Friday, February 5: Bruce Allen Hasn't Eaten Dessert Since Super Bowl VII
Posted by Matt Terl on February 5, 2010 – 10:08 am
One thing I get horribly sick of during Super Bowl week is the endless parade of retired NFL players circling media row, answering the same questions on EVERY sportstalk radio show under the sun. It’s like Groundhog Day for Barry Sanders, the one week of the year that he pokes his head out to see the sun, and I could not possibly be less interested in what he has to say or whatever product he’s selling.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some interesting guests. It’s always nice to hear from former Redskins, for example (and, to be fair, I imagine the Detroit fans get pretty excited for Barry Sanders), and it’s also good to hear what actual current players and front office types have to offer.
So I had no problem with new Redskins Executive Vice President/General Manager Bruce Allen making the circuit yesterday. He turned up at least twice on ESPN980, first on the John Thompson Show (which Gary Fitzgerald wrote about over at the Redskins.com mothership) and later on The Sports Reporters with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin.
I’ll have more on Allen’s comments there later today (or you can listen yourself in the Corona Audio Vault), but he started off answering a question about the worst loss in Redskins history. And it was clear that — for him — there was no question: Super Bowl VII. That’s him after the game in the AP photo above right, head in his hands, a portrait of abject misery.
The Redskins lost to the Dolphins 14-7 that day, and it changed Bruce Allen’s life — and his diet — irrevocably.
“It was dramatically painful,” Allen said. “Ironically, last night I was at a dinner where we were honoring Coach Don Shula for the Moffitt Cancer Center. And Coach Shula and I were still talking about the game and the fact that he got the officials to give him a good call on a fumble that we should’ve recovered at the 25 and he was on the competition committee.
“But the importance of that game? The last time I’ve ever eaten a dessert was January 13, 1973. I’ve never had cake, ice cream, pie, or anything since that day, because there was a family tradition: I would always have a banana split the night before the game with my dad. And the games we lost that year, I didn’t do it [beforehand]. It was a good luck ritual.
“And what happened was, some of our fans found out about it, and they sent, like, eighteen banana splits to my room that night. You know, ‘Don’t forget to eat your banana split!’ So I ate eighteen banana splits, stayed up until four in the morning watching John Wayne movies, and we lost the game. And I said, ‘I’m never gonna have another dessert the rest of my life.’”
Later, Allen summed up the feeling even more bluntly. “I know it’s important to our fans, but it does scar us,” he said. “Every loss, there’s a scar, and especially when you get to that game, that Super Bowl game, it really is a painful part of your life.”
Tags: bruce allen, BruceAllen, espn980, Media, super bowl vii, SuperBowlVii
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