Hey, Now There’s a Bum in the Radio Booth

Directions to a man’s place of business can often offer insights into his personality.

For example: Turn off the two-lane just east of here, go four miles on the ranch road and after crossing a one-lane wooden bridge, take a gravel road two more miles, cross two cattle guards, drive past fields of grazing cattle and turn right when the road dead ends.

Behind a small forest of oaks you’ll find Bum Phillips, the former coach of the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints and now one of the more famous ranchers in Fort Bend County.

Instead of herding helmeted behemoths through a football practice, Phillips is yelling at a young cattle dog named Andy and coaxing 20-odd head of cattle into a covered arena.

Phillips is one of the best-liked figures in Houston sports history, but there’s little doubt he’s from the country and doesn’t care to be defined in any other terms.

“I started out in ranching and I’m going to end up the same way,” he said.

Phillips is as much at home on winding country roads, creaky old bridges, cattle pens and cutting horses as he was straddling the sidelines in the Astrodome and Superdome.

But Phillips won’t be home on the ranch on Sundays this fall.

He’ll be back in the Astrodome and other NFL stadiums as a color analyst for the Oilers’ broadcast network on KTRH-AM.

Phillips also will accept a limited number of public appearances and speaking engagements on behalf of the Oilers.

It will be Phillips’ first association with the NFL since he retired from the Saints in 1985, saying “I’m just loading up the wagon and not worrying about which mule it’s hitched to.”

He hasn’t regretted riding away.

“When I walked away from football I forgot it at that instant,” Phillips said. “Coaching does that to you. You get your butt beat one week and you’ve got to forget it and play the next week.

“Evidently, I learned that lesson well. I guess I was ready to get out because I truly didn’t miss it. I got right into the cattle business and I’ve been thinking about that ever since.”

So why return now, even to the radio booth?

Because, after the horses have been fed and watered and he’s driving home in his pickup truck late at night, Bum has memories.

He remembers returning to the Astrodome to 50,000 crazed “Luv Ya Blue” fans after losing the AFC championship game to Pittsburgh in 1979.

“That was a great feeling to have everyone in town, all on the same page, everybody pulling in the same direction,” Phillips said. “I’d like to see that get started again.”

He shook his head and spit tobacco on the ground.

“You expect to see 50,000 fans at a major championship game, not coming out and to see a team that just got the hell beat out of it.”

That was when Bum, speaking through teary eyes, told the fans “This year we knocked on the door, next year we’ll kick the SOB down.”

But the Oilers never kicked down the door to the Super Bowl, and Phillips left under less than harmonious circumstances.

He was fired on New Year’s Eve 1980 after the Oilers were eliminated from the playoffs.

He remains the winningest Oiler head coach, with a 55-35 record from 1975 to 1980.

It has taken 10 years and the departure of Ladd Herzeg as Oilers general manager to get Bum back in the Astrodome.

“I wasn’t trying to hide out; I just wasn’t interested in the people who were running it at the time,” Phillips said. “I didn’t have any ax to grind. I was just happy doing my thing.”

Even last season after Herzeg’s departure, Phillips was conspicuously absent from a reunion of Oilers players at a home game.

“I can’t put it in words, but it just didn’t feel right to be there,” Phillips said. “It was like there was still a division there. Now it’s different.”

Oilers owner Bud Adams is glad to have Phillips associated with the Oilers once again.

“People on the street thought there was animosity between us, but that was never the case,” Adams said. “There are always going to be personnel changes. That’s just a part of the game.

“We thought he’d be a positive addition to the broadcast team. He’ll add charisma.”

Oilers Executive Vice President Mike McClure, who left the Oilers in 1981 and returned prior to last season, wanted to bring Phillips back into the fold.

“I just thought it was the appropriate thing to do. He was such a big part of a successful Oiler era,” McClure said.

Phillips will be the third man in the booth with play-by-play announcer Tom Franklin and commentator John O’Reilly.

Fans likely will expect to hear the homey style that made Phillips among the most quotable coaches.

He refused to take his team to Cleveland early to get accustomed to the cold weather because “You can’t practice being miserable.”