Daring Young Eagle Takes Wing : Cunningham Lifts Team, Throwing <i> and</i> Running

Randall Cunningham was a pitcher long before he became what he is today--the Philadelphia Eagles’ adventurous young quarterback.

The truth is that at Santa Barbara High School, his coaches suspected early on that Cunningham could have a professional career in either baseball or football.

The question was which.

Their advice: Make up your mind now. Nobody succeeds in baseball and football both. So choose one.

Cunningham chose football.

Why?

“Football crowds are bigger than baseball crowds,” he said here the other day. “It’s as simple as that. I want people to enjoy me--and there are more football people. It’s fun showing them the things you can do.”

The things that Cunningham can do have made him one of the hottest of the National Football League’s new quarterbacks.

His accurate, seemingly effortless long passes and sudden long-distance runs have changed the image of the Eagles. He is at once their leading rusher, with a 6.6-yard average, and leading passer. In seven starts, he has thrown 14 touchdown passes against 10 interceptions.

Cunningham won’t, of course, be at the Super Bowl this season. Not in a football suit, anyway. A developing football team is like a developing nation. It often takes two steps forward and one back, or one forward and two back.

Cunningham, who replaced Ron Jaworski at midseason a year ago, has become the Eagle offense. And on runs or passes, racing backward, forward, left, right or down the middle, he has proved to be as hard to catch as he is easy to watch.

“This guy is the only NFL quarterback who wouldn’t surprise me if he ran for a 90-yard touchdown--or threw one,” Hall of Famer Sid Gillman said.

Buddy Ryan, the second-year Philadelphia coach who seems to be putting together a contending team, compares Cunningham to Terry Bradshaw as a passer and to John Elway as a passer-runner.

“There’s one big difference between Randall and John Elway,” Ryan said. “In his third (NFL) season, Randall is ahead of where Elway was in his third season.”

If so, he has a promising future. A quiet, self-possessed player from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Cunningham is only 24. He wears a small mustache, a nice smile and a solid gold necklace, and he has already inspired one controversy.

He’s too reckless, they say. He runs with the ball too often, and too rashly. He carries it with the verve of a 230-pound tailback, though he weighs only 192.

Standing 6 feet 4 inches, he is as lanky, wiry and long-armed as a good basketball player, but noticeably thin-stemmed for an NFL runner.

His courage and carelessness therefore call to mind another hardy NFL competitor, Jim McMahon of the Chicago Bears, who spends half his days on the sideline, injured. It is hardly a coincidence that a man who rarely runs out of the pocket, Dan Marino, is the only NFL quarterback who has started every game since 1984.

“Watching Cunningham carry the ball, it’s only a question of time until he gets a knee (injury),” a Washington Redskin official said after Cunningham had made every big play when the Eagles upset Washington recently, 31-27.

A naturally gifted athlete, Cunningham has perfected the quarterback slide. At times, like other quarterbacks, he also slips out of bounds when contact is inevitable. His problem is that because he is faster than most quarterbacks--and many running backs--Cunningham is often tempted to rely on his speed, instead of slithering out of bounds or sliding to the field.

“Randall is hard to hit squarely, and he knows how to roll,” said Doug Scovil, Eagle quarterback coach. “He’ll still try for the last yard sometimes, but he does understand the value of the hook slide.”

One of Cunningham’s high school coaches, Earl Pointer, wonders about that. Noting that the young quarterback’s Santa Barbara nickname is Hook, Pointer said:

“I still tell him what I’ve told him from the beginning: ‘You’ve got to run smarter, Hook.’

“He’s taking the ball down the field in Philadelphia, and I’m shouting at the television set: ‘Hook, Hook, hook! ‘ “

Pointer is the athletic director at Santa Barbara’s West Side Boys Club, where Cunningham, excelling in every sport in season, virtually grew up as the youngest of four sons of a janitor.

“His parents died some years ago, and Hook came home from college for his father’s funeral,” Pointer said. “The pallbearers were the four boys.”

From the start, Cunningham’s idol was his brother, Sam, a former football player at USC and in the NFL.

“Having Sam on my side is one of the many lucky breaks I’ve had along the way,” Randall said.

At the Boys Club, they still talk about the afternoon long ago when Sam Cunningham was among the spectators as Pointer coached Randall to carry the ball behind his ear instead of on a hip while retreating into the pocket.

“The kid had so much talent that he knew he could carry it on his butt and still throw quick enough,” Pointer said. “But not in the NFL.”

So after yelling at the young prospect repeatedly, but fruitlessly, Pointer finally turned toward Sam, who was sitting nearby in the stands.

Sam looked at his brother and, softly but sternly, said: “Do it, Hook.”

And, Pointer recalls: “He did it immediately. And he’s been doing it ever since.”

For his development as a football player, Randall gives the credit to Pointer and another early coach, Randy Whitsitt of Las Vegas.

Now at Citrus College, Whitsitt said: “In college, Randall went to every class and was never late for any (football) meeting.

“He was the conference player of the year two years--and you know how hard that is in any league, in any sport.

“If the Eagles would let him punt, he’d also be the best punter in the NFL.”

It was for the coaching that Randall originally enrolled at Las Vegas, passing up Sam’s school, which recruited him, but with little enthusiasm.

“At SC, quarterbacks pitch the ball back to the tailback,” Randall said, referring to the pre-Larry Smith era. “At Las Vegas, quarterbacks throw it down the field.”

Moreover, he likes the life in football’s most spotlighted position.

“I’ve always wanted to be the star of the team,” he said.

On graduation day at Las Vegas, neither the Raiders nor Rams gave him that chance, drafting Jessie Hester and Jerry Gray instead.

Cunningham went to Philadelphia in the second round and took along a native of Las Vegas, Lisa Minor.

They live in Blackwood, N.J., now, near Eagle headquarters, and plan to marry soon.

Cunningham has a condominium in Blackwood and three cars, a Mercedes, Porsche and Ford Bronco, as well as a new business, the RC Sign Co., manufacturer and distributor of signs of all sorts.

“I liked both advertising and art work in college,” he said. “And I majored in business.”

He has the time and resources for a commercial career because he doesn’t spend much time or money on the frills that entice many other athletes.

“Obviously, football is my priority,” he said. “An NFL career is a wonderful opportunity--and I don’t intend to mess it up.

“The longer I’m in football, the more I see that life is kind of a ladder. When you take a step on the ladder to success, you don’t want to take a step backward.

“I’m talking about drugs, alcohol and anything else that will bring you down the ladder.

“All kinds of people are trying to pull you off, and most of them don’t even realize they’re doing it. They’re just out to have some fun.

“You have to watch out for yourself all the time. Don’t expect anyone else to. Don’t fall into any traps.”

If that’s Cunningham’s personal philosophy, it may do more for him in the long run than the two other things that have made him what he is: His talent and his attitude toward football.

The attitudinal definer is Cunningham’s extreme self-confidence.

“He has always been, well, cocky,” said his old coach, Pointer, recalling the day at Santa Barbara when, 24 hours before a big game, he was cautioning Cunningham on the perils of interceptions.

“Never force the ball on first or second down,” Pointer said mildly after his protege had tried to jam a pass between two defensive backs.

“OK,” Cunningham said, and promptly did it again, this time throwing an interception.

“I said, don’t force it,” Pointer screamed. “On second down, throw it away. “

Cunningham called time and said: “Hey, Earl, where you sitting tomorrow?”

“The press box as usual,” Pointer replied stiffly, still angry.

Said Cunningham: “Tell you what, Earl. If I get in trouble, I’ll throw it to you up there.”

And as Pointer tells it today, “He did. There were times he was so cocky you couldn’t stand him.”

At Philadelphia, the cockiness has worn down to mere confidence. But the talent is more obvious than ever.

His most useful asset, or one of them, is the way he scrambles around in the pocket. This reflects more than simple mobility, for he scrambles like a running back playing quarterback.

He sidesteps rushing defensive players the way a running back eludes them in the open field. A major reason for his success seems to be his ability to buy time while scrambling without ever leaving the pocket.

Cunningham’s running has led the Eagles to a new tactic. Between plays, instead of wig-wagging the signals directly to the quarterback, they send them to tight end John Spagnola, who passes them on to Cunningham.

“The purpose is to get the signaling machinery started sooner,” said quarterback coach Scovil. “Randall is so active, he can’t get back to the huddle as fast as John.”

The other unusual aspect of his talent is, apparently, that, “The farther Randall throws it, the more accurate he gets.”

That’s a considered judgment by Scovil, who added: “Accuracy is something you only hope for in a passer who puts it up for 40 or 50 yards. With Cunningham, you expect it.”

In the view of Scovil--a veteran quarterback coach whose previous charges have run the course from John Brodie and Roger Staubach to Jim McMahon--the Eagles have a championship quarterback already and, almost, a championship team.

“We still have a way to go,” he said. “The offensive line is a sieve at times. But we have the defense.”

Wide receiver Mike Quick, Cunningham’s top target, concurred.

“All along, Buddy Ryan has been building the defense,” Quick said. “So they’ve been ahead of us. But we’ve got the passing now, and we’re getting the rest of it. (Buddy) knows just the kind of player he wants, and he’s getting them.”

What is it you want, Buddy?

“We’re only interested in one thing, winning the Super Bowl,” Ryan said. “And that only takes one kind of player--tough, smart players. The thing I like about Randall is that he’s tough and smart.”

But maybe a little too reckless.