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00:00But let's go over everything and how it went down.
00:02You grew up in Ohio.
00:03How did you get to Notre Dame?
00:04Well, it's a four and a half hour drive.
00:06My brother, Bob, who's six years older than me,
00:08he went there in 75.
00:10So I kind of was brought up on it a little bit.
00:14When he went there, I was 12, and I got hooked on it.
00:16We'd go watch his games.
00:18So I was hooked on it.
00:20That was kind of where I wanted to go
00:22once the recruiting cycle started for me.
00:24And then we basically brainwashed all our kids
00:26to go there as well and play football with them.
00:28Great institution at that point.
00:30So you get drafted into the NFL.
00:31You wind up with the Houston Oilers.
00:33How was that?
00:34That was, it was, I was a 10th round pick.
00:36So it was a struggle to make the team.
00:38And for you young listeners out there,
00:40it used to be the Tennessee Titans,
00:43is the Houston Oilers.
00:44Make that connection there.
00:47I was there for two and a half, three years.
00:50Who was the coach there?
00:50It was Jerry Glanville.
00:52It was his first head coaching.
00:54And what he was known for is on away games,
00:57he would leave two tickets for Elvis.
00:59Did he ever show up though?
01:01Elvis did not.
01:01Were there impersonators showing up?
01:02Elvis did not show up in the house.
01:05But listen, I enjoyed it.
01:07I was a linebacker in college.
01:09And then all of a sudden went to the defensive line.
01:11I like devolved from an athlete to a non-athlete
01:14going down and putting my hand in the dirt.
01:16Now you find your way to Philadelphia, late 1980s.
01:19This is when football finally turned in Philadelphia.
01:221980, go to the Superbowl, some down years,
01:23Mary Campbell, you come in under Buddy Ryan.
01:25How did you find your way to Philadelphia
01:27and how did you think that fit was right away?
01:29Well, I got cut by the Houston Oilers
01:32after the strike.
01:34I was kind of real pro-union
01:36and they cut me after the strike ended.
01:39And I went and visited a couple of teams,
01:41but it was a Tuesday I got cut,
01:43Thursday I visited Philadelphia
01:46and fell in love with Buddy and his,
01:48obviously I knew about Buddy Ryan's defense from the Bears.
01:52And Buddy seemed to like me and they offered me a job
01:56on the spot.
01:57I got cut Tuesday, went there on Thursday
02:00and actually played in the game
02:01against the St. Louis Rams that Sunday.
02:04By the way, talking about that 1987 strike season,
02:06which was interesting,
02:07because Buddy always struck a nerve in Philadelphia
02:09being very pro-union and didn't want any of his players
02:12crossing that picket line at that point.
02:14And I always understood that once they came back
02:16pro-union, everybody was fine,
02:17but Buddy was very upset with the way
02:19some of the other teams handled that strike.
02:21Oh, listen, I was upset.
02:22I was a 10th round pick,
02:24not making comparatively other players a lot of money.
02:27I was walking the picket line,
02:28then all of a sudden the high paid quarterbacks
02:31and receivers and defensive players,
02:33the high paid ones were crossing the line.
02:35I'm like, what the hell is going on here?
02:37You're screwing us.
02:38So yeah, it obviously did not end well,
02:41reliving the past there,
02:42but Buddy, yeah, gave out like fake rings and such.
02:45Yeah, he really, really disapproved of the placement.
02:48Always like to stick it to Norman Brayman.
02:50I remember, I think Keith Jackson got a limo sent
02:51to the airport when he finally got paid.
02:53But I do want to talk to you about this.
02:54You played in one of the most iconic football games
02:56in Philadelphia history.
02:57Correct me if I'm wrong.
02:58The Fog Bowl.
02:58Fog Bowl.
02:59How was that?
03:00That was a playoff game.
03:01The Fog Bowl in Chicago was wild
03:03because the fog rolled in and we weren't sure what it was.
03:07We were like, is there a fire, is there smoke?
03:09But it didn't have that smoke, fire smell.
03:11It had no smell at all.
03:13Then all of a sudden we were engulfed in fog
03:17and the wild part about it,
03:18the ref would stand in the middle of the field
03:21and he would have his microphone
03:22to the officials in the booth.
03:25And he would say, oh, I can still see both goal posts.
03:29And we're looking at him going,
03:30what the hell are you looking at?
03:31You can't see 20 yards away.
03:34But there's no way they were going to postpone that game.
03:37Once they started, there's no way
03:38they were going to send everybody home.
03:40So basically whoever was leading
03:42when the fog rolled in was going to win.
03:44And unfortunately for us, the Bears were leading
03:46when the fog rolled in, but that was a wild game.
03:49I mean, so many good games there.
03:51Yeah.
03:52She lost this in the heartbreak watching the playoffs.
03:53She loses to the Chicago Bears.
03:54I think it was the next year.
03:55I want to say it was the Rams on the veteran stadium.
03:56And then lost.
03:57Yeah, they were tough all the way through,
03:59but certainly iconic.
04:00Just give me a quick anecdote
04:01because you played with Reggie White, Jerome Brown,
04:03Mike Pitts, Clyde Simmons,
04:05endless superstars on that line.
04:07How did you fit in with them?
04:08And how did you earn the respect and the trust of them?
04:11Just by being kind of the lunch pail guy.
04:13They were the great players, the great athletes.
04:15I was kind of the lunch pail guy
04:17that knew all the defense, that knew all the calls,
04:20kind of kept everybody lined up where they should
04:22and then watched them do exceptional things on the field.
04:27And the thing about it is this was before free agency.
04:30Correct.
04:31So they were all better friends to me than teammates.
04:34Gotcha.
04:35There was no movement then.
04:36So, I mean, listen, losing Mike Pitts and Jerome Brown
04:40and Reggie White and Wes Hopkins and Andre Waters
04:44was just devastating.