5803 Victory Boulevard
The sequel to "Seventy-five yards more"
By: Richard Linde, 30 May 2003

His right eyelid quivering, Rick Neuheisel lay back on the leather couch, staring at the ceiling.  “This twitching, the tick--or whatever--has been with me ever since Barbara chewed me out for interviewing with Terry Donahue and the 49ers job. The twitch, the nervousness, they come and go”

Removing an unlit, briar pipe from his mouth, Dr. Coyle repeated his message, “It’s all part of a deep-seated guilt complex you have and about your fixation with perfection. Remember, too, you've been cross-examined by the NCAA, reprimanded by an ethics committee, caught lying by an eavesdropping reporter and, most likely, have been run aground by your boss. Way too much stress for anyone. As I said, the Dobie visitations, his ghost-like appearances are totally imaginary, most likely part of your dreams at night."

“His comings and goings seem so real to me.” The languid coach, who'd been playing golf in the off-season, sought a more comfortable position on the couch, lest a back spasm were to bring forth a howl of pain.

He stared at Coyle, whose long, thick hair gave him the appearance of a TV minister.

The psychoanalyst continued. “Having never lost a game, Gil Dobie is the epitome of perfection. There will never be another Dobie, not Rick Neuheisel, not anybody. A record of 58-0-3, imagine that. Now forget him and his blasted record, and be your own man. Because he was a bullying sort and because you harbor a great deal of guilt about the 49ers interview, et al, it’s no wonder that he picks on you—in your dreams, of course.”

Neuheisel sat up, his eyelid free from the annoying tick. "Thank you, Doctor Coyle. I feel a lot better now. But what about the photo of Annika Sorenstam that Dobie left during his last visit? It’s in my briefcase. Here let me get it.”

"No, that won't be necessary."

Fumbling with the front snap, his hands trembling, Neuheisel managed to open the bulging briefcase, and as he reached inside for the photograph, inadvertently turned the briefcase upside down, spilling a large pile of letters on the rug.

Annoyed, Doctor Coyle tapped his pipe loudly against an ashtray, removing some imaginary ashes from the bowl. “My God, what are these? There must be a thousand grubby looking letters. Hmm, most of them with X’s and O’s written on them, as far as I can see.”

With a whimsical look on his face, his eyes turned downward, the 42-year old coach raised both hands forlornly, palms upward, “Plays."

"Football plays?"

"Yes, plays the alums and fans have sent in to me, mostly running plays. I go over them at night, searching for a gem or two, maybe there’s some serendipity there. You know.”

“Letters from fans; football plays! Get rid of them; dump them in the fireplace and burn them. Forget the photo of Sorenstam. Burn that too. Now listen. Barbara Hedges has arranged a meeting for you in Los Angeles tomorrow, near the airport, a meeting with Don James, Jim Owens and Jim Lambright. No one will know about the meeting.”

Reinserting the empty pipe in his mouth, Coyle sucked rapidly on the well-chewed stem, drawing in air to aid an imaginary lighting, before blowing out imaginary smoke.

He's crazier than I am, Neuheisel thought, and decided to tease him. “He will know about the meeting,” the coach replied, crossing his eyes like an actor playing Randal McMurhpy.

“Huh?”

“The guy who is following me will know about it.”

“Who’s following you?” Doctor Coyle looked alarmed and began taking notes on his pad.

“Ted Miller. He writes for the P-I. He’s at every practice, and I see him on Fox Northwest at night.”

“Miller is a beat writer, isn’t he? That’s his job, to be at every practice. My, God, Rick…”

Neuheisel cut him short, laughing aloud. “Just a joke.”

Both of them laughed heartily. “Rick, you’re on the road to recovery. A sense of humor is the first sign." Dr. Coyle set his notepad down and shook his patient’s hand as he left the office.

"I try to joke as much as I can, and..." The analyst shut the office door before he could finish his sentence.

The next morning, with briefcase in hand, Rick Neuheisel stepped out of the terminal area at LAX to hail a cab. A quintessential June day at the airport, it was cool and cloudy, with a light breeze off the ocean. He hailed down a cab from Gloomy Gil’s Cab Company, and remembered what Doctor Coyle had said about all the strange coincidences in his life, “just coincidences, Rick, nothing else.”

A swarthy cabdriver opened the rear door for him. “Where do ‘ya want to go, buddy?”

Fumbling for the note Hedges had left him, he pulled several pieces of paper out of his pocket,  “42 slant right, on white."

"Huh?"

"Check, ah, right here in Westchester, ah, 5803 Victory Boulevard.”

“There is no Victory Boulevard in Westchester.”

“Well, set the address in your bloody navigation system,” Neuheisel said impatiently.

The cab driver clumsily punched in the address on the touch screen, fat fingering some of the buttons, eventually getting the address correctly inserted. “Ah, yeah, Victory is between La Tijera and Aviation Boulevards.”

Sighing, Neuheisel sat back in the cab, resting his head against the headrest of his seat. A woman’s voice from the navigation system began to call out the route, and he stared at the touch screen as it highlighted their progress. “Amazing things, they are. Sepulveda Boulevard; at one time it was the gateway to the valley from here.”

“Ugh, still is with all the traffic on 405?”

“Could you turn that woman’s voice down a bit? It’s irritating. Like an Army drill sergeant, 'left, right, left'..."

“You have a female boss?” the driver joked. Neuheisel said nothing, hugging his bulging briefcase with all the fans' X's and O's inside, as if he were a young boy hugging a large Beanie Baby.  

“You have arrived at your destination,” the pleasant voice from the navigation system announced.

Because it was just a ten-minute drive from the airport, Neueheisel tipped the driver generously, and then walked into the building and took an elevator to the tenth floor. The meeting room was guarded by a frowsy-looking security guard who needed to lose weight and trim his mustache. Barbara says we need to cut costs, but this guy is unreal, the coach opined to himself.

"Coach Neuheisel. They're waiting for you," the guard said, and he let him in.

"Are you related to Mike Bellotti?"

"Huh?"

"Forget it."

The purple walls of the meeting room were lined with portraits and photographs of every head football coach who had been at Washington. Dobie, Bagshaw, Phelan, Cherberg, Odell, Welch, Root--all of them. Hastily, the young coach looked around for his picture. Yes, there it was, next to Lambright's.

Three former Washington coaches—Owens, James and Lambright— were seated at the table in the center of the large room, and rose from their seats, each greeting him warmly with a shake of the hand. “Rick, so glad to see you.”

“Big fella, all the way from Montana, and Don in from Arizona…Lambo. Guys I’m so honored, really.” He hesitated, a serious look on his face. "Barbara isn’t going to fire me, is she?” They all broke out laughing.

“Nothing like that,” Lambright replied, his face twitching a bit. He poured Neuheisel some coffee and the meeting began.

As the coaching emeritus of the group, Jim Owens opened the discussion. “Let’s get down to business. Barbara arranged this meeting, coach. She says you’ve been under a lot of stress at work, the kind of stress we had in our formative years, and she thought we could be of help.”

"I'm under a lot of stress, but the reasons for it, I'm not at liberty to...I've a solution to one of my problems."

To the horrified expressions on the faces of the others in the room, Neuheisel dumped the contents of his briefcase on the conference table, some of the letters falling to the rug. "In this pile of letters are running plays..."

Don James interrupted, turning his head away from the pile of letters, with what looked to be hastily scribbled annotations on many of them. “Let me cut to the chase, Rick. We know what's bothering you. When we coached at Washington, all of us received nocturnal, ghostly visitations from Gil Dobie.

"You did?"

"Yes, all of us. Dobie's an integral part of the Washington program, and always will be. His visages are a well-kept secret that only the Husky coaching fraternity is aware of--and, of course, Doctor Coyle. According to the paranormals, dead people like...”

Nueheisel cut him short. For the first time in months, he appeared ebullient. “You guys are saints. Really, if only you had told me about Dobie sooner.”

“We all thought you needed a wakeup call,” James replied, “especially after you took the 49er interview, and then prevaricated about it.”

The young coach thought of a joke, which was in the vein of his last comment. "Before I send my recruiting coordinator, Chuck Heater, over to Maui, I always ask him, 'WHY-a-LIE-a-today when you can CON-a POLY-to-Maui?'"

Silence. "You know, Wailea and Kaanapali. Ah, con a Polynesian tomorrow." They're a tough audience Neuheisel thought, and then continued.

“Gilmore Dobie is responsible for all of my stress, part and parcel. Since I took the interview, he won’t leave me alone; he’s been coming to my house almost every week. Imagine seeing a ghost at night, worrying about your sanity, only to find out the apparition is real. If there were a way to get rid of him, I’d begin to sleep at night.”

James stared out one of the windows, at the low clouds set in motion by a Catalina Eddy. "June gloom in LA."

Neuheisel thought of a joke to follow his last comment, one that would demonstrate his improved outlook on life. “Tom Hanks says that 'no one sleeps in Seattle at night because of all the coffee they drink at Starbucks in the daytime.’”

The joke fell flat on its face, like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning. Next time, he would laugh at his own jokes, the young coach decided.

Lambright tried to clear the stale air leftover from Neuheisel's bomb, “Rick. Dobie is a bully. He bullied his players, he bullied Dr. Suzzallo, he bullied the press and now he’s bullying you. His players were all scared to death of him, especially one of his quarterbacks, Wee Coyle.”

Owens added to Lambright’s thoughts, “Rick, there is one sure way to get rid of him.”

“What’s that? I’ve done everything he’s asked, even installed a new running game. I apologized to him for taking the 49er interview.”

“Dobie doesn’t give a fig about the 49ers. I’m sure he hoped you would get the message by now.”

“What message?”

With a wide smile on his handsome face, Owens answered him. “It’s what won games for us. It’s why my ’59 Montlake Boys beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl; it’s why James won in the national championship in ’91; it’s why Lambright snapped Miami’s home-game winning streak. It’s why Husky Stadium is filled with fans. It’s the one thing you’ve forgotten, the reason Dobie won’t leave you alone, the reason he began to leave us alone.”

“The running game? Am I too easy on my players? Is it my guitar playing? Am I passing the ball too much?”

“Hell, no,” they shouted in unison. “It’s DEFENSE. Defense wins football games.”

“Guys, I was conning you. I knew you wanted to say that, and I appreciate it. I’ve been working on the defense with Snow and Hundley, the formidableness of which may surprise a lot of people this year, including Dobie." He looked up at the ceiling and smiled, “I know defense is important, but never thought it would get rid of the Apostle of Grief. Bye, bye, Gilmore, nice knowing you.”

They all laughed as they prepared to leave, and amidst the fumbling of briefcases, the lanky Owens asked, "Where shall we eat lunch, Rick, you're familiar with this area?"

"At the Zebra Cafe in Marina Del Rey. It's a fitting name and place for a guy who can't count to 11."

"We've all made mistakes, Rick." Owens said reassuringly.

" I won't need these letters." Neuheisel hesitated, then picked up the pile of X's and O's and dumped them in a wastebasket.

Later, after they left for lunch, the security guard, thinking he'd fallen upon the holy grail of Washington football, emptied the wastebasket of its annotated letters, wrapped them in a box, and mailed them to his uncle, Coach Mike Bellotti of Oregon.

A small blurb, an AP story, appeared in the Seattle papers the next day.

"Yesterday, Rick Neuheisel, head football coach at the University of Washington, met with three former Husky coaches at an office building located at 5803 Victory Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Former coaches Don James, Jim Owens and Jim Lambright, all who attended the meeting, would not disclose the purpose of their discussions, other than to say they ‘all wanted to wish Neuheisel well.’

When asked about the purpose of the meeting, Neuheisel replied, ’I met some ghostbusters at 5803 Victory Boulevard? Maybe they should rename it Freedom Boulevard.'"

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This article was preceded by "Seventy-five yards more," the first story in what hopefully will be a two-part series, that depending on how well the Dawgs' defense performs in '03 and on what game plan Mike Bellotti prepares for Washington.

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Author's note:

None of the incidents depicted in this story are true, this being a fictionalized spoof on college coaching that pokes fun at head coach Rick Neuheisel and his staff at Washington. As far as I know, Neuheisel is a devoted father and husband who has a great deal of integrity. Bright, witty and articulate, Neuheisel is hardly the buffoon this story presents nor is he a person in need of counseling. His secondary recruiting violations at Colorado resulted in sanctions that were unfair to Washington and himself. Furthermore, Neuheisel had every right to seek a better future for himself and his family by interviewing for the head coaching job with the San Francisco 49ers. In light of the circumstances, his mendacity was understandable and has been blown out of proportion by a few fans, as well as some members of the media.