Riggy Baby, You’re Too Loose

Anyone who has had to endure a banquet that begins with an hour of cocktails and concludes with endless hours of speechmaking can understand how in the course of the evening certain guests might be overtaken by drowsiness or languor and, so to speak, opt out of the festivities.

That’s what happened the other night to John Riggins, fullback for the Washington Redskins. After making some rather unusual if unintentionally ironic remarks to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor--”Come on, Sandy baby, loosen up. You’re too tight.”--Riggins, as his wife later described it, fell asleep. That he chose to fall asleep on the floor of the Washington Press Club during a Salute to Congress dinner adds some interest to the story.

A 240-pound man supine on the floor of a busy banquet room presents certain social problems. Simply to pick him up and haul him out might cause undue alarm and detract from the proceedings. To leave him where he is presents obvious inconvenience, not only to the waiters and waitresses working the room but also to other guests, who in this case were listening to and no doubt hanging on every word being spoken by the guest of honor, Vice President George Bush.

In any event Riggins, whose nickname is The Diesel, was allowed to doze uninterrupted until the end of the entertainment. From time to time, in the kind of courteous gesture that Washingtonians perform so well, someone would lean over to make sure that he was still breathing. When the party finally ended, an unidentified guest managed to rouse Riggins by pulling his hair and squeezing his nose. Then he was helped from the room.

Justice O’Connor had left long since. It was later reported that she departed early because she had plans to participate in a prayer breakfast the next morning. Hidden somewhere in this tale, we suspect, there is a moral and an object lesson.