Bum!

Although the hangout is supposed to be for Texas, Astros and Comets stuff, I thought this was the best place to post this.

There was a great interview in the Denver Post recently with Bum Phillips. I can't believe he's *80* years old. Sounds like he's doing pretty well for someone that age, though.

Here's the link:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E25322%7E1913826,00.html

And here's the text:

Bum Phillips
By Adam Schefter
Denver Post Sports Writer

Even with the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers arriving in Houston, no coach is better known there than Bum Phillips - Wade's daddy, and the man who once led the "Luv Ya Blu" Houston Oilers. These days, the 80-year old Phillips, who coached the Oilers to two AFC championship games, lives on a ranch in Golead, Texas, about 2 1/2 hours west of Houston. But Phillips will be one of Houston's 38 sports legends honored Monday night in what the city is deeming its opening ceremony for Super Bowl XXXVIII. We honored him first.

Adam Schefter: Being that you couldn't get the Oilers to the Super Bowl, is it nice to have the Super Bowl coming to Houston?

Bum Phillips: Yeah, I didn't think it would take this long. I like it a whole lot better than havin' to go to it.

AS: How will Houston fare as a Super Bowl host site?

BP: It'll be a good thing, because the people of Houston appreciate good football, and they recognize good football.

AS: How did you get the nickname "Bum"?

BP: My sisters stammered and couldn't say "Brother." That was it. And I don't mind being called Bum, just as long as you don't put a "you" in front of it.

AS: Of all the quips you are known for, which is your all-time favorite?

BP: Gosh, I don't know. Somebody else has to vote on that.

AS: How about the one regarding NFL coaching legend Don Shula?

BP: Oh, yeah - He can take his'n and beat your'n: then take your'n and beat his'n. But I remember when people got to tellin' me about how slow Earl Campbell got up. And I told 'em: "Well, he went down slow, too. And it took a lot of 'em to get him down."

AS: Your favorite championship game memories?

BP: I don't have one. We lost them both. But even when we got beat in Pittsburgh, we had 80,000 people in the Astrodome, sittin' there and waitin' on us to get back. And we got beat. And the year before, there was 55,000 there.

AS: What would it have been like if you had won?

BP: It couldn't have been any more, because they couldn't get 'em in there. There were people lined up from the airport to the Astrodome - 40 miles. There were people sittin' in their cars, on top of their cars, in the medians down the road, in their front yards, all the way from the airport to the dome. There were about 6,000 people outside the dome that couldn't get in because there already were so many people in there that the fire marshals were having a fit.

AS: When is your boy Wade going to be a head coach again?

BP: I was hopin' this year, but it don't look like it will. He deserves to be a head coach. He's been a head coach five years, and put 'em in the playoffs three out of the five with two different teams that were not winnin' when he got the head coaching job. I thought he did a heck of a job.

AS: These days, what's a perfect day for Bum Phillips?

BP: Get up in the mornin' and go out and saddle my horses and ride. We've got eight horses. But we train 'em for cuttin'. You probably don't know what cuttin' is.

AS: You're probably right.

BP: It's a way to teach 'em to separate cattle from the herd. They call it cuttin'. Cut 'em out. Cut 'em away from the herd. And they have contests down here. It's just like anythin' else. It's a way now to be able to take your horse to an event and put him in the show and compete and make money with him. You go to an event and there are 150 horses there, and you've got to beat 'em or they beat you.

AS: How did you celebrate your 80th birthday?

BP: I don't remember havin' it. I don't celebrate birthdays or Thanksgivings, no holidays. Every day's a holiday to me. I don't know how you can celebrate any day over the next. I'm happy to get up tomorrow. I don't care whether it's my birthday or not.

AS: Any interest in coming back to football, like Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells?

BP: No. I quit because I wanted to quit. I still love football, but I wouldn't want to do it anymore. I didn't want to do it anymore - else I wouldn't have quit.

AS: Would you ever stand for one of your players planting a cellphone under the goalpost to use after he scores?

BP: I'd have been awful mad. But of my guys wouldn't do somethin' like that. They'd think the same thing I do. Don't embarrass your opponents. Who ever heard of a guy scorin' a touchdown? He didn't score that touchdown. Somebody had to throw it to him. Then somebody had to protect somebody before they could throw it to him. And somebody had to run some other routes so that he wouldn't get all the people on top of him. One guy don't make a touchdown. He carries the ball over the goal line, maybe, but he don't make a touchdown. That's anywhere, anytime. Football's an 11-man game. It's not somethin' you go out and think you did it.

AS: What did you learn coaching under at Texas A&M under Bear Bryant?

BP: Well you got that right. You coached under Bear Bryant. But he is just the most dynamic person that I've ever been around. I mean, he was the kind of guy that when he comes into the room, no matter how big it is, everybody turns and looks at him and waits for him to say something. That's anybody - strangers or anything. I haven't got the vocabulary to express it just right. But he's a fantastic person. There's a good word for it, but I can't remember what the word is right now.

AS: Charismatic?

BP: That's what I wanted. Why didn't you say that sooner? He's just got that charisma where if he's gonna say somethin', you want to hear him say it. You don't want to be listenin' to somebody else.

AS: How accurate was that TV-movie portrayal of him?

BP: That movie is full of bull. He's one of the most carin' guys that I've ever known. It made me so mad when it showed him kickin' somebody. He wouldn't kick anybody. He never would call me Bum, either. He didn't think that was a good name. He didn't realize that it's just a nickname, it wasn't a description.

AS: Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?

BP: I'm 80. I can't remember that far back. I have a hard time with last week.

AS: Is the world a scarier place now than it was then?

BP: Well, I never thought in my lifetime I'd see some idiot fly an airplane into a buildin' on purpose. That scares you, that people think so little of their lives and they've got such a hatred in 'em that they will do somethin' like that. I guess it's a little scarier, but haven't thought about it that way except for terrorists. And there ain't no terrorists in Golead.

AS: How did you come to live in Golead?

BP: It's where I bought a ranch and I looked all over the state in different areas that I might want to live in and I found one down here that I could afford that I liked. And Golead is the second oldest town in the state. We've only got about 1,800 people. We don't have but two red lights and sometimes they're turned off.

AS: What's on your list of things that make life worth living?

BP: Friends coming by, ex-players coming by and visiting. (Former Oilers quarterback Dan) Pastorini was here a week ago, and he's coming back tomorrow night. We see a lot of him. He hunts a lot and we have a place to bird hunt and deer hunt and he likes that and does it quite often.

AS: Are you a big hunter yourself?

BP: Noooo. Don't shoot nothin'. Haven't shot anythin' in the war. No, I'm just kiddin' you. But I don't hunt. I don't have nothin' against those birds, and I don't consider it a lot of fun to shoot somethin'. But I ain't against people doing it.

AS: What did you preach to your six children and players?

BP: Yeah, keep your word. And give a guy an honest day's work for a dollar. That's what I tried to do. I tried to teach my kids and my players the right thing to do. And if you ask me what pleases me, it's having kids and football players that do the right things in life.

 

D'OH!!! Could've sworn that said 2005. I found it while looking at something else.