Follow the Leaders

There’s nothing more irritating to the ear than country music, unless of course Shania Twain is crooning, but then someone here pointed out she’s from Canada, which doesn’t leave much reason to leave the hotel.

As local highlights go in Music City, there’s a wonderful likeness of the town’s best-known beauty, Minnie Pearl, in the wax museum across from the Opry Hotel.

“Almost the real thing!” as the advertisement suggests.

That’s it for excitement, although there is the Museum of Beverage Containers, but it’s $4 for admission and 20 miles away in Millersville.

Searching further, there’s the Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg, which offers a tour but no samples because it’s in a dry county, and there’s also the Music Valley Car Museum featuring Conway Twitty’s car, but as the lady over the telephone said, “Honey, it’s about the ugliest thing you have ever seen.”

Obviously, she hasn’t been to the wax museum.

There is a movie theater here with 14 auditoriums too, but it went out of business. The Opryland Amusement Park has been torn down to make way for a mall. You could go looking for the Grand Ole Opry, but you won’t find that either because it’s the name of a show, not a building. Anyone who knows who Porter Wagoner is knows that, and probably watches reruns of “Hee Haw.”

On the weekends, even the locals leave town, going to Knoxville en masse to watch the Volunteers. You have to figure when someone enters the Witness Protection Program they are sent to Nashville; that’s why Elvis is living here.

And that’s why the Oilers left Houston after the 1996 season, looking for a fresh start and operating now under the assumed name of the Titans, as if all losses and disappointments have been forgiven.

Take our very own Jeff Fisher, born in Culver City, a Toreador at Taft High in Woodland Hills, but like so many others, a USC alum looking for a remote place to hide out these days.

What a devastating combination: a USC alum and coach of the Houston Oilers since 1994. His perennial 8-8 team will probably take a 21-point lead on the St. Louis Rams on Sunday and then play for a tie. But then if there’s anyone who could sing a song of woe, and that’s the only kind of song these country folk seem to whine, it’s this victimized vagabond.

In a sport where the smallest distractions are likened to a global crisis, Fisher’s team has had to play home games in four stadiums the last four years, answering to the call of the Houston Oilers, the Tennessee Oilers and now the Tennessee Titans, much of the time being booed no matter which banner they played under.

When the Browns announced they were moving to Baltimore, they promptly fell apart, dropping seven of their last eight games. When the Oilers made it known they were Tennessee-bound, Fisher dug deep to get them to finish 8-8--over and over again to prove it was no fluke.

His team went 8-8 in 1998, 8-8 in 1997, 8-8 in 1996, Mr. Mediocre breaking the mold in 1995 with a 7-9 record after posting a 1-5 record as a 36-year-old replacement to Jack Pardee in 1994. Add it up, and by normal NFL standards, that’s a black mark of 32-38 before the 1999 season.

“Nobody else has gone through the things he’s gone through in his early years,” said General Manager Floyd Reese, a former All-American linebacker at UCLA instrumental in hiring a Trojan to coach his team. “This game can kill you anyway, but for him to go through all this stuff and survive it . . . No one is happy with the record, but when you look at what it could have been with all the distractions, he’s done a magnificent job.”

Sounds like the lyrics to Vince Gill’s next groan.

“A head coach would like to talk about winning, but Jeff would have to go into a meeting and talk about when the buses were leaving, and who would be providing lunch and arrangements for families to get to home games on the road [in Memphis],” Reese said. “It’s like anybody. You talk about one thing and they can remember it--you talk about 12 and they don’t remember a thing.”

There is a long list of long-forgotten coaches who were dismissed after being dealt a bad hand because they were stuck with bad owners, bad players or bad luck. Les Steckel, Fisher’s offensive coordinator here, is the NFL’s long-standing example of woebegone opportunities, becoming head coach of the Vikings at 37 and looking for work again at 38.

“That was a concern of mine at the end of our first lame-duck season in Houston,” Fisher said. “At that point, there was still a possibility we were going to play in Houston through 1998, but Mr. [Bud] Adams did what he had to do to get out of that lease.

“It’s hard to win in this league when things are perfect, and your ability to work through distractions is directly related to your success. And we’ve had our share to deal with over the years, almost to the point now where anything that comes up seems trivial.”

That’s because Fisher has a do-over, a second chance to show if he can win more games than he loses. The situation is now stable, the Oilers disguised as Titans in newly designed uniforms and in a newly built stadium, and now Mr. Mediocre, while obviously the master of disaster, has no more excuses.

Although the chance of going 8-8 again still exists, not surprisingly to those who have watched Fisher ride out the turmoil, his team is flourishing in its routine, 5-1 and on the verge of playing the biggest game of the year against the undefeated Rams.

“People will never really know what went on here the past few years, and that’s OK,” droned Fisher, and if he talks like this regularly to his team, it’s a wonder any of them stay awake. “I really believe because of what we went through, there’s going to be something at the end for us.”

Jeff Fisher talking like someone stuck on automatic pilot is, of course, only Jeff Fisher the football coach. He would have played the game without a facemask if allowed. He surfed in California, but there’s nothing laid back in his determination to shove the ball down your throat. He is a football purist, steady in his fire to coach Xs and O’s, which explains in part why he could rise above all the problems offered by a franchise in transition.

“When I took this club over in November 1994, we were a run-and-shoot team,” Fisher said. “On Wednesday I switched to a two-back offense, and we played the Giants in a Monday night game and lost, 13-10. But we had a plan, and support from management, and have always had a focus on what we want to accomplish.”

Fisher, growing up a Ram fan, listing Sandy Koufax as his childhood hero and maybe the only coach in NFL history to surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon, has also been trained well. He was a defensive back for John Robinson at USC--he wasn’t recruited by UCLA--and later became a feisty defender for the Chicago Bears with plans to sell computer software for a company in the Valley upon retirement. But the Philadelphia Eagles’ Buddy Ryan talked him into coaching in 1986, eventually making him the youngest defensive coordinator in the NFL at 31.

After playing and coaching in Ryan’s “46” defense for 10 years, Fisher accepted Robinson’s offer to become the Rams’ defensive coordinator in 1991 and find his own way in the game. It was a discouraging start, a 3-13 campaign followed by Robinson’s departure and the need to find work elsewhere. He accepted a position as secondary coach in San Francisco under George Seifert, the defense-minded head coach.

“The sign above Buddy’s desk the five years we were in Philly was, ‘If you ain’t the lead dog the scenery never changes.’ And that’s the philosophy. You need to make decisions and be held accountable for your decisions, and if you stay on course and believe in what you’re doing, you just have to be successful.”

And if not, “Don’t tell my heart, my achy breaky heart . . . “

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Vermeil vs. Fisher

Dick Vermeil, a former coach at UCLA, and Jeff Fisher, a former cornerback for USC, meet as NFL coaches Sunday:

*

DICK VERMEIL

* AGE: Turns 63 today.

* COACHING EXPERIENCE: * 1997-present--head coach/president of football operations, St. Louis Rams; * 1976-82--head coach, Philadelphia Eagles; * 1974-75--head coach, UCLA; * 1971-73--special teams/quarterback coach, Los Angeles Rams; * 1969--special teams coach, Los Angeles Rams.

* CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: * 1975--won Pacific 8 championship, defeated top-ranked Ohio State in the Rose Bowl; * 1978--led Eagles to first playoffs since 1960, NFC coach of the year; * 1979--led Eagles to tie for first in NFC East, NFL coach of the year, NFC coach of the year; * 1980--led Eagles to Super Bowl.

* CAREER COACHING RECORD (INCLUDES PLAYOFFS): * UCLA--15-5-3 (.717); * Philadelphia: 57-51-0 (.528); * St. Louis: 15-23 (.394)

JEFF FISHER

* AGE: 41.

* COACHING EXPERIENCE: * 1994-present--head coach, Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans; * 1994--defensive coordinator, Houston; * 1992-93--defensive backs coach, San Francisco 49ers; * 1991--defensive coordinator, Los Angeles Rams; * 1988-90--defensive coordinator, Philadelphia Eagles; * 1986-88--defensive backs coach, Philadelphia.

* CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: * 1988--became NFL’s youngest defensive coordinator; * 1989--Philadelphia defense led the NFL in interceptions and sacks; * 1990--Philadelphia defense led the NFL in rushing yards allowed.

* CAREER COACHING RECORD: Houston/Tennessee: 37-39 (.486)

OILERS / TITANS SINCE MOVING TO TENNESSEE

Through 6 Games (Finish)

1997: 2-4 (8-8)

1998: 3-3 (8-8)

1999: 5-1