He Goes His Own Way : John Riggins Was a Cannon on the Field and a Loose One Off It, and He Has Changed Very Little Now That He’s Retired

He is most often remembered for two memorable performances:

--In the 1983 Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl, on fourth and one in the fourth quarter, he won the game for the Washington Redskins with a 43-yard touchdown run.

--Two winters later, seated with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and others at a black-tie dinner in Washington, he suggested: “Loosen up, Sandy baby. You’re too tight.”

Then, kneeling at the table between O’Connor and her husband, he passed out, slipped under the table and snored through a speech by then-Vice President George Bush.

That’s John Riggins. In his football days, 1971-85, Riggins was always good for a lot of yards and--sometimes quite unintentionally--a lot of laughs.

Looking back, he concedes that his was something of a split personality.

“I’m afraid I did some frivolous things off the field,” he said the other day. “But I came to play.”

And that is what Riggins is proudest of now.

He had 24 touchdowns in 1983, the most scored in a single season by an NFL back.

And he had a record four consecutive 100-yard games in the 1982 playoffs.

For those and other achievements in an impressive 14-year NFL career, Riggins is being considered here this week for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The votes will be counted Saturday, the day before the Super Bowl.

A native of Centralia, Kan., and a former University of Kansas journalism student, Riggins is a confirmed Easterner now. And with the Redskins on their way to another NFL championship game, he had been planning, until recently, to bundle up in Minneapolis and root for the old team.

Then he got a better offer. Friends asked if he would like to play host to Super Bowl party Sunday on the beach at Cancun, Mexico.

It is an all-day-and-most-of-the-night party for 10,000 beach-loving football fans escaping the winter snows of Minnesota and points east. And after considering the invitation for 15 seconds, Riggins accepted.

“It’s a mean, nasty little job, but someone’s got to do it,” he said.

Otherwise these days, Riggins is employed in Washington as a radio sports show commentator. He said he will do the show from Cancun this weekend. Before summer, he also hopes to launch an acting career.

Recently divorced, he lives in Oakton, Va.

Since his 1985 retirement from football, Riggins has made it a point to stay in physical condition, even dropping a few pounds from his NFL weight, 245.

“I can still walk a tightrope with my eyes closed,” he said.

In the long, storied history of the nation’s capital, Riggins’ place is unique.

He changed the Redskins from a passing team into what you will see in Sunday’s game--a running team that stands ready to pass against any defense that overplays the run.

“We won the Super Bowl in (Coach) Joe Gibbs’ second season in Washington,” Riggins said. “That was (the) 1982 (season).

“Joe had come from San Diego, where he was the offensive coordinator on a passing team--Don Coryell’s--and our team was built around a passer, Joe Theismann.

“I’d had enough of that with the Jets. All the time I was there, the team was built around Joe Namath.

“So after we made the playoffs, before our first playoff game in (the winter of 1982-83), I went to (Gibbs) and said, ‘Joe, let me tell you how to win this thing. Give me the ball.’ ”

A player strike had shortened the season, setting up a special, four-round Super Bowl tournament. And when Gibbs acted on Riggins’ suggestion, giving the ball to him instead of letting Theismann throw it, Riggins plowed through four opponents on consecutive Sundays, rushing for more than 100 yards against each, for a record that may never be surpassed.

On the day the Redskins won their first Super Bowl, Gibbs gave Riggins the ball 38 times--another record.

And, as always, he asked for more.

“The first responsibility of a running back is to run,” he said.

He ran for 11,352 yards in 14 NFL years--No. 5 all-time.

“I never tired,” he said. “And I never quit.”

During the league’s first 72 years, it has produced few athletes like Riggins.

He was compared to former Cleveland great Jim Brown, and as a young back in the 1970s, Riggins had it all. He stood 6 feet 2, and on a football field he had the moves of a scatback, along with great speed. He had been a sprinter in Kansas, where, for Centralia, he twice won the state high school 100-yard dash in 9.8 seconds.

At 34, Riggins still had enough of that speed in January of 1983 to get off one of the Rose Bowl’s most memorable runs: the 43-yard fourth-quarter burst that won Super Bowl XVII for Washington over the Miami Dolphins, 27-17.

“It was a fourth-and-one gamble that worked,” he said. “I had sort of been building up to that all my life.”

He lasted two more years in the NFL. In January before his final season, Riggins and President Ronald Reagan were among the more prominent Washington celebrities the National Press Club invited to its annual dinner.

Riggins and a guest were seated at a front table with Sen. and Mrs. John Glenn and John and Sandra Day O’Connor.

When Riggins passed out and slipped under the table, he pinned Mrs. Glenn against her chair. She was unable to rise until Riggins woke up, about half an hour later.

“I was embarrassed but not ashamed,” he said. “My intentions were pure. I just wanted everyone to have a good time.”

Within a week, Riggins heard from poison-pen strangers and forgiving friends on every continent.

“Obviously, they’d held the party on a slow news day,” he said. “I would always do anything for the media.”