it did not bother me.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
The question, how long have you been a black quarterback?
Speaker 8 (12:21):
I knew the guy who asked the course, and he
was from originally from Jackson, Mississippi, who covered Gramlin in
Jackson State during that time. Her name is Butch Jones.
Since since then, buch Jones, blessed soul has passed away.
But Busch Jones called me before he passed. He was
telling me all the medical issues that he was having.
But he told me he appreciate the way I handled
(12:42):
the question because what he asked me was you know,
how long had I been a black quarterback? And the
way it came out, and I told him, you know,
since I left Gramlin now, and that's was the truth.
But I knew what he was trying to say, and
I didn't. I wasn't gonna make him look bad or
anything like that because I understood where he was from,
and I just say, hey, you know, since I left
(13:03):
Graham and that's that's when I became a black quarterback.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Though so much of the attention was focused on Williams
that day, fun fact, that's not where the concern of
Director of media Relations John Canoza.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Was Douglas predictable, Dexter not so much.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
I'm Dexter Manley nineteen eighty one to nineteen ninety. John's
a young guy and be quite frank with to be candid,
I did. I didn't.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I wasn't listening to John on media day.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
I was.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I was around Dexter.
Speaker 8 (13:47):
If it was Charlie, yes, if it was bothered that
to the joke gift, I've got to listen.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
To that in turn, whatever he was, it was a
big thing is we didn't want to do anything to
fire up to Denver broncos it's all about shock value.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And then so then we had to have meetings with Dexter. Okay,
if you don't want to answer a question, you don't
answer a question. Okay, but then you say next question
and you go. So Dextra is the one that was
that was being schooled up.
Speaker 8 (14:15):
It wasn't a strategy. It's just off the cuff, as
I say, it went in different and that's about it.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Doug again, I had no concerns at all.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Amidst all that outside noise while getting ready for the
biggest game he'd ever play in, Williams found ways to
stay grounded and be in a good headspace. Loved ones
in San Diego helped with the lighthearted and positive energy.
Robert Williams was so excited for his brother Doug the first.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Game that they played in the championship where they had
played in Minnesota. Dugs and all the money home that
he had earned from that game, and told my mother
to bring all all of us who wanted to come.
And I think I can remember I went a little
earlier to San Diego, but my mother and others came later,
(15:08):
and they brought twenty one on aile plan to San Diego.
We flew into La and we had a friend had
a mobile home there and he picked us up and
brought us his house. Well, we had a lot of
food there and enjoyed each other. Then we drove on
into San Diego and we spent a week there.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
And you know, Doug Williams wasn't the only member of
his family doing something for the first time that week.
Speaker 8 (15:36):
My mom probably was my mom first time flying.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
So that must have meant was that our first time
watching you play for Washington?
Speaker 8 (15:45):
That was that was our first time watching me play
for Washington.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
His family there was just a reminder of how ready
Williams was for this moment.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Doug had a lot of confidence, and we all had
a lot of confidence in it growing up. One of
the things that I stressed my brothers and the sisters
as well, have come of this and believe that you
can do it, And that was one of those persons
who works hard and believe that you could do it well.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Williams was feeling good above the neck mentally as the
week wore on. Physically, above the neck was a different story.
On Saturday morning, the day before the Super Bowl, Williams
wakes up with toothpain that cannot be ignored and in
(16:34):
steps this guy.
Speaker 10 (16:40):
Hello, my name is Barry Rudolph, and I wish the team.
Dennis during the glory years from nineteen eighty three to
nineteen ninety five travel with the team mostly everywhere they went.
And actually that was it was an unusual thing because
(17:01):
not all football teams had a dentist that traveled with them,
but the Redskins were forward thinking and they had an internist,
an orthopedic surgeon, and a dentist as physicians on call.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
That weekend in San Diego, doctor Rudolph would be called
on to perform what might be described as one of
the most important dental surgeries in the history of sports.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
Started out about two or three weeks before the Super Bowl,
which was I guess January thirty first, nineteen eighty eight.
And once we I think, once we beat the Minnesota
Vikings and we knew we were going to the Super Bowl.
I called a dental school friend of mine. It was
(17:47):
about ten years I had seen him, we were classmates,
and I knew he practiced in the San Diego area,
and I knew obviously we were going to be playing
in San Diego. And I thought, well, let me try
to plan ahead and case we have any kinds of emergencies.
So I called my friend Dave, and I said, hey, Dave,
I'm going to be coming out to San Diego in
(18:08):
about three weeks. And Dave said to me, oh, no, no,
don't come out. Then I said, well why not. He goes, Oh,
it's going to be a mob scene and if we
have the Super Bowl here and it's going to be crazy.
And I said, no, Dave, you don't understand. He said,
I'm coming out because I worked for the Redskins and
I'm involved with the Super Boy. He goes, oh, okay.
So I said, the reason that I'm calling you is
because in case I have a dental emergency. I want
(18:31):
to know if it's okay if I use your office.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Dave says sure and thank goodness for that. Fast forward
to the Saturday before the game, Doctor Rudolph is out
getting breakfast with Dave. He comes back to the hotel
room and his wife tells him that head trainer Bubba
Tire just called, and of course.
Speaker 10 (18:51):
You know, my radar went up and I was, Oh,
what's going on? So I said, she said, but don't worry.
Bubba said it's only Doug Williams, and I went, oh,
you know.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Doctor Rudolph rushes to the practice facility.
Speaker 10 (19:06):
Joe Gibbs came over to me and said that Doug
was having a horrible time at practice this morning and
he couldn't focus in on the plays. He was forgetting things.
He was having all sorts of trouble. So when Joe
Gibbs went over to Doug and said, Hey, Doug, what's
going on?
Speaker 5 (19:24):
You know?
Speaker 10 (19:25):
Doug said, well, you know what, I hadn't slept very
well in the last couple of weeks, and Joe came
up and said, listen, I need you to do something
for this guy because he's not you know, we're going
to have practice, going to be over at noon, and
then whatever you can do would be great. I spoke
to my friend Dave and I said, listen, we need
to go to your office. We need to figure out
what's going on. So and we get in there and
(19:46):
we take a look. We take an X ray of
Doug's jaw, and we look and we see that he's
got a five unit bridge on the lower right side.
So I don't want to get two technical from a
dental standpoint, but.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Basically Williams needs a root canal.
Speaker 8 (20:05):
I'd never had a root invale, you know. Growing up,
we couldn't afford to go to the dinner talk about
root canal anything. Now that's my first time ever having
anything done like that.
Speaker 10 (20:15):
Long story short. It took about five and a half
hours of work to get this resolved.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Add in some post op painkillers, some antibiotics, and that
should have been the end of it. Should have well.
Speaker 10 (20:31):
I went back to my room and I called a
colleague of mine in Washington, DC, and I said he
was a root canal specialist, And I said, I want
to know if there's anything that I did.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
This is what I did.
Speaker 10 (20:43):
Is there anything else that you would have done in
addition to what I did, because the game is on
the line and I needed to know if there was
anything else, anything that I missed. And he said, nope,
what you did was perfect. That's just what I would
have done everything. That's the best you can do. Blah
blah blah. And that was the end of it. But
about two or three hours later, I get a call
from the PR Department, I think it was John Canosa
(21:06):
at the time, and he says to me, he said,
what you did for Doug Williams is all over the news.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Doctor Rudolph cannot figure out how this happened. How did
this get out? As a medical professional working for an
NFL team, he is keenly aware of the sensitivity of
this matter.
Speaker 10 (21:26):
So I scratched my head and I called my friend
Dave and I said, did you call the news media?
And he said, nope, I didn't do that. I wouldn't
do that. Finally it dawned on me, well, the only
person that I talked to about this was this person
in DC, and so I called that person back and
he said to me, nope, I didn't say anything. I
didn't tell anybody. And then I hung up. About half
(21:47):
an hour later, he calls me back. He goes, well,
I want you to know that I didn't say anything,
but my wife was on the.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Phone when you called, and that wife just might have
told somebody in the media. The story breaks, and I think.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
The idea was to keep it quiet, and then I
think through some crazy set of circumstances. Next thing you know,
it became a big deal in the papers, and every
day I was kind of out of it.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Nobody in the organization apparently other than doctor Barry Rudolph
and maybe our trainer Bubba's higher but nobody told Jack
can Cook.
Speaker 8 (22:29):
Nobody told John can Cook.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Nobody told Joe Gibbs that Doug was having.
Speaker 8 (22:34):
A root canal done.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
The day before the Super Bowl, John can Cook called
me into his office and said, I need you to
go find Doug and make sure Doug's okay. So, you know,
I went up to Doug's room and Doug was in
there with family and friends. He may have had six
or eight people in the room, and he said he
felt great.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Williams is on the mend. Day has turned tonight and
it's time for Game day eve Rituals Gibbs style.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
We had a joint chapel service with the Denver Broncos
Saturday night, which was unprecedented. But Joe Gibbs and Dan
Reeves were very close, and so we actually had a
chapel service with our players and Denver Bronco players that
wanted to attend, which was most unusual. And then after
(23:25):
that chapel service, and we had a team snack and
then bust over to the Lawrence Welk Resort Village.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
The Lawrence Welk Resort Village, Ladays and gentlemen.
Speaker 8 (23:41):
It's the Lawrence Well Show.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
We always take a team the night before and try
and get someplace quiet, but.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
It is almost impossible to find a hotel for this
many people for one night in one hundred and fifty
mile radius. Somehow, John Kent Cook finds this resort developed
by a famous television band leader, Lawrence Welk, and so.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I actually went up and scoped it out and looked
at it like it's and it was a timeshare. And
so people checked out on Saturday and checked in on Sunday,
and on Saturday night, all these bungalows are empty, and
we're like, well, wait a minute, we can make we
can make that work, and we were we were the
(24:29):
only ones there. It may have been the most peaceful
place on the planet.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
The night before Super Bowl, the team and coaches are
zend out and ready for Sunday. Williams is able to
get rest and maybe more importantly, is able to indulge
in his special pregame tradition and woke up.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
In the middle of the night. I had a bag
of hersy kisses that I always eat these kisses, and
I'm trying to find out man, I got to find
a way in. I took those kisses and I they
were last one of them. Stayed up a little longer,
you know. I finally went to sleep. Woke up the
next morning. It was breakfast time, went to breakfast, and
by that time we loaded the bus and drove in
to San Diego to the stadium, Jack Murphy Stadium, and
(25:15):
I felt pretty good, no pain at all. It was
a great day.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Our congratulations for Joe Gibbs, the Redskins, last week for
the Washington Redskins, and Doug Williams in particular.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
This episode was narrated, produced, and researched by me Hannah Liechtenstein,
senior copywriter for the Washington Commanders. It was produced and
edited by Jason Johnson. Executive producers ra El and Teen,
Ryan Joakum, and Kevin Klein. Graphics designed by Roman Schumann
and Rackim Smith. Social media by Maggie Antulis and Rebecca Solsbach.
(25:54):
Alumni relations help comes from Tim Hightower and Caroline Deco.
Special thank you to Dallas Taylor and Katie Montellione. Thank
you to our guests for their contributions, and thank you
for listening.
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