I played three years in the National Football League and coached for twenty-eight. So in thirty-one years, I have seen a lot of crazy things. There have been amazing plays and the stuff of highlight reels. However, when I think about the craziest and wackiest thing I ever saw I would have to go back to my first year as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We were playing the Miami Dolphins in a preseason game. Before the game started we were out on the field during warm-ups and this happened.
A gigantic thunderstorm rolled in, as often happens in the summer in Tampa. They told us they were going to delay the start of the game, get all of the people out of the stadium and under cover. They also wanted to make sure everyone was off of the field. I had one player who was so zoned in he wouldn’t leave the field. He kept going through his warm-up drills as lightning was flashing everywhere. We finally needed a rescue squad to go out there and take him off of the field. At that point we said, this guy is either so serious we want him on the team or we had better be careful.
