Election Day Guest Column by Sam Wyche

 

I’m not in a political race right now, but next year I may or may not be. If I run, it would be in the November 2010 election for House of Representatives or Governor of South Carolina. I’ve got two groups pushing very hard, wanting me to declare so they can get going on the campaign. I’m now in my first year of a four-year term of County Council for Pickens County in South Carolina, near Greenville, S.C. I’ve got some people who think I should move on up the ladder a little bit, but I don’t know if I’m going to do it or stay right here in local politics and see what I can do here.

 

Everybody’s trying to get me to do it as quick as possible, because apparently I’m holding everything up. There are eight candidates for the House of Representatives; it’s an open seat. The guy that had that seat (J. Gresham Barrett) is now running for Governor himself, and I would probably vote for him if I don’t run myself. But apparently a lot of people are waiting to see if I’m going to run before they donate or support any of those other eight candidates. So, they’re all mad at me because they can’t raise any money and I keep hearing, “Well, I’m going to wait and see what Sam’s going to do,” which sounds good to me, because it seems like they’re waiting to support me. We’ll see.

 

My deadline was going to be Oct. 15. I was scheduled to be on Sean Hannity’s show, on that “All-American Panel,” and I figured that if I got on there and I choked big time, it was God telling me “No.” But I got bumped by Tanya Tucker—can you believe that? The country and western singer; I can’t match that! I can strum a guitar and that’s it. Anyway, she was coming through on a tour and this was the one time she could be on. So, they bumped me until early December, and now I’ve got people asking me to run and they’re getting impatient. I’m actually leaning towards not doing either and just staying here in local politics. I’m really enjoying this.

 

I got interested in running for County Council for Pickens County because I was approached by several people independent of each other saying they would like it if someone else was in that council seat. So, after doing my due diligence, which was talking to a lot of people and sitting in on council meetings for a couple of months, I decided to run. I won by an 80-percent margin, and since then, I’ve just been pedaling fast to learn how everything works to in order to get something done. I never, ever refer to myself as a politician. I’ve seen what those people look like when they grow up, and it’s not a pretty picture.

 

I ran as a Republican, but would have at least one leg in the Independent party if one ever were to exist. I went to Washington, D.C. as part of a commission with some Republican backers. We spent three days there, met some key people, and I know exactly what it’s like. One of those days in Washington, I sat on a stone wall and watched our bureaucrats walk back and forth, and none of them were over 30 years old, I swear. They all seemed to be there long enough to make a career and move into a big office somewhere, or they get married and head on out of Washington. I was taken by how many young, entry-level people there were who are trying to work their way up. I was talking with some people that were hosting me, and they said that once they get their experience, they try to get out of Washington as fast as they can.

 

As for my political views, I’m a conservative guy with more outside-the-box ideas, just like I was as a coach with the no-huddle offense—bringing the team to the sideline for the first time—but now everybody seems to do it during timeouts. I have common sense ideas that ought to be in politics, just like they are in athletics. I think I bring something to the table.

 

It’s never been a dream of mine to be Governor of South Carolina. In fact, I said, “No, not on the radar, not planning on it.” The present governor, Mark Sanford, is in a little bit of trouble now, and he went to Furman University, where I went to school down in Greenville, S.C. We were in Baltimore just last week together, on the state plane recruiting a business that’s moving out of the greater Washington area and wants to move to the southeast. The whole time, up and back, I got to sit with him and ask questions like, “What time do you go to work? What time you go to bed at night? How much paperwork do you have to read when you get home? Do you ever get to see your kids? What’s life like?” I’m an empty-nester—my kids are grown and gone—but I’ve got some grandchildren now that I’d like to see more of.

 

This is the fifth year that I’ve volunteered with the local high school football team. I volunteer as a substitute teacher at the county schools, which is just a blast; I love doing that for those kids. I’m on the Pickens County Meals on Wheels board, which does a great service taking lunch to shut-ins. A lot of that involves a lot of fundraising and a lot of charities. So I’ve got plenty to keep me busy; I don’t need to be doing other things. But being a rookie member of the House is like the lowest possible form of life as a first-year Congressman, and I’ll be 65 years old when November 2010 comes around. I’m not sure I want to start running the race at 65.

 

I’m proud of a lot of things. I am very, very proud that I was fortunate enough—and I know that there was an element of good fortune and not talent involved here—but fortunate enough to play in the Super Bowl with the Washington Redskins back in 1972, to coach in the Super Bowl with the 49ers in 1981—my first time as a coach in the pros—and then to be a head coach in Super Bowl XXIII. There are only four people in the history of the game who have done it as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach, and I’m one of those four. Tom Flores did it with the Raiders, Dan Reeves did it with Dallas and Denver, and the most annoying one is Mike Ditka, who did it with Dallas and Chicago. Mike would always say, “Yeah, but I’m the only one who won all three times.” The rest of us have a win and a loss in there. Mike and I are very close friends, so we have fun with that. I’m proud of the fact that I feel that I had an impact on players when I was coaching. I keep hearing from them and I keep getting feedback that makes me feel good about whatever I said to a player or made him do, whatever lap I made him run longer than he thought he could that helped him be stronger. I think all coaches have that in the back of their mind: that they helped somebody for their life after football.

 

It is of maximum importance for all athletes, not just pro football players, to vote today. The more I’m involved in the work of government, the more I see how little people know about it, how little they follow it. Students will be in a classroom and I’ll ask them, “Anybody know who Kim Jong-il is by any chance? Or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?” And no, they don’t. We’re like on another planet here in the United States. Too much of our citizenry is not following what is happening in this crossroads moment in history for the world. I don’t think Americans realize the implications of the outcome of what Vladimir Putin is doing in Russia with other countries providing them with the wherewithal to go to war with us one day. Then there’s Iran, North Korea and Pakistan as well. But anyway, what I see is we are behind the curve when it comes to being ready and preparing ourselves to know what to do and how to act. I think that’s why government moves so slow—because we really aren’t prepared. We just aren’t prepared.

 

As an athlete and coach turned public servant, people have shown respect for my political stances and opinions. I think it’s like coaching: The players will respect you and will work hard to make a play work if the play makes sense, if the offense makes sense, if the defense makes sense to them. Then they say, “This is a good idea!” Paul Brown, who I played for and then coached for in Cincinnati, used to say, “If you can explain to me why you want to do something, and you can make a good argument for it, I’ll go along with anything you want to do.” It’s what I did with the no-huddle offense, it’s what I did with the sideline huddle, it’s what I did when I got fined for a quote. I’m not afraid to take those stances and I think people know that, that if I believe in something—if I get in hot water on something and become a one-term official as a result—I don’t care.

 

There’s second-guessing in both politics and football. If you’re the one making the call on 3rd and long, it’d better be right, but if you’re in the stands and you guess wrong, you just eat another hot dog. It’s the same in politics. In politics and in football, the decisions you make as a head coach or as a representative affect the rest of the team—your team being either your constituents or your football team. You better make the right decisions in the long-term as far as picking personnel, and in the short-term, decisions like, do you take the penalty or challenge it?

 

When I was in Washington, D.C., we were winning, and it was a Redskins town. My guess is that now, with the new administration and all that’s going on, it’s definitely a political town. They’re going to have to start building new buildings for all of them so they can have a place to work. But I think that when you’re winning in Washington, it’s the greatest town in terms of sports towns. All towns are good when you’re winning because everybody’s into it, but there’s something special about Washington.