Jim McMahon accomplished something greater than any game, any "Hail Mary," and any Super Bowl season. Jim overcame not just a disability, but a stereotype often given to nonmember athletes who don't fit the square peg — he got a degree. – Trevor Wilson
I was inundated with emails about my piece on Jim McMahon’s graduation, jersey retirement and induction into BYU’s Hall of Fame from a few weeks ago. The response was overwhelmingly positive, but I expected some would maintain McMahon isn’t worthy of recognition, even with his challenge of early stage dementia as he labored to earn his BYU degree.
One of those detractors came from a BYU grad, former professor at Utah State and former mission president. He wrote, “I appreciated what you wrote about Jim. I don’t doubt his right to be included in the BYU Hall of Fame but let’s not go overboard on the accolades. Jim was OK and had some brilliant moments but the ‘greatest?’ Independent reviewers didn’t honor him with the Heisman nor did they give him serious consideration ….”
He cited a former BYU basketball player with whom he roomed and had a similar reputation for carousing and frequenting bars up and down Utah Valley but “neither received significant discipline because if you were really good in those days folks tended to turn a deaf ear to what you were doing. I believe that statistics would support the premise that there have been many records broken before Jim and since. His bad language and antics even to this day are pretty much a mockery to the way football is conducted at BYU today.”
Well sir, one reason I go overboard on the accolades is specifically because of sentiments like yours. I will do so again today, with anecdotes of private time spent with Jim that in its entirety, gives a more balanced view of who he is. So much of what we know about McMahon is of his many antics, which he often does deliberately and never denies. Like him or not, he’s no hypocrite. Jimmy Mac loves cold beers, is profane and flawed in so many ways. But he has a soft side that he carefully guards. Our mutual friend, Charles Barkley, likes to say there are two kinds of athletes: those who are jerks privately but publicly portray they’re good guys; and those who are good guys but are publicly portrayed as jerks. Mac and Chuck are both in the latter category.
“Jim was OK”?? Are you kidding me? He set 32 NCAA records in 1980, including single-season records for total offense (4,627), passing yards (4,571), touchdown passes (47) and passing efficiency (176.9). Those numbers reflect games in which he mostly sat in the fourth quarter, sometimes most of the second half. At the end of his career, he left BYU with 70 NCAA records. Had he played in South Bend or Ann Arbor or Tuscaloosa, the New York Athletic Club would’ve Fed-Exed its trophy to his dumpy apartment, but BYU and the WAC were still widely considered eight-man flag football by Heisman voters. McMahon finished an embarrassing fifth — FIFTH!!! Quarterback Mark Herrmann of Purdue, who threw 24 fewer touchdowns, even finished ahead of him, as did Pitt DE Hugh Green.
Jim did a little better his senior year, moving up two spots to finish third to USC’s Marcus Allen. This, of course, was at a time when Heisman voters were enamored with running backs and regarded quarterbacks as simply “facilitators” who handed the ball to record-breaking tailbacks.
My last column dealt with our first meeting and how our relationship developed my freshman year. But it was my father, of all people, who cemented our bond through three-plus decades and teammates in college and the NFL, in a fight, of all things.
It happened my sophomore year and Jim’s senior year. We traveled in mid-October 1981 to San Diego to play the Aztecs. The last time the Cougars played there was 1979 and Marc Wilson embarrassed the Aztecs in front of a national television audience by throwing four touchdowns on his first three attempts. It turned into a slaughter. Their new head coach, Doug Scovil, had been our offensive coordinator the previous year and publicly stated he was the secret ingredient to our success and vowed to crush BYU. Jim had gotten hurt two weeks before in Boulder against the University of Colorado and Steve Young had come in to finish the game; Steve then started the previous week in a loss to UNLV in Provo. The Aztecs were frothing at the mouth for a chance to finally give us our comeuppance. Their fans, even more so.
Unbeknownst to us on the field, two burly, probably drunk college-age men sat in the BYU family section and from the opening kickoff, relentlessly cursed and screamed obscenities at the team but specifically McMahon. In that setting, players’ families who were mostly LDS, simply tried to ignore them. My dad, however, who was a young and fit 42 and a former professional boxer in Tonga, had had enough. Dad rose from his seat and made his way towards the two men. He asked them to stop and motioning towards Jim’s parents, told them to have respect for the McMahons. Predictably, both men rose to their feet and cursed at Dad.
The skirmish didn’t last long. Dad knocked them both out, and when they awoke, paramedics and security surrounded them but no perpetrator. Dad quickly scooted out of a portal and to the parking lot, where he listened to the rest of the game on the car radio. As investigators asked for witnesses, the BYU family section collectively became Sargent Schultz: “I know nothing! I see nothing! I hear nothing!”
After the game, when Jimmy Mac heard from his parents what happened, Dad became Jim’s best buddy. As they both wore size 12, Jim made a habit of bringing dad into the locker room after games to give him shoes. Even when we were Eagles’ teammates in Philly. To this day, Dad still has a pile of Jimmy Mac turf shoes, some of them autographed.
You didn’t always have to do something for Jim for him to acknowledge you.
As Eagles, we rode a bus down I-95 for our divisional game in D.C. against the Redskins. We always sat together on the plane and bus trips, though we weren’t roommates. As we pulled into our hotel, he asked what I had planned. I told him I didn’t know anyone in D.C. so I was free. He proceeded to tell me of a former teammate we had at BYU who was in the D.C. area but had fallen on hard times. In fact, he was in a rehab center for drug abuse. I was shocked. Jim asked if I wanted to accompany him to the rehab facility to see him. We agreed to check into our room and within a half-hour, we’d meet in the lobby and share a cab to the facility.
When we arrived, it was clear Jim had been there before because everyone knew him — and not just because he was a famous NFL quarterback. We visited our teammate for an hour and lifted his spirits. On our return, Jim confided in me that our former teammate’s life spiraled downward when he failed two attempts to make an NFL roster and this was his third time in a facility. Knowing neither the teammate nor his family were in a position to pay for what appeared to be a swanky residential treatment center, I asked Jim who was paying for it. Reluctantly, Jim admitted he had paid for all three of his stays.
That same season, we flew to San Francisco to meet the 49ers in a Monday night showdown. I had barely laid my bag down on my hotel bed when the phone rang. It was Jim.
“Kid, come to my room, 2090.” And he hung up.
When I knocked on his door, he answered with a grin that showed a big chaw of tobacco. “Come in.”
In his room was a guy who looked vaguely familiar, sitting on a chair while his three sons, 6, 8 and 10, sat on a bed. Jim asked, “Remember this guy?”
I was stumped. Jim re-introduced me to a freshman classmate who only lasted at BYU for a semester. He was a non-LDS kicker who came highly recruited to BYU as a scholarship athlete. Sadly, he didn’t live up to the hype, which was exacerbated by the fact a walk-on from Texas named Lee Johnson was kicking the cover off the ball. I hadn’t seen this guy since the Miracle Bowl 12 years before, when he didn’t return for winter semester. Turns out, he returned to California, straightened his life out, got married and had a family. He called the Eagles’ office the week before and left a message for Jim. Jim returned his call and invited him to the hotel. We laughed, told old stories, took pictures with his kids with a camera he brought and before he left, Jim produced an envelope with four tickets and handed it to him. I watched a grown man, once a cocky and proud 18-year-old, reduced to tears.
In a game with such diverse backgrounds, from Polynesia to inner-city to country bumpkins, from Mormons to Muslims, Jews and atheists, Jimmy Mac had a way of uniting people for a common cause because he was so honest. Oddly, he could say things that people were thinking but no one dared utter. The year we played together in Philly, the Denzel Washington movie “Malcolm X” debuted and was enormously popular among the black players in the Eagles’ locker room. Understanding the power of the NFL and its players, Warner Brothers sent a box of T-shirts and hats hoping players would wear them during interviews on ESPN. Nearly every African-American player on our team wore a T-shirt and hat that simply had “X” on it.
Tired of the hype, McMahon started wearing a hat and T-shirt with a big “O” on it — a silent, contrarian protest to all the hype. When a reporter asked him if he opposed the movie, McMahon replied, “No dude. A locker room has X’s and O’s. If the Bruthas are into X’s, I’m into O’s. Football is about X’s and O’s.”
No one laughed harder than Reggie White, Randall Cunningham and Seth Joyner.
Among the reasons Jimmy Mac was so popular on every team he played was his penchant to say things to coaches, management and ownership no one dared say. He famously sparred with Bears coach Mike Ditka in Chicago, but today, Ditka loves him like a son. Had he not scolded LaVell for wanting to punt late in the SMU game, BYU would not have won that game. LaVell and Patti Edwards love Jim like their own son.
Trevor Wilson was dispatched from BYU to fly to Scottsdale to proctor Jim’s final two tests, one of which was an exam on public speaking. A few days after his trip, Trevor sent me a long email detailing his experience. With Trevor’s permission, here is a portion of his email:
“Jim talked with me about the reasons why he wants to graduate. The roots stem from a promise he made his father that he would complete his degree. He also talked about wanting to finish something he started. As an educator for over 20 years, I have preached to thousands of people (youths) the importance of an education mostly based on the opportunities it brings for the future. I learned from Jim something deeper; an education meant accomplishing something that represents a challenge. Conquering a mountain you once began to climb and promised people you would. Jim doesn't need a degree for money. I don't even think he feels he has to be in the BYU Hall of Fame. I think Jim wants a piece of paper on his wall in his office that sits right next to the hundreds of athletic awards he has won (including a Super Bowl) that right now means more to him than all the others because it was accomplished with his mind — a college degree.
"We reviewed Jim's homework to prepare one last time for his exam. I watched as he painfully studied, frustrated with his own mind that he could not capture everything he wanted. He then took the exam as I nervously watched. I then saw the "game mode" take over. Jim was determined to do this. When he handed me the exam back, he said, 'I think I only missed one.' For a small moment I think he willed his mind to work.
"Vai, on the flight home, I thought about all of this. About BYU and its mission. About all the kids I work with who are not member of the LDS faith and how hard it is for them to fit in at BYU. I saw all the faces of people I want to see finish their degree. Then, I thought about Jim. Jim represents all of those kids. Especially, the nonmember student-athletes who come to BYU and who provide a talent that helps BYU accomplish its mission of sharing its message to the whole world. He represents all of them. For everything some may say Jim did wrong, what he did right overshadows all of it. With the prompting of Tom, Jim's father, his girlfriend Laurie (who is truly a gift to Jim), and a host of others who helped, Jim McMahon accomplished something greater than any game, any "Hail Mary," and any Super Bowl season. Jim overcame not just a disability, but a stereotype often given to nonmember athletes who don't fit the square peg — he got a degree.”
This weekend, finally, the prodigal son returns. BYU will kill the fatted calf. They’ll put rings on his fingers and a robe on his back. I am not missing this party.