Ol' Ricky's Washington Football Tales - Road Trips
Ol’ Ricky loved covering road games, renting a convertible as the air whistled past his hair. Somehow, the hair grew thinner and now road trips are a rarity, but there were some good ones.
So many trips hanging with so many favorite writers who are now long gone makes Ol’ Ricky nostalgic. My favorite might have been seeing Graceland with Richard Justice of the Post before Washington played Tennessee when the team moved to Memphis for a year. You stand in front of that mansion and think, “This is it?” Seems so much bigger on TV. But, the house is really big and Elvis is buried in the back. Richard and I pulled into the stadium like 15 minutes before game’s start.
Arizona was always a great trip. Playing at the college stadium provided amazing scenery like in westerns. They have those huge cactuses in the parking lot. We’d walk past the college swim meets with high dive competitions. You never see anything like that on the East Coast. Plus, I’d connect in Las Vegas on the red eye back and play slots for an hour between planes. Once got on the plane with big cups of quarters.
San Diego saw John Keim and I head to Tijuana. I post the photo of us with a donkey on Twitter sometimes. It was actually a fun tourist area. First sign you see is the police saying they will arrest troublemakers. The vendors were polite, didn’t harass you. I saw a leather homemade Redskins jacket in one store for $70 that would have been hundreds of dollars here. No, I didn’t buy it. Still have the ceramic sun god hanging on my den wall, though. We were there on 9/8/01. Imagine if we were stuck on the wrong side of the border three days later?
Miami games always meant visiting South Beach where the beautiful people walk the sidewalks hoping to be discovered by modeling agencies. I’ve seen naked people wearing more than some of those gals. When covering Maryland in 2004 as a respite from the Redskins, I took the young beat writers to the Clevelander bar. Drank until 4 and headed to airport for an early flight. Hey, somebody has to teach young writers the business.
I sometimes stayed in Marriotts that were inside the Detroit and Tampa airports. Literally by the luggage carousels. You come out of your room and bam – you’re in the airport. Made it easy for early flights.
We went to New York for a Giants game about one month after 9/11. Ash was still floating in the air like light snow from the fires across town. We needed to turn on our computers for the guards.
I always liked Indianapolis. The whole crowd sang the national anthem. Quite inspiring.
Now I love pizza and the first trip to Chicago was a deep dish that was so deep it was like eating an angel food cake. Man, was it good.
Green Bay is like a time capsule. Very, very small town. Covered a playoff game that was minus-22 degrees. Never so cold in my life. You’d see snow over fields and think there’s nothing between you and the North Pole. Well, Canada, but it was snowy there, too. Tried to order ice tea. They thought I was mad. Fans sat around the hotel indoor pool all night singing some drinking song that ended with “Green . . . Bay . . . Packers.”
Well, I could go on forever. I was planning to tell these stories on Pigskins & Pizza tours this summer, but it looks like the pandemic has claimed them, too. I do hope to offer them in 2021.
Tomorrow: The Boys on the Bus
Rick Snider is an award-winning sports writer who has covered Washington sports since 1978. He first wrote about the Washington football team in 1983 before becoming a beat writer in 1993. Snider currently writes for several national and international publications and is a Washington tour guide. Follow Rick on Twitter at @Snide_Remarks.
