Past Doesn’t Leave Henning at a Loss : Chargers: Fans aren’t cutting coach much slack, but Beathard, players stand behind him.
He lights a cigarette, and with public sentiment leaning the way it is today, there’s the urge to ask Dan Henning if he has any other last requests before being blindfolded.
“Henning will always be a loser.”
“Henning should be history.”
“Who hired Henning in the first place? Ortmayer!”
Better that he be kin to Saddam Hussein in this town than be linked with Steve Ortmayer, the former Charger general manager. But there it is: From the beginning, Dan Henning has been up against it.
He’s the loser from Atlanta, as so many callers to the local radio stations have pointed out this week, and OK, you’re only as good as your last game. Then tell us, why is he still here?
“If you forget the (fake) punt, and you can’t forget it . . .” General Manager Bobby Beathard began, not feeling he had to say any more about the bungled, 17-14 loss to Dallas. “Well anyway, it doesn’t make me feel any different about Dan. I feel the same about him today as I did before that.
“I’m telling you, I think the guy’s a terrific coach. If I had been in the same position as Ortmayer, Dan Henning would have been the guy I would have recommended to Mr. (Alex) Spanos that the Chargers hire as head coach.
“Had anything happened with Joe Gibbs in Washington while I was there, Dan would have been the guy that we would have named to replace him. And it wouldn’t have been a tough decision.”
Bobby Beathard knows Dan Henning, knows the stubbornness, the compassion and all the football genius that belie Henning’s 28-52-1 record as a head coach in the NFL. Bobby Beathard knows what many in San Diego have yet to discover.
“What Dan needs is for us to get him the right people,” Beathard said. “I just want him to have the opportunity to prove that he really does belong with the top coaches in the league. I think he has what it takes to be one of the really successful coaches in this league.”
So far, though, Henning is known best for losing pounds and games. And with Sunday’s debacle in Dallas so fresh in mind, Henning-bashing has become as popular this week as air conditioning.
“Let me tell you something about popularity,” Henning said in a long-ago interview that applies now. “When you’re as high-profile as an NFL head coach, you’re right between Palm Sunday and Good Friday.
“You know what Palm Sunday was? That’s when they threw fig leaves at Christ’s feet and wanted to make him king. The next Friday, they crucified him. When you look at both extremes and realize that either one of them is close at hand, you don’t worry about it.”
Henning is in the second season of a five-year deal, and while he’s confident happy days will be here again, he has been wrong before.
“It always comes to the question of whether there is a certain amount of patience,” Henning said. “And that has not permeated this organization in the past.”
Beathard’s heralded arrival, though, has added stability to a quaking front office and given Spanos cause for encouragement.
“I like the guy,” owner Spanos said. “I find Dan to be a man of decision, and he has the respect of his players. Sure, I was devastated last week, but the man wasn’t afraid to say he kind of did a dumb thing. And he did, but it’s behind us now. We got 15 more games to go, and he’ll make it work.
“I don’t know how well we’ll do, but I can’t believe we won’t be better than we were last year.”
While a coach is commissioned to win, a foundation must first be laid. Of the 47 players on the team’s roster today, only 19 have been here longer than Henning. A dearth of qualified help along the offensive line, coinciding with the development of two inexperienced quarterbacks, bodes trouble.
A more flamboyant coach, or maybe a more charming one, might solicit understanding. But don’t let the Winstons fool you--this is a Marlboro man all the way, and there will be no whining.
“In growing up in this league, I have watched and have great respect for people who project leadership and teaching ability like the Don Shulas, the Tom Landrys and the Chuck Nolls,” Henning said. “They are all men that are very introspective with great compassion, although they appear very hard. They don’t get too high and too low, and they’re not going to let things get too far out of whack.
“They’re also not on stage. They realize the players should be the center of attention, and they understand their job is organization and teaching.”
He might as well have been talking about himself.
Henning hurts. It won’t show. And fans in the stands won’t know.
He’s rough and tough, but he’s also you and yours. He would like his critics to believe they are firing blanks his way, but too often, they find the mark.
“The heat gets to everybody,” he conceded reluctantly.
This is a man of conviction, and as any parent of five children will understand, he has already been tested.
His record, however, brands him a loser as a head coach. He was with a winner as an assistant at Florida State and later with the Miami Dolphins. He has two Super Bowl rings, compliments of the Washington Redskins.
But he was 22-41-1 as head coach in Atlanta. While there are many reasons to explain it away, it’s there. It introduces Henning. It’s how he’s judged professionally. It’s what motivates him.
“It sure does,” he said. “You see, I know how hard it is to sell someone with a losing record in four years as a head coach. I had to live with it in Atlanta. I lived with it here last year. And I’ll live with it until such time that we turn it around and win.
“Getting to the playoffs is a major goal of mine, no question about it. And when we do, it will be more satisfying having gone through the previous times when it didn’t work for one reason or another.”
It might also take a trip to the playoffs for Henning to win over San Diego. While more mellow now, and more approachable, first impressions must be overcome. He was cool and aloof last year, and don’t forget arrogant and confounding and ornery. From Day 1, Henning was anything but embraceable.
The feeling, of course, was mutual. The fans had heard the Chargers were ready to hire an impressive Marty Schottenheimer. When that went awry, George Seifert’s name surfaced. Before he could be grabbed, he was being announced as Bill Walsh’s successor in San Francisco.
If not Schottenheimer or Seifert, then maybe the favorite son, defensive coordinator Ron Lynn.
Instead, the locals got Henning. By way of introduction a little later, he announced practices would be closed and offered a cold shoulder in explanation.
Now, a year later, he said: “I think that’s something that had to be done, and no way was it going to be bought, so why waste time trying to explain it? There were some things going on in this organization a year ago that I thought were counterproductive. There was some factioning, and our team needed all the focus it could get.”
A relaxed Henning has not only thrown open practices this season, but before taking the field, he had the media corps out to dinner. On him.
It may be awhile, though, before a changing Henning takes hold in the community. You see, he has his opinions, and although they might not be popular, they aren’t going to change.
“I don’t think I’m different because Bobby’s here,” Henning said. “I had a good relationship with Steve (Ortmayer). I look at Steve leaving here after three years the way I left Atlanta. There are things about Steve that are different. But if Steve had won here, regardless of his personality, his demeanor with the press and his demeanor as an undercover guy, he would have been all right.
“Al Davis won immediately with those same traits, and people think of Al Davis as being successful even though they don’t like him. Steve now has the label that he didn’t win here. But I think he did some things for this franchise.
“During my time here with Steve, his relationship with the owner deteriorated tremendously. That put a great deal of strain on Steve. But I think I would have been capable of working with Steve, and that’s what I told Alex Spanos.”
It’s nothing but honesty. Maybe fuel on the fire for fans who are already unhappy with him, but as Henning told the writers in Atlanta four years ago: “It’s like what Popeye used to say: ‘I am what I am.’ ”
“He’s just stubborn,” said Chris Mortensen, The National’s pro football writer, who covered Falcon football for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Stubborn, and proud of it.
“I think if you would talk to people who played for and coached for Shula, Landry and Noll, stubbornness would be at the top of their list,” Henning said. “I don’t look at that as a negative trait. It gives you direction, an unflappable direction.
“Maybe there is a better word in the dictionary that has a different connotation. But sometimes I think you have to appear that way to get the job done.”
Not opposed to appearing as the overbearing ogre on the sports pages, he explained, he does whatever it takes to make his football team better . . . and the rest of the world be damned.
“That’s all it can be,” he said. “In the overall picture, when you live and die with 10 coaches and 47 players every day, you’re going to try and protect them and help them. If that means I take the heat, and 47 others don’t have to, that’s fine.”
So it’s life again as he began living it in Atlanta in 1983. Portrayed immediately in the media as “Joe Gibbs’ gift to Atlanta,” Henning went over as big on Peachtree Street his first year as he did down Friars Road this past season.
“He was a tough guy to get to know, and there was only one or two of us covering him,” said Mortensen, who professes to be a Henning admirer. “You could get there at 8 a.m., and you might wait until well after midnight to get time to talk with him.
“He’s personable, bright, clever, warm, a family guy, and all of that is irrelevant as far as he’s concerned to what his job is--and that’s to coach football. I mean, he never earned any public relations points, but the day he was fired, they had this newspaper poll, and people overwhelmingly were in his favor. It was amazing, but I think the guy grows on you.”
It takes about a year for the funny stories to be told and a relaxed Henning to materialize. And it takes longer to get used to his changing moods.
Initially, however, there’s the Henning scowl to overcome. And the long-winded, heady football pronouncements that are designed to shunt, if not stop, further questioning.
“Whenever I deal with the media, I try to be as upfront as I can without subordinating the things that I think are most important,” he said. “And that’s the players and the coaches and trying to win football games.
“I’ve often wondered what Casey Stengel was talking about. I think he wanted to tell what was going on, but didn’t want to tell. It’s like you just bluffed somebody in a card game. Now you’d love to tell ‘em exactly how you did it, but then you’d lose the effect later on, and wouldn’t be able to do it again.”
After the course work in the Henning scowl is done and the gobbledygook deciphered, there is still the abrupt Henning to deal with. As the story goes in Atlanta, Henning would line up cigarettes on a table before him and the interview was over when he had taken his last drag--mid-question or mid-answer or whenever.
In San Diego, he answers questions seated in a golf cart with his foot ever-near the gas pedal.
“Somebody told me about the SlimFast commercial I’m in on television,” Henning said. “They said I sounded too brusque. Imagine that.”
Just another day at the office unless it’s one of those sunny days when you catch the Henning grin. It’s a smirk really, but a telltale sign that the witty mind is at work. And buyer beware.
“Everybody has their protective devices,” Henning said, and some obviously more than others.
“I can see where it’s hard for people to get to know Dan,” Beathard said. “Some people never break through that but, if they do, they find a funny guy. A bright guy and an easy person to work with.”
Henning’s predecessor, the politically minded Al Saunders, worked overtime to let everyone know he could be a bright guy, a funny guy and an easy person to work with. But along the way, he left behind both players and front office employees.
“You can tell right away that Dan has the respect of his players,” Beathard said. “In front of the team, I think he’s one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. This guy is really in command. He’s impressive.”
In the locker room, the athletes have been privy to a carefree Henning. They have seen the twinkle in the eye that does not translate in print or on microphone.
They have come to know the practical joker. They have heard the unprintable stories that prompt belly laughs, and one by one, they have been touched by the players’ coach.
“A perfect example is the fake punt,” linebacker Gary Plummer said. “He stepped up and took responsibility for everything, and it definitely was not his fault. The players have to execute the play that’s called, and yet he didn’t think twice about taking it on himself.”
“He’s everything you would want in a head coach,” linebacker Billy Ray Smith said.
“Everybody on the outside looking in think they can be a coach,” safety Vencie Glenn said, “but the people on the outside don’t really understand what he’s doing. He keeps what’s going on inside the organization. He’s not out there trying to sell the fans on his game plan. He’s getting us ready for a game.
“You have to have camaraderie. You can’t be robots like we were in ’87 and ‘88, walking around here, ‘Yes sir’ and ‘No sir.’ You have to be treated like grown men; no college stuff like it was before. He treats you like a professional and expects you to perform like a professional.”
When the 18-hour Monday ends, it’s nearly time for Henning’s 19-hour Tuesday to begin. Wednesday and Thursday might be longer.
“I leave at midnight, and he’s still there,” secondary coach Jim Mora said. “I come back at six in the morning, and he’s there. Maybe he’s never left.”
It’s hard work, and still it’s no guarantee that a team will win more than it loses. Or that a city will come to appreciate effort well-given.
“The most important thing is the win-loss record,” Spanos said. “All other attributes are good, but it’s wins and losses.”
The Marlboro man wouldn’t have it any other way.