Call Waiving : Charger Answering Machine Cut Him Off, but With Bears, Thrift Got Message Across
The sight of blood makes many people squeamish, but it can also have a mesmerizing effect.
The same force that compels passers-by to gawk at freeway smashups also helps attract spectators to hockey and football games, not to mention car races.
The sight of blood seems to trigger an even more primitive reaction in Cliff Thrift, the veteran linebacker who was released by the Chargers last July.
Claimed by the Chicago Bears, he reported to training camp determined to draw blood in every contact drill and exhibition game.
He was seething about his release by the Chargers, eager to impress the Bears’ defensive taskmaster, Buddy Ryan, and fearful of being sent home without a job. Thus was he driven to bloody a nose, an elbow or a lip every time he strapped on his navy blue helmet.
Thrift made the team, started several games, won a Super Bowl ring and was assured by Coach Mike Ditka there would be a place for him in 1986; so, to Thrift, the blood drive was more than vindicated.
“I was so devastated last July when I heard on my answering machine I had been waived by the Chargers,” Thrift said. “When I went to the Bears, I wanted to do all I could to prove myself and let out my frustration on the field.
“The whole experience was like coming close to dying, then reviving and coming back stronger and healthier than ever. My outlook on life is so much brighter. I know I can walk away from football one day and not look back on my career as a nightmare. I can apply my inner drives and be successful in some other areas of life.”
Thrift still has a love-hate relationship with the Chargers. He blames chief scout Ron Nay for his release and is bothered that Coach Don Coryell did not tell him about it face-to-face.
At the same time, he is comfortable enough to pull for his old team, which he views as being nearly as talented as the Bears. The primary difference, he said, is chemistry.
“The Bears were a relaxed team, like the Chargers were from 1979 to 1981,” Thrift said. “The Chargers started losing, and that old approach came unraveled. After the team was sold (to Alex Spanos), there were guys walking on eggshells. Hell, you can’t play football that way.
“This is a violent game. You have to brag a little and then go out there and back it up. You sound off, then you throw your weight around. If they smother your confidence with conservatism, you can’t play football very well.”
He recalled an incident in a game against Washington last fall. John Riggins of the Redskins was piling up big gains when Bears defensive lineman Dan Hampton stepped into the huddle and delivered a brief, but fiery speech.
“Hey, let’s cut this (bleep)!” Hampton said.
The results were immediate.
“We all threw out our chests and stopped Riggins the rest of the game,” Thrift said.
“It wasn’t like that the last couple of years with the Chargers. I remember we were going to play the Cowboys, and Linden King made some statements in the press that we would kick their butts. The night before the game, Coryell ridiculed him for mouthing off . . . I don’t think that’s the right approach. You’ve got to have confidence before you go into battle.”
It’s clear that Thrift harbors bittersweet feelings about last season. “Man, I love this city and I’ll live here when I retire,” he said. “The Chargers will always be part of me, and I root for them in my heart.
“But, going to Chicago was so gratifying. Every player wants that Super Bowl ring. That goes with you to the grave. I’ve got that now. When I bounce my grandchildren on my knee, I can show ‘em that ring.”
Thrift was still glowing about the Super Bowl in late February when he joined a group of other pro football players, including former Charger teammates Don Macek and Tim Fox, for several days of skiing near Durango, Colo.
The trip ended with a bloody accident in which Thrift, ever the unflinching, macho linebacker, watched a surgeon reattach a tendon deep in his forearm.
Thrift seemed oblivious to the macabre symmetry represented by the accident, which happened late one afternoon.
It had been a warm day--warm enough to ski in a T-shirt--but now the shadows were gathering and a veneer of ice had formed on the snow.
Thrift was fatigued, but intent on one last run before quitting for the day. Thus, conditions were just right for trouble.
As he careened down the slippery, bumpy slope, Thrift lost his balance and tumbled forward. His bare left arm was slashed by the tip of one of his skis. The cut extended from near the elbow to just above the wrist.
To slow the gush of blood from the wound, Thrift packed snow on his arm, then rode a chair lift to the top of the mountain.
“My arm looked like a cherry snow cone when we got to the first-aid station,” Thrift said.
About 45 minutes later, he was in the hospital in Durango. A doctor examined him and determined that the ulnar tendon (attached to the larger of two bones in the forearm) had been severed, and four millimeters of bone gouged out by the ski tip.
The doctor injected his armpit five times with a three-inch needle in an attempt to deaden the arm with anesthetic. Then, with Thrift looking on with great interest and a strong stomach, the doctor used a pair of surgical pliers to retrieve the loose tendon and reattach it.
“My fingers curled up when he pulled on the tendon,” Thrift said. “That’s what the ulnar tendon does. I’d have a heckuva time playing football without it.”
Thrift’s arm is now in a splint, where it will remain for six weeks. He has feeling and movement in his fingers, and he expects to be fully recovered in time for mini-camp in May.
“The way I look at it, I got in four good days of skiing, so I can’t be down about this,” he said. “I’m an optimist these days.”
He’s in the process of negotiating a one-year contract with the Bears, and is optimistic about it, too.
Thrift, who considered retiring after the Super Bowl, wants badly to play again, but it wouldn’t break his heart or his bank account if he didn’t come to terms with the Bears. He has a comfortable mortgage on a big house in Tierrasanta, three cars that are paid for and several business opportunities in San Diego.
Thrift learned last summer what it is to worry about making a football team. That fear never gnawed at him in San Diego, but it was with him throughout the exhibition season in Chicago.
Mike Singletary, the Bears’ middle linebacker, was a holdout, and, in his absence, Thrift practiced at the position. But he got no feedback from Ryan, the guy who would decide his fate.
“I would go back to my dorm room every night expecting to get the word: ‘Coach wants to see you . . . and bring your playbook,’ ” Thrift said.
“Two days before we were going to play the Cowboys in our third exhibition, Singletary got his contract, and I figured I was gone for sure. I was real surprised when Coach Ryan called me over and said, ‘Blondie, you’re playing outside today.’ ”
By shifting Thrift to outside linebacker, Ryan gave notice the player had earned sufficient respect to get an extended look.
Otis Wilson, a starting linebacker, injured his ankle against Dallas, and Thrift filled in capably. The next week, in the final exhibition, Thrift made seven tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery against Buffalo.
“Blondie, you did better than I expected,” Ryan told him.
Injuries had curtailed his activity in 1983 and 1984, but Thrift was bent on making it through the season with the Bears without missing a minute of practice or game time, and he met his goal.
“I sprained my ankle and hurt my wrist, but I went out there everyday and went full speed,” Thrift said. “It nearly killed me a few days, but I know Mike Ditka appreciated my work ethic. I grew up on a farm, got married and had kids early, and I know the value of an honest day’s work. I couldn’t collect my check if I didn’t give it my best.”
One day, in a meeting of special teams’ players, Ditka called out, “Thrift, how old are you?”
A guy who has admittedly never told the truth about his age, Thrift was on the spot. He was afraid of getting caught in a lie and getting dumped, so he did a quick sidestep.
“Coach, how old do you want me to be?” he said.
Ditka accepted that for answer.
“Well, Thrift,” he said, “you’re not our fastest or our youngest athlete, but you’re always the first man down the field on kicks, and that’s something I like.”
On the Bears’ flight back to Chicago after the Super Bowl, Ditka told Thrift he would have a spot on the 1986 team.
“Believe me,” Thrift said, “it’s very gratifying when they want you.”
He felt unappreciated in San Diego.
“I don’t know exactly what happened with the Chargers, but I’ve done a lot of talking, and I don’t think it was the coaches who got rid of me,” Thrift said. “I’m pretty sure it was Ron Nay. He must have thought I was too old or making too much money for a backup guy.
“I don’t know what the hell I ever did to that man, but I have to say, ‘In your eye, Ron Nay.’ ”
Nay, who was generally believed to be the architect of a July purge that claimed Thrift and half a dozen other veterans, declined to answer Thrift’s charges.
“We have enough players here that I don’t have time to worry about players on the Chicago Bears,” Nay said.
Thrift believes Coryell may have been too weak to break the news directly, but Thrift seemed tolerant. Thrift said he wouldn’t want to be a coach because he would have the same weakness as Coryell.
“When I called coach, he just told me he couldn’t talk about it,” Thrift said.
“After the years of blood and sweat, I just wanted to know who made the decision to get rid of me. I really believe Chuck Weber (then linebacker coach) liked me, and I think if Al Saunders had been calling the shots then, I would still be with the Chargers.”
Thrift had a hard time answering when Dan Fouts, in his role as a reporter for a San Diego TV station, asked him what it was like to be in the Super Bowl. Thrift felt awkward, because of his respect for the Charger quarterback.
He mumbled something about it being a great feeling. He didn’t want to appear to be gloating because he knew how badly Fouts wants a similar opportunity to appear in football’s biggest game.
“I always had so much confidence in Dan,” Thrift said. “I knew that if we got him the ball last, he would find a way to win the game for us.”
Thrift was asked why he didn’t retire when his career was clearly at its zenith.
“Well, I sure thought about it,” he said. “I earned the respect I wanted last year. I proved to the Chargers I could go all year without missing any time . . . My incentive is simply that I want to play another season. There’s a lot of agony in this game, but, remember, it is a game, and ultimately you play for your own self gratification.”
Thrift thought back to the Super Bowl. He was standing on the sidelines along with Maury Buford, the former Charger punter who was dealt to Chicago last summer.
“We were standing there, pinching and hugging ourselves, trying to make sure it was real and we weren’t dreaming,” Thrift said. “Players kept coming up and asking, ‘Did you send the Chargers that thank you card yet?’ ”
Consider it sent.