On the outside looking in: He was a quarterback for the Bears for seven years, then jumped ship to the rival United States Football League. As he watches his former team inch its way toward the Super Bowl, soft-spoken Vince Evans admits to mixed feelings about its success. ”I`ve certainly enjoyed watching them,” said Evans, who is waiting, like everyone else in the USFL, to see if that league will ever revive. ”The Bears have been playing exceptionally well and have the whole nation on fire. But I do go through times, as I sit there and watch them, that I wish I would have stuck it out. I sort of hate that I left, but it`s a decision I made and it`s behind me. I think what I`ve done in my mind and my heart is say I`ve got to go on with my life and make the best of it and not concentrate on a past decision. That is behind me, and seeing Walter Payton run or Willie Gault catch a pass or Gary Fencik make a tackle gives me joy. I`m trying to grow from the event instead of sulking, instead of thinking, `Gosh, man, that should`ve been me out there.` I think about it sometimes. You just believe and hope that one day it will be you. That`s the only motivation I have to keep on kicking. I have to just make the best of what I have to look foward to. Hopefully, one day I can say, `I may have blown it, but God gave me another chance.` ”
HERE`S TO YOU. . .
Don`t look for Mrs. Robinson in Chicago on Sunday. ”I`m going to New Orleans, I hope,” joked Barbara Robinson, who is married to the Rams` coach, John. The reason she won`t be here Sunday is because of a commitment she made last summer to sing at a wedding this weekend. ”I didn`t realize then what kind of weekend it would be,” she laughed. A music teacher at a private school, Barbara will watch the game at home in Fullerton, Calif., with the couple`s four children, who range in age from 25 to 18. As for her husband?
”Oh, he`s excited. He loves big games. It really turns him on like nothing else, and he`s been up at the crack of dawn every day. He`s nervous, too. He has two kinds of nervousness: his tense nervousness, where he keeps everything inside and doesn`t share and it`s almost like he`s unapproachable, and the other kind of nervousness, where everything is just coming out of him and he`s smiling about everything. That`s the way he is now.”
I COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER
”Do I follow the Bears? Who doesn`t follow the Bears?” said former Illini quarterback Dave Wilson when we reached him at home in–shhh, don`t tell anyone–Anaheim. Wilson retreated to California after a disappointing season with the New Orleans Saints. He started 10 games but was overshadowed by hometown boy and new Saint acquisition Bobby Hebert. Wilson won`t go back to New Orleans for the Super Bowl, he said, unless his successor at Illinois, Tony Eason, is playing in it. ”We were roommates that first year at Illinois,” he remembered, ”in a triple at Bromley Hall. There was about a foot-and-a-half of space between each bed. We shared that first-semester homesickness and a lot of other stuff. At first, with Tony and I competing for the quarterback job, it was kind of difficult and we clashed a lot. But once I left Illinois, he got a shot of the publicity and he saw how hard it is to deal with the pressure. That`s when we really became close.”
Wilson`s college heroics seem light years removed from his present situation in New Orleans. ”It`s very frustrating,” he said. ”I felt I just wasn`t given a fair shake. It had to do with a difference of philosophy between me and (former coach) Bum Phillips. Five years went by, and I feel I didn`t really learn as much as I could have somewhere else. I don`t even pay attention to the talk of who`ll be the new coach. I don`t believe they`ll keep Wade Phillips there, though Wade really impressed me more than I expected him to with the way he handled the players and the coaches. It was unfortunate Bum didn`t give him a chance sooner. I think Mr. Benson (new owner Tom Benson) is ready to make a complete turnover. He`s already replaced a lot of people. He`s been stressing it`s the new Saints. I`m not his boy, that`s for sure. Bobby Hebert is. That`s understandable. He has a big investment in him. I`d just like to go someplace else. I know I can play. I`ve got that part in my head. For five years I wasn`t sure.”
Wilson said he can`t really get fired up for the Super Bowl. ”You watch it just to see the guys you know who are playing. Those things are fun, but I`m waiting for me to get in it.”
THOUGHT YOU`D LIKE TO KNOW . . .
That the NFL grapevine works overtime for an event like Sunday`s championship games. One of the strongest rumors making the rounds is that former Bears` and Cubs` president Jim Finks is headed for New Orleans to take over the Saints` bedraggled operation. ”I`ve talked to them, but that`s as far as it`s gone right now,” said Finks. . . . That the second part of that rumor is that Finks will hire Philadelphia, nee Baltimore, Stars` coach Jim Mora as Saints` coach. . . . . . . That presidential candidate Jack Kemp, daddy of Ram backup quarterback Jeff, was an expert analyst on the CBS telecast of Super Bowl II . . . That Rams` tackle Jackie Slater was the first recipient of the Walter Payton Physical Education Award at Jackson State . . . That Rams` back-up linebacker Ed Brady was born in Morris, Ill., and was all-state when he played at Morris High . . . That Walter Payton took time out during preparations for Sunday`s game to cut a spot for the CBS/Library of Congress Book Project. In the spot, which will air during Sunday`s game, Payton recommends two sports books to children: ”The New Thinking Man`s Guide to Pro Football” and ”What a Game They Played.”. . . That WGN will broadcast a three-hour Sports Central Friday night from 6 to 9, but with a twist. From 7 to 8, it`ll run in tandem with a sports talk show at KABC radio in Los Angeles, which means that Chicago fans can call in and talk to their counterparts in L.A. . . . That NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was once the Rams` publicist and that he was the team`s general manager in 1960 when he was selected as the new commish.
And finally: That the ”Super Bowl Shuffle” cracked Billboard`s Top 100, checking in this week at No. 92 with a bullet. It`s extremely unusual for a song that is being played in just one market to crack the national charts.