The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Interview with Bud Wilkinson

JIM LEHRER: This Sunday, the two best teams in professional football will do battle in the Super Bowl in sunny Miami. As always, it`s a question of winning and losing -- a question some say has gotten out of hand, in both college and professional football. We`ve come to cold, snowy St. Louis to discuss that and other things with the man they call "Mr. Coach" -- Charles "Bud" Wilkinson.

Greetings from St. Louis, where nobody is playing a football game here in Busch Memorial Stadium or anywhere else this weekend. The main preoccupation is with getting and staying warm. I`m about to go inside myself in a moment, into the Cardinals` locker room, to talk with St. Louis Cardinals head coach Bud Wilkinson about a few things, including the Woody Hayes and other recent incidents -- incidents which have triggered tough, sticky, even nasty questions about what winning and losing football games can do to human beings, particularly coaches. Bud Wilkinson has experienced both victory and defeat, each in a very big way. He`s also what the boys in the sports clich‚ business call a legend.

As I move inside now to join the coach, here`s a brief look back as to why. From 1947 to 1963, Coach Bud Wilkinson guided the University of Oklahoma Sooners to an unequaled 145-won, 29-lost, 4-tie record.

It included four perfect seasons, three national titles and fourteen Big Eight Conference championships. That success, plus a quiet, all American boy and man personality, brought the worship of fans of all ages, and his own television show.

ANNOUNCER: It`s the Bud Wilkinson Show!

BUD WILKINSON: Hello, everyone. It`s good to be with you again.

LEHRER: That shyness, that grin became as much a part of the Bud Wilkinson story as his football team `s winning. He generated game plans and strategies, talked about them like the gentle teacher, and got his Sooners to execute them with precision -- and success -- on the field. In. Oklahoma he became almost as big a hero as Will Rogers, and in 1964 Wilkinson tried to convert that public acclaim and popularity to success in politics. His resignation as coach of the Sooners initially came as a shock.

WILKINSON: I told the board of regents I would submit my resignation as athletic director if this would simplify their responsibilities and aid them in making a quick selection.

LEHRER: He edged tentatively toward politics...

WILKINSON: I am thinking about the Senate race, and I, frankly, will try to study the situation.

LEHRER: Finally taking the big step.

(1964.)

WILKINSON: I`ve reached this decision after an earnest and careful study of the best way I can continue to serve Oklahoma and the nation.

LEHRER: He announced as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Oklahoma, and almost immediately everybody assumed he would be a winner here, too. But he wasn`t. It didn`t work. Wilkinson ran as a conservative, and he admits he made a few campaign blunders against liberal Democrat Fred Harris. The national landslide for Lyndon Johnson against Republican Barry Goldwater didn`t help, either. Wilkinson lost by 20,000 votes. For the first time in seventeen years Bud Wilkinson was interviewed as a loser.

INTERVIEWER: Are you seriously inviting any offers for coaching jobs?

WILKINSON: No.

INTERVIEWER: How about professional football coaching?

WILKINSON: No.

LEHRER: Wilkinson had been a youth fitness consultant to President Kennedy, and he kept that non-paying part-time job under President Johnson. He also became a color commentator for ABC`s televised college football games. There was a stint in the Nixon White House as a special assistant. Finally he went into the business world, and for all practical public purposes dropped out of sight.

Then last March there was a stunning announcement here in St. Louis -- stunning to the sports world, at least.

(March 2, 1978.)

BILL BIDWILL: Our purpose in being here is to introduce the new head coach of the St. Louis football Cardinals, Mr. Bud Wilkinson. Mr. Wilkinson, in my opinion, will bring three outstanding qualities to this ball club. He`ll bring leadership, organization, and a mature stability to the team.

LEHRER: Some people treated the news as a joke. Bud Wilkinson, a relic of the past, trying to coach a pro team now, at the age of sixty-two? It`s crazy. The game has changed since those quieter days of the `50s; Wilkinson has been out of it. Besides, that quiet, shy, rah-rah stuff will last about three days in the tough, militant world of pro football.

(Short clip showing football players blocking, tackling, et cetera.)

LEHRER: At first, the predictions of disaster looked good. The Cardinals under Bud Wilkinson lost their first three games, then their fourth, fifth, sixth; finally, eight straight defeats. But a strange thing was happening all the while: the players, even the fans, were loving him. The St. Louis papers were full of that same kind of adulation he had received in Oklahoma. Then came October 29. St. Louis won its first game of the season. It was against the Philadelphia Eagles, and the scene in the Cardinals` locker room afterward was a highly emotional one between Coach Wilkinson and his players.

Coach, you broke into tears and you said that afternoon that the victory over the Eagles was the greatest thrill of your life. Do you still consider it so?

BUD WILKINSON: Well, I think that life is tomorrow and that you have a lot of thrills that are in the past and they`re great memories, but we`ve been through a very long, trying experience losing eight games in a row, and to finally break through. Now, many teams will kind of surrender after they`ve lost eight games in a row. We were out of the playoffs, but to stay in there as tough as they did, it was a great thrill.

LEHRER: How did that compare with the incredible record and the incredible thrills it must have been for you during those Oklahoma days? You say you can`t compare the two.

WILKINSON: They`re comparable to a degree, but I really feel strongly what I said a moment ago, Jim, that life is tomorrow; and being able to do your best tomorrow is the important factor, no matter what you might be doing.

LEHRER: Let`s say that the Cardinals on that day in Philadelphia had done their best but still had lost and it had been the ninth loss. Would there have been a thrill there also?

WILKINSON: Well, strangely, I felt that our team was playing as well as we could play during the early part of the season. We had injuries, which everybody has, and we were, I think, with one exception, after each game I felt we`d played- as well as we could play. And I know it sounds trite to say that that`s all you can ask, but believe me, that`s the truth.

LEHRER: But it took the victory...

WILKINSON: Well, there`s nothing like winning, because that`s what the fans and the people who are interested are looking for. And that`s why you play, you try to win.

LEHRER: How important is winning? Has it become too important?

WILKINSON: When in a competitive situation -- and we are a competitive society -- someone`s going to win and someone`s going to lose, and I do believe that competition is the best way to breed excellence. And I think that winning at any cost and all of that type of thing is wrong. I think that there has to be a philosophical basis; but fundamentally, in a competitive world, you can`t escape the necessity of winning.

LEHRER: Well, remembering the Woody Hayes incident, here was a situation where a college football coach, angry over losing, slugged an opposition player. And as you know, many have said since then that this is just proof of the fact that this desire to win has become a sick thing in football. Do you agree with that?

WILKINSON: Well, first, I`ve known Woody for a long time, and Woody`s a fine gentleman and an excellent football coach. And you get bound up in a contest and momentarily perhaps you do something that you would not have done had you been in a calmer circumstance. And Woody over the years, as we all know, has had incidents of that kind occur. But I`ve never known a player at Ohio State -- and Woody was there for many years, as we all know -- who did not have the utmost respect and love for Woody Hayes. And the people that he`s living with every day and having to coach through a four- year career, when they`re totally unanimous in his support, I don`t think you should be too critical of something that happens very quickly in a highly emotional circumstance. It should not have happened and I make no excuses for it happening, it`s just one of those unfortunate things.

LEHRER: Do you understand or identify with the emotion that would cause a man to do something like that, the anger over losing?

WILKINSON: I don`t think it was anger over losing, as much as just the circumstance itself as it occurred. It`s like a year ago when the cameraman moved into the Ohio State bench area and should not have been there. He was off limits and Woody, as we know, felt that was wrong on the part of the cameraman, and...

LEHRER: He hit him.

WILKINSON: Yeah, and in this particular instance the man who intercepted the pass had been well blocked by an Ohio State lineman and knocked back to where he shouldn`t have been. And made a great play. And it just was a momentary blackout.

LEHRER: And that`s what you see it as, a momentary blackout.

WILKINSON: Oh, yes.

LEHRER: You don`t see it as any symptom of something`s gone wrong in this desire to win in football?

WILKINSON: No, I don`t think so, not in this case. I think that in some instances you`ve had people by design do things that were planned ahead of time that perhaps lacked the proper degree of sportsman

ship or competitive fairness; I don`t think this was one of those things at all.

LEHRER: Is there too much of that, of what you consider reprehensible conduct in terms of sportsmanship?

WILKINSON: I don`t really feel so. The whole world of athletics reflects society quite accurately, and the changes that have occurred in athletics I think reflect the changes that have occurred in our patterns of living.

LEHRER: There are gentlemen past and present who have been in the same line of work that you`re in, men like Vince Lombardi, George Allen and others, who have said things like winning is everything there is in life, to lose is worse than death. Is that your philosophy? Do you agree with that?

WILKINSON: Well, ultimately, as I`ve already mentioned, Jim, you`ve got to win some; but basically, I think that you`re playing against yourself more than against an opponent. And the toughest opponent you have is yourself. I know what I should be doing, but do I have the courage to do it my best all of the time? And if a team does play with that general approach, you`re not trying to defeat an opponent, you`re trying to find out how capable you are. And the opponent merely gives you an opportunity to find out about yourself.

LEHRER: Yeah, but how do you sell that, Coach? How do you tell the fans, "Hey, look, I`ve done my best, we just..."

WILKINSON: You can`t sell it to the fans (laughing), there is no possible way, because if your team does not win, or win their share of the games, then it`s just part of the pattern of the way life works that we must make a coaching change, and oftentimes it`s not the coach that`s that involved, there are other factors beyond his control. But that`s just the way it is. If you win, you get more credit as a coach than you deserve. If you play relatively well, the jury remains out.

(Laughs.) And if you play poorly, you look for work, or you look for another team.

LEHRER: Did you happen to see that piece that Harry Reasoner did on Penn State coach Joe Paterno on "60 Minutes" a few weeks back?

WILKINSON: I saw parts of it, yes -- most of it.

LEHRER: Do you remember that Paterno said football is meaningless if you don`t have fun.

WILKINSON: Yes.

LEHRER: Is it really possible to have fun and lose, too? Of course, he was winning at the time....

WILKINSON: Well, I think what Joe was alluding to is that if practice is a grim, military exercise, then the game is not fun for `the players. But if that`s the way practice is conducted, the team probably is not going to play very well, either. There has to be some fun. It is a game, and it should be played that way, even when the pressures become somewhat intense. Football is an interesting game in this respect, that...

LEHRER: But is it really a game?

WILKINSON: Yeah, I think so.

LEHRER: Still a game?

WILKINSON: Oh, yes. In all respects. In talking to the pros of this league, if you talk to the older players, they almost unanimously will say that if you don`t play it as a game you can`t play it well. And the thing that`s different about football is it`s not a fun game to practice. The only people who have fun practicing are the people who kick, catch and throw the ball. In basketball it`s different; everybody gets to shoot. Baseball, everybody gets to bat, and all of those things. But the majority of football players who are blocking, tackling, running, it`s not fun to practice. So that the payoff, again, of winning makes all of that hard work pay off for them and worthwhile for them; and when you lose, it`s hard to go back and work again.

LEHRER: I see. There are some who say that all this hoopla now that`s around football, both professional and college -- the TV spectaculars, the cheerleaders on the sidelines and all of that -- is truly distorting what football is. My question is, has that become as much a part of the game as what happens on the field -- all the stuff surrounding football?

WILKINSON: I think from the team`s standpoint it`s still the game, but for better or for worse, it`s almost part of the entertainment business, and if you look at it from a television standpoint, Monday night pro football competes with other two networks with different types of shows. And who has a majority audience is going to play a great role on winning and losing and will go back in to affect the network`s choice of personnel and program directors. (Laughing.)

LEHRER: Okay. You say for better or worse. In your opinion, is it worse? Has football become too much of a big business and all that sort of thing?

WILKINSON: Well, I think you can make a case that perhaps it has, but I really feel, if you`re more candid about it, that it`s a response to the public`s desire. You can`t have a television show that people don`t watch; it won`t be on the air that long. And if people don`t want to come to the game, you don`t have spectators and you change the whole framework. So that I don`t know whether it`s too big or overblown or whatever, but I do know that at the college level it`s a response to public interest that creates what we now have.

LEHRER: They said that you`d have problems coming into pro football now, that your ideas and methods were old-fashioned and all of that What kind of problems have you had -- or have you had any?

WILKINSON: Oh, I think you have the problems that everybody has. Someone gets hurt and you`ve got to adjust your lineup; you have some players who are unbelievably skilled, and you have other positions where you don`t have that level of skill. But from the standpoint of a team working together and desiring to improve, I don`t feel we have any problems.

LEHRER: How do these pro athletes of today compare with those college kids you were coaching back in Oklahoma fifteen, twenty years ago? Do you have to treat them differently to motivate them, and all of that?

WILKINSON: I don`t really feel so. The professional athlete is a remarkable individual, and I just have untold respect for them. They would never make it to an NFL training camp if they had not already had great self- discipline, a great desire to improve their skills, and put in countless hours of hard work, practice, and Winston Churchill`s sweat and tears. They`re totally anxious to maximize their skills, to become a great player; and that`s what the coach`s role is.

LEHRER: Do you treat them any differently than you treated your team in Oklahoma? I mean, the tactics, your approach -- is that different?

WILKINSON: I don`t think so. First, I don`t think that it`s possible to manipulate in that sense, or whatever term you want to use it, to trump up a situation; the season`s too long, and the relationships are too intense. And the coach`s role is to help the player improve his skills, and then hopefully to have enough judgment to, as the game situation changes, have the best degree of talent on the field available for each of those changes. But that`s it -- you`ve said it all about coaching.

LEHRER: You mean, in other words, the Bud Wilkinson who talks to the St. Louis Cardinals in this locker room at half time or whatever is the same Bud Wilkinson who talked to the Sooners in the locker room in Norman, Oklahoma, saying essentially the same things?

WILKINSON: Well, professional football is a little more sophisticated than college football, and college football, many of the years that I coached, was a one-platoon game where the players were playing both offense and defense. So from that standpoint you were more of a unit. Today the teams are compartmentalized. You have offensive linemen, you have wide receivers, you have tight ends, running backs, quarterback. The defense breaks out with linemen and linebackers, and people in the secondary, each unit having their own coach. So that there`s more of a degree of intense specialization than was the case when I was coaching at Oklahoma.

LEHRER: Is it too sophisticated, do you think?

WILKINSON: No, I don`t feel so, because basically the whole squad has got to come together on game day, and even though the way we break down our film the defensive people only see the other team`s offense and themselves playing defense, and you turn it around on offense, and the special teams people see the special teams film. You never look at a game as a game. But everybody`s trying to maximize their chances of winning, and this appears to be the best way to do it.

LEHRER: Is it all done by computer these days, as they say it is?

WILKINSON: Well....

LEHRER: Do you use computers here?

WILKINSON: Oh, yes, sure. We, I guess -- you`re supposed to do that. (Laughing.)

LEHRER: (Laughing.) That`s the thing to do.

WILKINSON: But it does save you a great deal of time. We don`t get any more information than we used to get manually, but we get it in maybe a tenth of the time. I feel this point to be an interesting little point, that a lot of coaches -- and they certainly are correct in doing so -- wear headphones during the game, and so forth. I think in many instances that`s very helpful, but a friend of mine whom I won`t name, coaching in college, wears a very elaborate headset that has no sound coming in.

LEHRER: (Laughs.)

WILKINSON: He says that if he doesn`t wear it they won`t think he`s doing a good job, so he has to wear it. (Laughing.)

LEHRER: (Laughing.) I see. You don`t think the fact that so much is done by computers diminishes the human element and the spirit and all that sort of thing that`s involved.

WILKINSON: Oh, no. The computer helps you get an immediate fix on tendencies. But then you break it down against...

LEHRER: In other words, a tendency -- you mean that this...

WILKINSON: ...second down for our own thirty-yard line, or on third down and long yardage, what are they most likely to do. But they`re doing the same thing with themselves, so you get into a guessing game about what have we done in the past as against what we might to today.

LEHRER: But everybody has essentially the same computer readout on everybody else, right?

WILKINSON: Yes, and most of the teams use the same computer service. (Laughing.)

LEHRER: I see. After that Philadelphia game, you went on to lose two more this last season, and you ended up with six victories and ten losses. Would you sum up this first season as a professional football coach as a disappointment to you personally?

WILKINSON: No; I wish that we had won more games, but I think our team really had great character to lose eight games and then play the last half of the season as they did.

LEHRER: But for you personally, was it a disappointment?

WILKINSON: We really don`t know, going into a season, who`s going to get hurt and who isn`t, and all of those things. And really-- I know this may sound trite, but I truly feel this way -- if you play as well as you can play with the people who are able to play at that point in time, that is the best you can do. And with one game`s exception, I think that we did that last year.

LEHRER: I see. Did you come back to coaching and take this job with the St. Louis Cardinals with any particular goal in mind, anything you wanted to prove to yourself or others?

WILKINSON: I didn`t have any prior thought about returning to coaching at all; I was happy doing what I was doing. The opportunity came up to me out of the blue. And in thinking about it, I just felt it would be fun to do, and...

LEHRER: But you`d had many opportunities before, I mean, after you left Oklahoma. Every time there was an opening for a football coach anywhere in the country, your name was always mentioned. And you`d had many opportunities in the past. Why now?

WILKINSON: Well, the other things that I was doing when other opportunities occurred I felt I had an overriding responsibility to continue doing. And at this point in time, even though I was actively engaged in business, it wasn`t something that I felt I would be letting people down if I made a change.

LEHRER: How long do you plan to continue coaching the St. Louis Cardinals?

WILKINSON: Well, I have three years left on my contract (laughing), and that`s a long time in professional football.

LEHRER: Is there any doubt in your mind, that the love for Bud Wilkinson that was very clear here in St. Louis after your first season might tend to diminish if you don`t soon come up with a winning team?

WILKINSON: I think it`s inevitable it will, because the fans expect the team to win; and the margins in the NFL are incredibly close, which is why injuries to key personnel play the role that they do. But I think fifty- four percent of the games that were played last year were decided by seven points or less. So you have a situation which results from the rules related to the number of people that you can keep on your squad, you finally cut to forty-five; the other people all go through waivers. And that has the effect of equalizing competition, and the great players, of course, are the key to victory.

LEHRER: Do you feel tremendous pressure on you to come up with a winner soon?

WILKINSON: No, I`m just aware of what the circumstances are (laughing), and we`re going to keep on doing as best we can.

LEHRER: Do you resent those circumstances, that my goodness, here is a situation, two or three of your key players could be injured and all the things that you`ve talked about, the variables here, and they might decide, So long, Wilkinson, you just couldn`t pull it off. Does that way of doing things bother you, or is that just part of the game?

WILKINSON: Well, first, I hope it won`t happen. (Laughs.)

LEHRER: Okay, right.

WILKINSON: But should it, I don`t think it`s going to have any drastic effect, because I think anyone in coaching recognizes the inevitability of that circumstance, and you just have to make peace with yourself ahead of time and then do the best you can do.

LEHRER: And you`ve certainly made peace with yourself on this question.

WILKINSON: Well, I hope so. (Laughing.)

LEHRER: (Laughs.) Right. There is one question, finally, that I must ask you for the record, or I will be considered terribly derelict by my sports fans. The Sunday game, the Super Bowl game, Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Dallas Cowboys. Who do you think is going to win that game?

WILKINSON: Well, Dallas is in our division, so from the standpoint of diplomacy, I`ve got to say Dallas. And I really think that even though they`re not the favorite in the game they remain the defending champions. It should be an extremely interesting game, Jim, because Dallas is primarily what I`d call a finesse team. Football`s a collision sport; you`d better be as tough as the opponent if you`re going to have any chance at all. But Dallas does things extremely well; Pittsburgh, of course, does them, too. Pittsburgh is a more physical team than Dallas, and they`re contrasting in that respect -- which again should add to the enjoyment of the game.

LEHRER: I said at the opening of this program, Coach, that the two best teams in professional football are meeting this Sunday in the Super Bowl. Great line, don`t you think?

WILKINSON: Yeah.

LEHRER: Right. Is it true?

WILKINSON: I think without any question it`s true.

LEHRER: What`s the margin of difference between teams from the top to the bottom?

WILKINSON: As you mentioned a moment ago, you can`t have any weak positions on a professional team; everyone knows too much about everybody else. In college you may hide an inadequate player because people don`t know that much about him. But in this league there`s no way. So you`ve got to be competent right across the board, in every phase of the game. And then if you have the key great players -- Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach; in our case a Jim Hart. If you have a Tony Dorsett or if you have an Earl Campbell or a Franco Harris -- those people that have the tremendous skill can change those narrow margins.

LEHRER: I see. Coach, I`ve enjoyed it.

WILKINSON: So have I, Jim; thank you.

LEHRER: And good luck next season. From St. Louis, I`m Jim Lehrer We`ll see you on Monday night. Thank you and good night.