in a regular season game, though I did have a couple of spectacular interceptions, one of them run back more than a hundred yards. It was Reggie Clovis’s last interception as a matter of fact, and he is now in the Hall of Fame. The other was only technically an interception. I was playing for the San Diego Chargers at the time. Second-string quarterback behind none other than Jonathon Engram. (That’s how we met and became friends, and how I eventually got into coaching.) We were on top in a huge blowout when the coach took Engram out and put me in to “mop up.” It was a simple shuttle pass to the halfback—a glorified draw play, really—where you drop back like you’re going to throw the ball, then flip it underhand a few feet in front of you to the halfback, who takes off up the middle. Well, I flipped it to the guy and he fiddled with it a bit, almost gently, before a defensive lineman from the other team picked it out of the air in front of him and went the other way with it. In the replays it looked like I’d shuttled the ball to the running back so he could lovingly hand it off to the opposing lineman. Anyway, on his way to the end zone for his big moment in the limelight, the lineman ran right over me and shattered my collarbone.
That was my last game. I got put on injured reserve and spent the rest of that season in a sling. I was released during the off-season, and that was that. Like I said, nobody wanted me.
So, I got into coaching. I started out as a special teams coach with the University of Maryland, then moved to Atlanta and caught on with the Falcons as quarterbacks coach. I stayed in Atlanta a few years and worked my way up. I was offensive coordinator when the head coach got fired and I was asked to serve as interim coach for the last six games of the season. I did pretty well. Coached them to three victories, but at the end of the year, the owner and general manager started their search for a permanent coach, and as the owner said to me, I wasn’t “in the mix.” That’s when Jonathon Engram called. He’d been hired to coach the Redskins and wanted me for his staff. I jumped at the chance, of course; we were already friends, so I knew I could work with him, and I knew I’d probably learn a whole lot about coaching, too.
At any rate, I’d been involved with a very good team or two but had never won a championship. The Redskins had come close that one year, and there was talk that we’d have to make good the year I met Jesse or Jonathon would be out of a job, which of course meant so would I. As they like to say in every sport: The pressure was on.
But with all that stress, you know what I was worried about that spring? The championship battle between the Divas and the Fillies; it really had me tied up in knots. You’d have thought I was their head coach, not Andy Swilling.
I stayed away from practice the week before the championship because I didn’t want to know Andy’s plan for the game; I wanted to watch the thing unfold without the knowledge of how it was supposed to. It’s sometimes very rewarding to watch a game that way.
The championship was played at Claremont High School in Northern Virginia—a pretty good field, with far better lighting than they’d had for any of the previous games played in D.C. and freshly limed lines that made it look like the proper venue for a championship. The stadium even had assigned seating in real seats, rather thanjust elevated boards. There was a pretty good crowd there, too. It wasn’t a sellout, but the stands looked pretty well full. I’d say maybe fifteen hundred to two thousand people.
Of course I was invited to watch from the sideline if I wanted, but I preferred watching from the stands, so I bought a seat high up, near the 40-yard line. When I got to the game I stopped near the sideline and waited until a few of the players noticed me. I waved to Jesse and a few of the girls to let them know I was there, then climbed up to my
That was my last game. I got put on injured reserve and spent the rest of that season in a sling. I was released during the off-season, and that was that. Like I said, nobody wanted me.
So, I got into coaching. I started out as a special teams coach with the University of Maryland, then moved to Atlanta and caught on with the Falcons as quarterbacks coach. I stayed in Atlanta a few years and worked my way up. I was offensive coordinator when the head coach got fired and I was asked to serve as interim coach for the last six games of the season. I did pretty well. Coached them to three victories, but at the end of the year, the owner and general manager started their search for a permanent coach, and as the owner said to me, I wasn’t “in the mix.” That’s when Jonathon Engram called. He’d been hired to coach the Redskins and wanted me for his staff. I jumped at the chance, of course; we were already friends, so I knew I could work with him, and I knew I’d probably learn a whole lot about coaching, too.
At any rate, I’d been involved with a very good team or two but had never won a championship. The Redskins had come close that one year, and there was talk that we’d have to make good the year I met Jesse or Jonathon would be out of a job, which of course meant so would I. As they like to say in every sport: The pressure was on.
But with all that stress, you know what I was worried about that spring? The championship battle between the Divas and the Fillies; it really had me tied up in knots. You’d have thought I was their head coach, not Andy Swilling.
I stayed away from practice the week before the championship because I didn’t want to know Andy’s plan for the game; I wanted to watch the thing unfold without the knowledge of how it was supposed to. It’s sometimes very rewarding to watch a game that way.
The championship was played at Claremont High School in Northern Virginia—a pretty good field, with far better lighting than they’d had for any of the previous games played in D.C. and freshly limed lines that made it look like the proper venue for a championship. The stadium even had assigned seating in real seats, rather thanjust elevated boards. There was a pretty good crowd there, too. It wasn’t a sellout, but the stands looked pretty well full. I’d say maybe fifteen hundred to two thousand people.
Of course I was invited to watch from the sideline if I wanted, but I preferred watching from the stands, so I bought a seat high up, near the 40-yard line. When I got to the game I stopped near the sideline and waited until a few of the players noticed me. I waved to Jesse and a few of the girls to let them know I was there, then climbed up to my
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