He Has Too Much Class to Gloat

Listen. Have you ever been fired from a job and, in your dreams, fantasized about coming back for another company and conspiring to put your former company and boss out of business?

Have you ever been rejected socially or fraternally as not equal to, even inferior to, your former associates and plotted to come back and make them pay for their rejection?

Heady stuff, right?

They tell us revenge is an unworthy motive. A sick response. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Vengeance is desolation, said William Tecumseh Sherman.

Hah. It’s sweet getting even. You sleep better knowing you have settled a score, right? Let the philosophers warn that vengeance is an empty emotion. What do they know?

So, I go down to the locker room at the Coliseum Sunday to see an old colleague who had cashed in on the most basic of emotions, the get-even, the mood of well-how-do-you-like-it?

I found Marcus Allen toweling his neck. He had crushed a team that let him go with a shrug last year after 11 years of star performance for them.

Marcus had run for an average of five yards against his former mates, the Raiders. He had scored, almost by himself, the most important touchdown, the one that broke the Raiders’ back.

Here was the situation: the Raiders were in command, 17-7, in the middle of the third quarter. Kansas City had the ball on L.A.’s 44-yard line. The ball was given to Marcus. He darted, twisted, faked and juked his way through the entire defense, burst open and dashed down to the Raider five. Two plays later, he took the ball again and negotiated the toughest four yards in the game, the last four into the end zone. He carried a Raider safety on his back the last two.

It was the back breaker. It put the Chiefs back in the game, it buoyed them, it shook the Raiders. It was the difference, really.

“Aren’t you going to gloat?” I asked Allen at his locker. I was ready for the wicked gleam in his eye, the I’ve-got-a-secret look. I was waiting for him to beat his chest and crow. After all, this is a sport now where they dance in the end zone after touchdowns, jump in the air with fists raised after sacks, taunt pursuers when they get open, wave the ball in their faces and otherwise humiliate them past the line of scrimmage. I was ready for some major trash-talking.

“Hey!” I said to Allen. “Aren’t you going to say, ‘I wonder how they like that!’ Aren’t you going to say, ‘This was a team I won a Super Bowl for with a 74-yard run from scrimmage for a touchdown and 191 yards total that day. This was a team I rushed for 8,500 yards for in the regular season, scored 98 touchdowns, caught more than 400 passes. This was a team that brought in Bo Jackson, Eric Dickerson and a half-dozen other all-timers, but every time they wanted to score, they gave the ball to Marcus.’ ”

“Aren’t you going to add, ‘This was a town where I was the biggest hero since O.J. Simpson, where I went to the Rose Bowl twice, won the Heisman, had 11 200-yard rushing games. I sold tickets, baby! And they put me on a bus. And then they told me to clean out my locker and that they would see me around.’ ”

Well, that’s what we were hoping for. Gloat sells. Gloat makes headlines.

But Allen simply stood there with this typical small smile on his face. He is leaving vengeance to the Lord.

“I know it makes wonderful copy,” he began, “but really, I didn’t feel any special enjoyment out of this. It’s just one game. The good news is, we won.

“I’d rather let sleeping dogs lie. I was here a long time and the fans welcomed me today as if I were still one of their own, and that warmed my heart.

“I know NBC and ESPN and all made a big thing of it. But I’d like to say right now there were never any hard feelings between me and (Raider coach) Art (Shell). We spoke before the game and I have great respect for him.”

How about (owner) Al Davis? Allen is asked. He smiled. “No. We didn’t speak,” he answers.

“I was just glad to put some points on the board. But it was just a road game. It was a very big win for us, not for Marcus Allen. After all, what we’re about is, we’re trying to win a division, not get even with anybody.”

Well, it was hardly King Lear. More like that other Marcus--Marcus Antonius--who said he had come to praise Caesar, not to bury him. This Marcus came to bury the Raiders, not to censure them. For they, too, are all honorable men.

Marcus’ mission is not revenge, it’s the Super Bowl, he told reporters.

A Super Bowl? For his new team? Now, that would be revenge. Worthy of Marcus Antonius--to say nothing of Marcus Allen.