8602210276
DETROIT FREE PRESS
861112
Wednesday, November 12, 1986
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1986, Detroit Free Press
AT LUNCH AT LEAST, LONG GETS HIS CHANCE TO START
If he plays, he plays. What's the big deal? Personally, I can think of 100
more interesting debates than whether the Lions should unwrap Chuck Long this
week or next month. Face it. The guy can throw touchdown passes from now
until New Year's. They're still out of the playoffs.
But everywhere you turn, you hear it. "When's Rogers going to bench
Hipple?" "What's he waiting for?" "Why doesn't he start the kid?"
Everybody's talking about Chuck Long.
And nobody's talking to him.
So I talked to him. Actually, we had lunch. On Tuesday. It wasn't hard. I
said, "Chuck, you wanna have lunch?" And he said, "OK."
The waiter came. We ordered. Chuck went with the chicken fingers. Our food
arrived.
I let him start.
Somebody might as well let him start.
And then I said, "You know, Chuck, everywhere I go, it's 'When's he gonna
play?' "
He nodded.
"Well, if you were Rogers, would you have put Chuck Long in by now?"
He swallowed first. And then he said, "No."
No?
Here's what it will take "I think Darryl's done the right thing," Long
said. "He has to decide if I've earned my starting role, he has to be fair to
players who didn't miss camp like I did.
"And, when you get right down to it, I didn't know enough to be out there
on the field."
Now this is down-to-earth candor. But then, Long is a fairly
down-to-earth guy. He hears the screams for him during games at the
Silverdome. "It embarrasses me, because I'm sure Eric Hipple is tired of
hearing it." He is questioned wherever he goes. When? When? All he does is
shrug. He might play Sunday against Philadelphia. Then again, he might not.
"What's it gonna take?" I asked.
"I think for Darryl to put me in," he said, "he's got to say to himself,
'Let's go with the kid, and whether we win or lose, I don't care.' That's
what it will take. And that's hard for a coach to do. Coaches want to win as
many games as they can."
"You mean because your rookie mistakes may lead to a loss?" I asked.
"Right," he said.
I pointed out that the Lions had been doing a pretty fair job of losing
without him. He shrugged.
"Maybe now's a good time, then," he said.
And maybe it is. Or maybe not, because Philly has a funny defense. Maybe
next week. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter. To be honest, this whole
Long-for-Hipple controversy is only news because there's nothing else to talk
about with the Lions.
Their record is dismal. Their highlights films are . . . well, short.
They have no superstars.
So it's the Long road.
"Are you at all worried that when you finally do play, you'll disappoint
people?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "everybody wants to see the new guy. They have to realize
I'm human. I'm not comfortable with every situation yet. I may not be the
savior they're looking for right off the bat."
He leaned back. "There'll be a point in my career here where they'll be
calling for the other guy, too. That's just the way it is."
The boos remain bothersome He dipped the last of his chicken fingers into
the sauce. He wants to play. That is clear. He also doesn't care when. Not
nearly as much as the fans, anyhow. Hipple has been kind to him, and the
idea of replacing him, however inevitable, is not something that need be
rushed.
"What can you do better than Hipple?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said. "That's, uh . . . that's a question I really
shouldn't answer."
"Well, you have to do something better, or there'd be no reason to play
you."
"Aahh," he said, embarrassed, "maybe coach Rogers thinks I can score more
points, I don't know. You'd have to ask him."
He will play. He will get his feet wet. He will wake up sore on Monday
mornings, sooner or later. That's not the hard part.
"The hardest thing for me to get used to is the booing," he said. "I've
never been somewhere where the home crowd boos."
"Does that bother you?" I asked.
"Yeah, it bothers me some," he said. "I think home fans should be loyal
to home teams. I've never booed a team."
He shook his head. "I don't think I ever will."
It was getting late. I picked up the check.
You don't play, you don't pay, I always say.
And as we walked out, the question arose: "If you had a microphone to the
people when they started calling for you on Sunday afternoons, what would you
say, right at that moment?"
"I'd just tell them to keep quiet," he said, "because Eric's trying to do
his job out there and he's probably getting aggravated."
Got that?
FOOTBALL;DLIONS;CHUCK LONG;COLUMN;Lions