Perry Bringing Out ‘The Refrigerator’ in Every One of Us

To the ignorant and the shallow, William (The Refrigerator) Perry of the Chicago Bears is a blimpy buffoon providing comedy relief in the pompous National Football League. Instead of viewing him as Chicago’s version of the Four Horsemen, some see him as Laurel and Hardy in cleats.

To the enlightened, however, Mr. Perry represents not only a brilliant offensive innovation, but a remarkable cultural and scientific breakthrough. In order to understand this, try to grasp the following theories:

--E=mc2.

--For a football player, the number of cute girls hanging around your hallway locker on any given school day varies in direct proportion to the number of times you were allowed to touch the football in the previous game, other than to snap the ball.

That first theory is Einstein’s; the second theory is Ostler’s.

What does all this mean?

Simply that Bear Coach Mike Ditka is a genius, and that William Perry is a hero and inspiration to millions of us refrigerators, fat and skinny.

Ditka is a genius because he is the first coach to apply simple physics to football. If energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared, as Al Einstein proposed, why not give your mass--Perry, in this case--the kind of velocity supplied by a running start?

You can demonstrate this principal at home. Have a friend stand next to you and toss you a 300-pound shipping crate. Now have your friend stand on his garage roof and toss you the same crate. Notice any difference?

It’s a simple concept, but for 100 years coaches have failed to give their biggest blockers a running start, as Ditka gave Perry by lining him up in the backfield. If they had, they would have quickly advanced to the next step, which is to figure: Hey, if my refrigerator can knock people over this easy with a running start, why don’t I simplify the play and give him the football? Let him block for himself.

The real genius in Ditka’s move was not this application of physics, though, but the tapping of a century of pent-up frustration.

During our formative years, a lot of us played football, at least on the sandlot level. When we did, there were always a couple of guys who were fast and cool. They did all the passing and running and catching. The rest of us were relegated to the trenches. We became refrigerators, fat and skinny refrigerators.

I quit the game early, escaping deep emotional scarring, but a lot of the refrigerators continued on, through high school and college. These people were never allowed to touch a football, not even in practice. A lot of pro linemen can’t tell you whether a football is made of leather, papier-mache, lard, Sheetrock, or what.

Meanwhile, the pretty boys are getting the social popularity and the commercial endorsements, and the refrigerators are getting the arthritic knees and splattered faces. The frustration builds and builds.

Dreams of being allowed to touch a football, of actually cradling one of those babies in your arm and running with it, become wild, secret fantasies where you actually score a touchdown on something other than a horrible accident by the other team.

Then along comes the Refrigerator and actually does it. Runs with the ball, with permission. Catches a pass. Does a dance.

Through his exploits, a lot of other people’s dreams have come alive. A lot of stereotypes have been shot down, and self-images boosted up.

The least we can do now is give William Perry a new nickname. The Refrigerator is demeaning, symbolic of immobile bulk. It lends itself to dumb-lineman jokes, such as, “Why does the Refrigerator read with his mouth open? Because when he closes his mouth, the little light goes out.”

No good.

Some nickname possibilities come to mind. Underdog the Wonderhog is too long. Crazylegs and the Claw have been used, and Cap’n Crunch is patented. Pell Mell Perry and Piledriver Perry are too old-fashioned sounding. Besides, all these nicknames are too limiting. They don’t say enough.

I think a good nickname would be Bill the Thrill.

I hope success spoils Perry. I hope he rents a lavish penthouse, buys cars and jewelry, signs record and movie contracts, wears sunglasses at night and generally lives the superstar life. He’s no football Archie Bunker anymore.

Perry’s agent is being swamped with endorsement offers, and the big man says he’s ready to cash in.

Now why do you suppose Perry is so comfortable with his new-found fame? Because he’s been practicing for it for years, in his head, just like the rest of us refrigerators.

When I finish writing this, I’ll go home, turn on the TV and wait for Monday Night Football’s halftime highlights of Sunday’s games.

I’ll go to the refrigerator--naturally--pop a cold one, put Springsteen’s “Born to Run” on the stereo, and raise a quiet toast to Bill the Thrill.