Shades of Greatness : JIM McMAHON : . . . Or Maybe It Should Be McMurphy, Ringleader in Bears’ Cuckoo’s Nest

Maybe when he is older, Jim McMahon will tell us what goes on up there. Or even if there is a there.

McMahon, quarterback of the Chicago Bears, has almost everybody confounded, amazed, impressed, angered or some combination thereof. He is a prism through which light is refracted, coming out every which way in every color of the rainbow.

The guesswork occurs in trying to determine if his success is the result of genius or guile. McMahon is either a smart guy or an immature but gifted athlete who excels in tantrums. He is either shrewd or lucky, blessed or a beneficiary of circumstance. McMahon certainly isn’t saying what’s what.

If the world were his oyster, McMahon would arrange for it to be sealed shut. That way he could devise all the rules, rather than the other way around.

Not that it matters. More times than not, McMahon gets his way. He is like a pedigreed dog who chews up your favorite shoes and dares you to be upset. Go after McMahon with a rolled-up newspaper and you’re the one who leaves yelping.

“If everybody acted like themselves instead of being what everybody else thought, we would be a lot better off,” McMahon said the other day. “I don’t give a damn what other people think.”

That would explain many of his actions, not just how he dresses or answers questions but how he plays football--single-mindedly and with little regard for conventionality. It is the same with everyday life.

Here at McMahon Week, known to some as Super Bowl XX, the country was treated to the saga of the missing acupuncturist. McMahon wanted him. Bear management did not. Guess who won?

Told by National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle to discontinue wearing an Adidas headband during the playoffs, McMahon said fine. Or maybe it was, fine me. Whatever, McMahon wore a ROZELLE headband the next week.

McMahon has spent a lifetime telling authority to take a long walk off a short pier. He has ignored plays from the sideline, traded slaps with schoolteachers and stuck his tongue out at cameras. He has spat at his own offensive linemen, compromised his college’s honor code, berated teammates, pricked grade-school classmates with straight pins and disregarded medical advice.

Those are the highlights. The punk-style hairdo he wore earlier in the season and his casual athletic attire--he’s sort of like the Grace Jones of jock wear--don’t even make it in the top 10.

As for partying, McMahon has earned, deserved or not, a reputation for the unexpected.

Bear linebacker Mike Singletary said: “Off the field, though, I don’t want to be around him. He’s a dangerous guy.”

Not so, say others.

“This is not the Jim McMahon we know,” said Dr. Brent Pratley, a former Brigham Young University team physician who now devotes much of his time to an orthopedic practice in Provo, Utah.

“I think this is the media hype. I don’t think you’ll see him in the punk hairdo, the sunglasses, later. It will just happen. I won’t be surprised if it happens right after this (Super Bowl) is over.”

Friends and family tell of the McMahon who adores children and cherishes his time at home. That would be the McMahon, they say, who can laugh at himself or put honesty ahead of a quick buck.

That McMahon becomes outraged and feels betrayed upon discovering that all “Super Bowl Shuffle” video profits aren’t going to charity. That McMahon puts a down payment on a house for a BYU buddy.

Along the way, McMahon also has become an inventive and distinctive athlete. He plays quarterback, but baseball, basketball, even golf are games he can tackle with occasional perfection.

He says he was never meant to work, at least not the way a secretary or an accountant toils. There is neither a 9 nor a 5 on his clock, just his own schedule that meanders at whim. “I ain’t getting no job in no factory,” he said.

Perhaps the closest thing to an explanation of his personality was delivered by McMahon earlier in the week when he said that his favorite movie was “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and that McMurphy, the character played by Jack Nicholson in that movie, was McMahon’s model of sorts.

“The character (Nicholson) played, well, everybody thought he was crazy, but he wasn’t crazy,” McMahon said. “That’s a lot like me. I’m not crazy, either. I think I’m normal because I really don’t give a damn what people think. I don’t care what my image is.”

Of course, Nicholson’s McMurphy was given a lobotomy by movie’s end, but he had a great time fooling the system before the system finally caught up to him.

You get the feeling that deep down, McMahon feels the system won’t corner him so easily. It has been that way ever since McMahon began playing sports. There was little he couldn’t do. He knew it. His coaches knew it.

Once, when his high school basketball coach in Roy, Utah, gave him an ultimatum--quit lifting weights for football or turn in your basketball uniform--McMahon quickly handed the coach the jersey and shorts. In poker, that is called calling a bluff. Guess who won?

Against Southern Methodist in the 1980 Holiday Bowl, McMahon refused to let the BYU punting team enter the game late in the fourth quarter. Behind by 20 points, McMahon decided that he was the only blankety-blank who wanted to win this game. So he did.

With just 4 minutes 7 seconds remaining, McMahon led the Cougars to three touchdowns. BYU won, 46-45.

The same sort of thing happened earlier this season in a nationally televised Thursday night game against the Minnesota Vikings. McMahon’s schedule the week of that game:

--Sunday: Stay in hospital for muscle spasms in back. Traction required.

--Monday: See Sunday.

--Tuesday: Miss practice.

--Wednesday: Miss practice and complain of a leg infection.

--Thursday: Sit on bench at game’s beginning.

McMahon also spent some time with ABC-TV commentator Joe Namath that week, which would have been fine with Bear Coach Mike Ditka if it hadn’t happened during a practice session.

Ditka and McMahon reportedly engaged in a spirited shouting match. These were the coach and player who hadn’t chatted in months, except when Ditka had told McMahon to shut up.

So here it is, national TV and the Bears fall behind the Vikings. McMahon can be seen on the sideline, tugging at Ditka’s shirt sleeves, urging him to change quarterbacks. Ditka glares and sneers as the Bears sleepwalk through much of the third period and trail, 17-9.

Then he sends McMahon into the game and it’s the Holiday Bowl all over again.

“I remember in the Minnesota game we weren’t playing very well,” offensive tackle Jim Covert said. “He came in, and his exact words were, ‘OK, we’re going to take it down right on the first play.’ That’s all he said.”

McMahon’s first and second passes are for touchdowns. He throws a third touchdown pass minutes later. The Bears win, 33-24. McMahon re-enters the hospital Friday.

The scoring passes weren’t exactly the same plays Ditka had sent into the game with McMahon.

“I change plays because I see things on the field,” McMahon said. “I don’t change plays to upset Mike. I mean, no guts, no glory.”

McMahon doesn’t limit his tirades to coaches. He once kicked Bear center Jay Hilgenberg in the rear when Hilgenberg disagreed with McMahon’s choice of plays. And Bear offensive huddles are interesting scenes. “Anything really goes in our huddle,” guard Tom Thayer said.

Guard Kurt Becker, now on injured reserve, used to spit at McMahon. McMahon spat back.

“Not on the face, though,” Covert said, making it OK in his mind.

Thayer said: “Jim is an offensive linemen in a quarterback’s body. I don’t know why he’s as goofy as that. He’s not your typical quarterback that is always clean, neat and nice. He chews snuff, he wears sunglasses, cuts his hair funny ways--a lot of things offensive linemen do.”

There have been other escapades. Rookie McMahon arrived at Bear headquarters in 1982 in a limousine. The door opened and he had a beer in his hand.

Asked what he thought about the entrance, Ditka said, “I thought he was thirsty.”

McMahon has butted helmets with offensive lineman and rolled his jersey sleeves up as if he blocked for a living. He has weathered bizarre injuries, things like a lacerated kidney, and has swung from one hotel balcony to another . . . a couple of hundred feet above the ground.

This week, McMahon has been the center of attention with his wardrobe and needs for an acupuncture specialist. A New Orleans television station added to the madness by alleging that McMahon had insulted the women of the Crescent City. The report was later retracted.

What with all this hoopla, you’d think McMahon would be a nervous wreck. Not Jim. He said he enjoys the revelry. He is not too fond of the media attention, but is smart enough to understand why every tape recorder and mini-cam has been pointed his way this week.

“This attention comes with winning,” he said. “I don’t see any of you guys in Green Bay right now.”

The Packers should be pleased with that remark, but McMahon doesn’t care. He is a football player, and the way figures it, football is a game where you’d better be able to back up what you say. McMahon hasn’t missed yet.

“He’s pretty clever,” said LaVell Edwards, BYU’s coach. “There’s no question Jim will be ready to play football.”

Edwards once turned to team physician Pratley on a BYU flight and said: “Jim’s going to take somebody to the Super Bowl. I’ll tell you that right now.”

If nothing else, Edwards recognized McMahon’s abilities. He said it is infinitely harder to recognize McMahon’s personality.

“I don’t think people really know the real Jim McMahon,” Edwards said. “I don’t think he’ll ever let you know. He’ll do a lot things to see what your reaction would be.”

Pratley said: “Actually, he’s laughing at the media people who think he’s crazy, when he’s not.”

Said McMahon: “I have fun at what I do. If I wasn’t having fun, I wouldn’t be in the business.”

McMahon wouldn’t do much of anything if he weren’t having a good time. In a sense, he wants all things to go his way. Who doesn’t? The difference is that McMahon, through whatever means--brains, brawn, audacity, talent--sees that it happens.

He wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Word comes from his agent, Stephen Zucker, that Rolling Stone is very interested. The producers of “Miami Vice” would like McMahon to appear on the show.

Zucker said that MTV had called, so had “Saturday Night Live” and the folks from “The A-Team.”

McMahon said no.

Movie producers have inquired about McMahon’s availability.

Again, the same answer.

“Money is not a motivator to Jim,” Zucker said. “He turns down 95% of what comes his way.”

Said Pratley: “He’s never felt that all of this is such a big deal. For him, it’s ‘Give me the ball, hike and let me throw it.’ It’s a toleration.

“That’s why I think it’s just a put-on,” he said.

McMahon earns about $1 million a year.

“His goal in life is to save all his money, buy a golf course and play naked,” Zucker said.

“He’s really a good guy. It’s just that a lot of people don’t know how to take him. In sports, I don’t know if there’s very many people like him.”

McMahon loves golf. He plans to play next week in Hawaii before the Pro Bowl. First, he had to have several of his clubs straightened, victims of McMahon’s knees and heaves.

When Bob Hope invited him to appear on his Super Bowl television special, McMahon said, sure, if Hope also would extend an invitation to his golf tournament. As usual, McMahon got his way. It is his special talent.

One of these days, McMahon may let the rest of world know the punch line to his own private joke. For now, he darts and flutters from one personality to the next. Calculated or cocky? Bright or brash?

Is he worth the trouble? McMahon says no.

“Ask me something about football, rather than headbands, personality,” he said. “All that stuff doesn’t matter. We’re here to play football.”