His Faith Produced Miracles : Munoz Needed It to Come Back and Excel in the NFL

Now in his sixth season with the Cincinnati Bengals, offensive tackle Anthony Munoz has been a consensus all-pro in the last four and has played in every regular season and playoff game since leaving USC, where he seemed to spend more time on crutches than cleats.

Munoz had two operations on his right knee, one on his left. The scars resemble the Los Angeles freeway system but are only superficial. There is no bitterness over his physical trials. No resentment that some questioned his professional durability.

Football may be a game of violence, but vengeance is for others. That would be out of character for the 6-foot 6-inch, 275-pound Munoz, who can quote from the Bible on that, but doesn’t harp on his faith except to say it sustained him when he was missing all those games and all that fun at USC.

Driven now by a desire to play every game of every season--he played more games in his first two years with Cincinnati than in four at USC--Munoz is proud of his success. Still, he does not gloat about it.

Anthony Munoz accepted Christianity while a USC sophomore. DeDe, his wife of eight years, has said that the only time she has seen him angry was when he stained the underside of his pickup truck with fresh paint from a bridge pylon. Munoz is so soft-spoken that while filming the cameo role of a hospital orderly in the movie, “The Right Stuff,” he was asked to lip synch his lines. A deeper, gruffer voice was dubbed in.

Speaking by phone from his Cincinnati home, it was a matter-of-fact Munoz who said: “I had missed so many games that a lot of people wrote me off when I came out of college. I’ve since heard that the (New York) Jets and a couple other clubs refused to pass me when I took their pre-draft physicals. It’s a business, and I can understand that. I could see how they might feel that I wasn’t the best risk from a financial standpoint.

“As for being a motivation, it did kind of sit in the back of my mind for a while. Anytime someone doubts you or suggests that maybe you should try another endeavor, there’s the desire to show them you can do it.

“But that was never my top priority. My top priority has always been to praise God through my performance for the talent and opportunity he has given me.”

Munoz will try again Sunday when the Bengals play the Raiders at the Coliseum.

The game within a game will pit Munoz against Lyle Alzado, who isn’t exactly a homecoming committee.

Munoz, however, will have one. A former football and baseball star at Chaffey High, he has already requested 32 tickets for relatives and friends, most of whom live in Ontario. Relatives and friends of his wife have bought another 30 tickets.

Although the Bengals have played the Raiders and Rams four times in Munoz’s five years as a pro, this will be his first appearance in the Coliseum since 1978, his junior year at USC.

“I’m excited,” he said. “I know it won’t be the same, but it’s an awesome feeling to run out of the tunnel with the band playing and a crowd of 70 or 80 thousand cheering.”

Munoz experienced it regularly only as a USC sophomore. It was his only season free of injury. The reward was a trip to the Bluebonnet Bowl, a long way from what was then the Trojans’ second home in Pasadena.

Torn ligaments in his right knee forced Munoz to undergo surgery and miss USC’s Rose Bowl victories over Michigan in his freshman and junior years. He also missed the UCLA and Notre Dame games each of those years.

He returned for his senior season in 1979 with the promise still intact, an Outland Trophy candidate who was as strong and fast as the Trojan horse. John Robinson, then the USC coach, said Munoz was the best lineman he had seen, one of the best players he had ever seen at any position.

But on the 10th play of the Trojans’ first game against Texas Tech at Lubbock, pulling to lead a sweep by Charles White, Munoz was in the process of hurdling a fallen defender when he was hit in the left knee and again suffered a torn ligament, requiring surgery. He missed the rest of the season.

“Sure it was frustrating,” Munoz said. “But I never lost my desire to play and never even considered the fact that my career might be over. The fact that I had come back twice before was reassuring. I also had God’s promise on which to hang my hat.

“I figured we’d go to the Rose Bowl again and set that as my goal.”

It wasn’t easy, of course. In addition to the demands of his rehabilitation, Munoz was in the second year of his marriage and carrying a healthy classroom schedule, successfully working toward a degree in public administration. Munoz could have redshirted, preserving that last year of eligibility, but he considered it time to move on, figuring that despite the injuries he had established his credentials.

He would do so again while playing the first and last full game of his senior year, returning for the 17-16 Rose Bowl victory over Ohio State, a dramatic game in which the Trojans mounted the winning drive in the final minutes, going 83 yards on eight runs, almost all by White, almost all behind Munoz.

Among the impressed spectators were Cincinnati patriarch Paul Brown, son Mike, the club’s assistant general manager, and his brother, Pete, the personnel director. The Browns were there to scout Munoz, to determine if he was as much of a physical gamble as many in the NFL were saying.

“The three of us just sat there and laughed out loud,” Mike Brown recently said in recollection. “The guy was so big and so good it was a joke.”

The Bengals made Munoz their No. 1 pick, the third player chosen in the 1980 draft.

Said Munoz: “The only thing I knew about Cincinnati is that it was where the Reds played. You always hope to stay in your hometown, but it was the NFL, an opportunity some others weren’t willing to give me.”

Represented then by agent Mike Trope, Munoz’s relationship with Cincinnati began uneasily. There was a name-calling holdout that included a request to be traded. Munoz was blasted by the media and described as a “big burrito” in an obviously provincial article by the Cincinnati Post. Munoz ultimately signed and missed only one day of his first camp.

The ill feelings have long since waned. Munoz helped lead the Bengals to the Super Bowl in only his second year. He has established and maintained his all-pro status with a team that has since struggled for mediocrity. He has also acquired a real estate license, formed a sales and construction company, and moved DeDe, Michael, 4, and Michelle, 2 1/2, to Cincinnati fulltime.

“We miss the beach but I don’t know if there’s a better place to raise kids,” he said. “It’s quiet, conservative, a good family town.”

The stability encompasses Munoz’s knees.

He has had two elbow operations in Cincinnati and missed three exhibition games with a shoulder injury this year. But the previously suspect knees have remained sound, a foundation for his streak of consecutive appearances.

“In some ways, I think the injuries were a blessing,” he said. “I had always taken my natural strength for granted. I had never worked at improving it. I now feel I’m quicker and stronger than ever.”

Each of the three operations intensified Munoz’s work with weights. He also began to run more, alternating distance and sprints. He is stronger now but more streamlined. He weighs about 10 pounds less than he did at USC.

Said Jim McNally, Cincinnati’s offensive line coach: “Anthony doesn’t blow guys off the line like he did when he first came here, but that’s only because the game has changed and he’s facing defensive ends who weigh as much as he does. He doesn’t dominate every play of every game like he did then, but he’s still the best athlete I’ve ever been around. He could be a linebacker or a tight end.

“I mean, he has outstanding agility and quickness. He may not be the biggest or strongest but he may be the most athletic lineman in the NFL.”

Forget the most this or that. Anthony Munoz is happy just being a lineman in the NFL. There were those who followed his Trojan tribulations and said he didn’t have a prayer. That was the one thing he always had.