In Valley of Giants, He Definitely Is One

They tell the story of the first time Anthony Munoz appeared in an offensive line for the USC Trojans and an opposing end called time and trotted over to the bench.

“What’s the matter?” the coach wanted to know.

“I got the wrong implements for this guy,” the player said. “If you want me to cut this down, you’ve got to give me an ax or a chain saw.”

Another player is supposed to have told USC’s Marv Goux, “OK, I’ll play him. But the first time an eagle tries to make a nest in his hair I’m out of there!”

Anthony Munoz does look like something a car would drive through in the Sequoia National Park.

“You tell his age by counting the rings,” Coach John McKay once quipped.

He wasn’t born, he was logged. You could make a complete set of patio furniture and a fence out of Anthony Munoz, went the gag.

“He’s the biggest thing I’ve seen without elevators,” John Robinson quipped.

Most guys who qualify as big in the National Football League would be asked to bring the ball upcourt in the National Basketball Assn. Not Munoz. In the valley of the giants, he’s a giant. In the skyline of pro football, he stands out like the World Trade Center. Donald Trump would turn him into condominiums.

To play him, first you got to climb him. What Anthony Munoz does is knock people down for a living. For some, it’s an unnerving experience. A little like getting fallen on by a mountain. The first thing that happens when Munoz comes upon a defender is, he blocks out the light. It’s as if you’ve fallen down a mine shaft.

Munoz, essentially, is a bodyguard. It’s not advisable to make any sudden movements toward the quarterback when he’s on the scene. If Boomer Esiason gets tackled, Munoz takes it personally. Without him, Boomer would be Boom-Boom Esiason.

If you ever do get to the quarterback on Munoz, it is not a good idea to gloat or sack dance. A better idea is to pretend you didn’t do it. It is like insulting Pancho Villa’s mother.

An offensive line is the French Foreign Legion of football. It’s not a position, it’s a hideout. People disappear into an offensive line and are never heard from again. They don’t even have to give their right names. They’re as anonymous as a Swiss bank account.

For some reason, they all tend to be short, squat men with a low center of gravity. Their life is largely subterranean anyway. You can always tell an offensive lineman by the way he blinks in the sunlight.

All except Anthony Munoz. He’s as hard to overlook as an aircraft carrier. Somewhere between 6-foot-6 and 7 feet tall, somewhere between 275 and 295 pounds, a swatch of bituminous black hair, even teeth, he dominates a room as well as a line of scrimmage. You figure Montezuma might have looked like this.

A Super Bowl press conference is an illegitimate form of journalism in which several hundred reporters with pencils and papers, microphones, tape recorders and cameras are turned loose on a roomful of football players, looking for their daily take-home of hype.

Usually, they swarm like locusts around quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, defensive ends and free safeties. The guys who get the ball, get the headlines. The guys who never get the ball--or the ballcarrier--get trampled in the rush.

Except for Anthony Munoz. He gets a table all to himself because he draws a crowd. He is a star. People want to know what he thinks of the deficit, the situation in the Middle East and whether he can keep his quarterback from having to swallow footballs all evening Sunday in Joe Robbie Stadium.

Munoz regards a sacked quarterback as a slur on his manhood. He was debited with only 1 1/2 sacks last season and there are Sundays when Esiason could stand there like a guy waiting for a bus.

In spite of his size, Munoz is fast enough and agile enough to have scored 4 touchdowns receiving passes on tackle-eligible plays.

He grew up in Ontario, Calif., in a fatherless home--”I never knew my father as a youngster and have never met him”--and hankered early to be a baseball pitcher or football quarterback. But when he got to USC, he was the only one big enough and fast enough to make Student Body Right work. Munoz was Student Body Right. Charles White and Marcus Allen won Heismans following Anthony Munoz into end zones.

If Ickey Woods wants to do his shuffle Sunday, if Esiason wants to boom, their Mad Anthony will first have to remove any debris from their track. Cincinnati is going to have to manhandle San Francisco to win. If it turns into a dance, Cincinnati will be the wallflowers.

As one 49er put it, “We’re Mercedes and they’re pickup trucks.”

They may find that Munoz is more like an 18-wheeler. Coming down the Grapevine with the brakes gone and the horn honking.

If it’s a street fight or a head-on collision, well, mark Anthony.