Getting His Kicks : McInally Left NFL for Business World

Pat McInally’s mid-life crisis came a little earlier than most.

There he was in the summer of 1986, at a party after a premiere for the movie “About Last Night,” mingling with three former Harvard classmates who seemed to dwarf the 6-foot-6 McInally.

There was Jeff Sagansky, then president of Tri-Star Pictures who has since become president of CBS Entertainment. And Ed Zwick, who directed the movie and went on to co-create and produce the popular series, “thirtysomething.” And Brock Patrick Walsh, who wrote several songs for the film.

And what had McInally, then 33, accomplished since college?

Let’s see, he played professional football for the Cincinnati Bengals for 10 years, leading the NFL in punting in 1976 and ’78. He caught 57 passes for 808 yards. He played in Super Bowl XVI.

In other words, not much.

“I looked at them and thought, ‘Gosh, I’m really falling behind,’ ” McInally said. “That really weighed on me.”

McInally had been looking forward to a good year in 1986 and said he was in the best shape he had ever been in. But after one weekend of training camp, he quit, took his bag of footballs and went home.

“My wife was shocked, but I knew if I was going to reach my goals, I would have to step away from football,” McInally, now 38, said. “I wanted to be in a field where I could have more impact, and punting was really limited.”

These days, McInally’s business interests seem to have no limits. A former Villa Park High School athlete who will be inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame Oct. 29, McInally writes a weekly syndicated sports advice column, called “Pat Answers For Kids,” that appears in about 30 papers nationwide.

He wrote one book, called “Moms&Dads;, Kids&Sports;,” which was published in 1987, and is currently working on another book aimed at mothers with children in youth sports.

McInally and his wife, Leslie, have developed a line of dolls--small replicas of football, basketball and baseball players--for a major toy company. They also recently completed a deal to produce figurines of the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball team.

But the big project, which has been four years in the making, is just getting under way. Last spring, McInally launched a company called GoodSports For Life, Inc., an umbrella organization for McInally’s many ventures that will serve athletes from youngsters to senior citizens.

The program will cover all aspects of sports, from parent-child and coach-athlete relationships to the prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries.

There’s a monthly newsletter, which is being distributed in 281 convenience and drug stores in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus. On Nov. 4, a daily radio program called the “GoodSports Minute,” will begin airing in those cities.

McInally has negotiated a deal to syndicate a daily, six-inch newspaper feature. His goal is to have all three projects--the newsletter, radio program and newspaper feature--syndicated nationally.

“I’m trying to be a conduit to the people, to use this as a catalyst for the tremendous amount of resources I can connect with,” McInally said. “I know athletes, coaches, sports psychologists, agents, management people, media people, parents. . . .

“I’m trying to take the knowledge they have and put it in easy-to-understand terms for people. That’s always been my goal. The gift I’ve been given of growing up in a balanced family, I’m trying to pass that on.”

McInally said his father, Jack, was always supportive but never overbearing when it came to athletics. His mother, Peggy, always stressed academics over sports.

What they helped create in Pat was a very well-adjusted child who starred in the athletic and academic fields. He played football, basketball, track and tennis at Villa Park and turned down a basketball scholarship at UC Irvine to attend Harvard in 1971.

McInally was going to play basketball at Harvard, but two days before football began, he decided to go out for the team “just to meet friends,” he said. He never made it to the basketball program.

On his first play for the freshman team, he caught a 55-yard touchdown pass. He went on to become the first Harvard football All-American since 1941 and was a fourth-round pick of the Bengals in 1975.

His quirky sense of humor and his Ivy League experience and education--McInally graduated with honors with a degree in U.S. History--provided the foundation for some funny moments in the NFL, and even before he reached the pros.

In the fall of 1984, a scout representing the NFL combine visited McInally at Harvard to administer a standard questionnaire given to all potential draftees. The first question: Is 11 p.m. before or after midnight?

McInally looked at the scout. The scout looked at McInally.

“I said, ‘I can’t commit myself,’ ” McInally said. “The scout said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘It depends on the day. Midnight is after 11 p.m. on one day but before 11 p.m. another day.

“He marked down, ‘Wrong answer.’ ”

McInally went on to do rather well on the test, but he’s heard some wild stories about some other players who were tested.

“One of the great ones was a guy was asked his preference of church, and he wrote, ‘Brick,’ ” McInally said.

One time former Dallas Cowboy lineman Randy White, among a group of players, asked McInally what his offensive line averaged at Harvard. McInally said 3.8.

“Talk about a moment of silence,” McInally said. “No one got it.”

On a bus trip in New York, Bengal rookies were asked to name as many out-of-state license plates as they could.

“We saw plates from Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, and then someone saw a plate from West Virginia,” McInally said. “One guy said, ‘Hey, you don’t get credit for telling what part of the state the license plate is from.’ ”

A few years ago, McInally had a chance to write his memoirs with noted author George Plimpton, who wanted to chronicle the life and times of an Ivy League guy in the NFL. McInally even had a title picked out: “At Least I Can Spell NFL.” But McInally turned down the offer. “It just didn’t fit into what I’m trying to do, because my focus is on trying to be an advocate for families,” McInally said. “But it would have been funny.”

You know you’ve had a different college football experience when the game program describes you as a “6-6, 210-pound marionette, who looks as though he were strung together by some football-crazed Gepetto. He will break from the Harvard huddle and toddle off to the sideline with his wooden, herky-jerky gait. The pumping of his long, bowed legs will cause his shoulders to jiggle at crazy angles. . . . “

Don’t expect to read something like that in the Oklahoma media guide.

“That was a little different,” McInally said.

When McInally retired from football and joined ESPN as a color commentator, he said one of the most exciting things about the job was visiting places such as South Bend, Ind., Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Baton Rouge, La., where football is more than a game--it’s religion.

“We had fans at Harvard,” McInally said. “But they were always busy reading.”

Indeed, people seemed to have different priorities at Harvard, which will never be known as an incubator for the NFL.

“It wasn’t that prestigious being an All-American there--it was more important to prove yourself academically,” McInally said. “If anything, there was a prejudice against athletes. I was anything but a campus hero.”

McInally was anything but a great punter in high school or college, even though he said he punted almost every day of his life from the age of 8. He was a quarterback and kicker at Villa Park but didn’t win the punting job until his senior season. He played receiver at Harvard and didn’t punt until his senior year, when he had a modest 38.3-yard average.

A Bengal scout who watched McInally in the 1975 College All-Star Game told him, “You had a great game as a receiver, but you certainly will never punt in the NFL.”

But that’s all McInally ever wanted to do.

“If there’s anything I miss, it’s being on a field with a bag of balls and my dad and my wife,” McInally said. “It’s my favorite thing to do in the world. I even punted 12 out of 14 days on my honeymoon in Hawaii. My wife snapped, and we’d chase the balls together. That’s romantic, huh? What else is there to do on Kauai?”

The Bengals drafted McInally as a receiver and, after he missed his first season because of an injury, McInally went on to win the punting job. He led the NFL in 1978 with a 45.4-yard average and in 1976 with a 43.1-yard average.

He had a 42.3-yard average in 1985, and was still an excellent punter, but the challenge for him seemed to dissipate when the Bengals took him out of their receiver rotation. Suddenly, McInally was left with the one thing he loved--punting--but it wasn’t enough.

It became harder and harder to concentrate on such lofty subjects as hang time when McInally was more concerned with life after football.

Then he met his Harvard classmates at the movie premiere, and McInally knew it was time to look for another career.

“At that point, I decided I was going to fall too far behind unless I started focusing on life after football,” McInally said. “Football took up a great deal of time and limited my opportunities. Retiring was a big gamble, and it wasn’t easy. But I never regretted leaving football.”

Hall of Fame Banquet Facts

WHAT: 11th Orange County Hall of Fame Banquet.

WHEN: Tuesday, Oct. 29.

WHERE: Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim.

HIGHLIGHTS: Tickets, $100 each or $1,000 for a table of 10, can be secured by calling (714) 935-0199. The affair (cocktails at 6 p.m, dinner at 7) will include the induction of Pat McInally, Bruce Penhall, Dwight Stones, Shirley Topley, Bobby Knoop, Homer Beatty, Bill Cook, Alex Omalev and Bertha Ragan Tickey.