THE OLD LINEBACKER is slowing down these days. Fred Whittingham, a museum piece from pro football's golden days, has settled into middle age, to coaching at the University of Utah, to doting on grandchildren. Even his wife Nancy is struck occasionally by the dichotomy: the tough old linebacker tenderly rocking his grandchildren to sleep. This is the man who once played with such ferocity on and off the field that they called him Mad Dog.
Now Whittingham - a man who spent a wayward boyhood hopping trains and getting into trouble; a man who somehow wound up at BYU, albeit smoking cigarettes; a man who played football, dabbled in boxing, and sampled the night life liberally; a man who seems to have spent a lifetime smoothing the rough edges - this man says he has mellowed, although perhaps not entirely by choice.The hard living has caught up with him. His body is a wreck, although you'd never know it to look at his muscular 6-foot-2, 210 pounds. But the pain is always there. It has forced him to give up even his milder pursuits of handball and racquetball. His joints can handle nothing more strenuous than cycling or swimming, and that is the worst part of it all. Pain is one thing, but where does he channel all those fiery competitive instincts, all that raging intensity? Into drawing Xs and Os?
The knees that once chased Gale Sayers are chronically stiff and sore, and he walks like a barefoot man on crushed glass. He has arthritis and pain in his neck and a herniated disk in his back from smashing into the likes of Jim Brown. The fingers he used to grab Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas and Fran Tarkenton and other legends are permanently bent.
He never complains about the pain, but there are days when it registers clearly in his face. "Does it hurt?" his wife Nancy will ask.
"Hell yes it hurts," he says.
But that's all he'll say.
Two-a-day practices are the worst. All that standing around. When Whittingham was between coaching jobs last year he thought about doing something less physically demanding, but what? Football is all he has known. Football saved him from almost certain trouble in his youth, and then later as a man. He loves everything about the game, and so he accepts the pain quietly as the price of the bargain, no regrets.
In the end, Whittingham took a job as defensive coordinator at Utah, where he thrives on working with young men in need of direction. He knows all about needing direction.
There are two things Whittingham won't discuss: his age and his adoption. Ask about the latter, and he squirms in his chair, embarrassed and speechless. Adoption is no excuse for his teenage troubles, he says, and he wants none of the sympathy it might invite. End of discussion.
Growing up in Warwick, R.I., he ran with the wrong crowd. He was free-spirited, independent, fun-loving. At 16, he and his buddies stole a car and set out for Florida. When the car ran out of gas, they jumped a train, riding between the cars or in freight cars. They lived off what they could steal - milk from doorsteps, bread from delivery trucks. Two weeks later they returned home, but a year later they hit the road again. Whittingham, an all-state halfback, missed half of his senior football season because he took off on another cross-country tour.
Pitt, Miami, Penn State and Virginia all wanted him to play for their football teams, but they couldn't touch him. He graduated from high school with a D average, and no teacher or school official would recommend him for college. But then Hal Kopp, who had just become head coach at BYU after coaching at Rhode Island, showed up at graduation ceremonies.
"I've got your scholarship in my pocket," he told Whittingham.
Whittingham started school at BYU on probation, but otherwise he had no idea what he was getting into. There were strict rules at BYU, and he broke them. He smoked. He fought. He drank. He caroused. He partied. He swore. Someone heard of his fistfights and steered him to boxing. He won all 21 of his fights, 15 by knockout, and won the heavyweight division of the Golden Gloves tournament. He was a star in the ring and on the gridiron, but the rest of his act didn't sit well at BYU.
"They asked me to leave after two years," he recalls. "I was going to leave anyway."
Whittingham finished his collegiate football career at Cal Poly, then tried out with the Los Angeles Rams. Thus began a decade-long professional career. He played guard, defensive end and linebacker during three years with the Rams. During the next seven years, he played linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, the New Orleans Saints, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Eagles again.
He was an intense, aggressive, physical player, a punishing tackler, and if that style of play broke his body it also probably saved his life. He was laid up in a hospital with a concussion when the plane carrying his Cal Poly teammates crashed into a mountain side, killing 14.
Whittingham was a dominating player at times during his pro career. In 1968, he was once named NFL Player of the Week after collecting 19 tackles (13 unassisted) in the Saints' upset win over the Minnesota Vikings. One sports writer said of Whittingham, "He reminds the beholder of the stands-up, fists-extended breed of pugilist that vanished with the buffalo."
Whittingham was forced to quit in 1971. The injuries had taken their toll and robbed him of his mobility. His Achilles tendon had been surgically repaired and rebuilt two times, his right knee three times, both with the aid of grafts. He left body and soul on the field. Those perfect white teeth are not the original models. He has had three more operations on the bad knee, which is permanently swollen and disfigured.
All this notwithstanding, Whittingham says, "I had a great time. It's hard to explain. I loved playing the game, I loved preparing for games, I loved the camaraderie. I miss it."
When he was finished playing, Whittingham became a coach and two years later accepted a position at, ironically, BYU - the place that had given him the boot years. "Amazing, isn't it," he says. By then he was a family man, settled in and tame by most standards. His wild days had continued into his pro career. He and his teammates partied regularly into the wee hours and then practiced the next day. But as his children grew he saw a need to change. He didn't want them to follow his footsteps, but in some ways they did. Three of his four sons - Kyle, Cary and Fred Jr. - starred for the BYU football team, and two of them served missions for their church.
After nine years at BYU, and nine more coaching the Rams, Whittingham joined the Utah staff last spring. He considered another profession, but the ties run deep.
"If it hadn't been for football, I'd never gotten to college, I never would have coached," says Whittingham. "Who knows, maybe I would have gone from bad to worse. But I think I knew all along where I wanted to go."
It just took him a while to get there.