The guy ought ought to be called Buzz or Skipper, one of those peppy preppy names. If Steve Mariucci is a pro football coach, bubble bath is a solvent.
“The players have been calling me Moochie all week,” Mariucci said. “They’ve never done that before. This has been crash-and-burn week. I’ve lost all respect.”
“Moochie” is from Mariucci’s days in Green Bay, as an assistant to Mike Holmgren and soft shoulder to Brett Favre. This has been the week when old stories have been brought to the attention of Mariucci’s present team.
Like the Speedo story. Courtesy of Favre.
Favre was making fun of cholesterol-heavy, fat-filled upper Midwest cooking. Can’t help but put on weight in Wisconsin. And it is even worse in Iron Mountain.
What’s that? Ireland. Mariucci’s from Ireland? This is from a recent press arrival near the back of the media bunch. Somehow, Mariucci hears him.
“Iron Mountain. Michigan.” Mariucci says. “There is an Ironwood. And an Iron River. I’m from Iron Mountain.”
Mariucci has a practice of giving more information than is asked for, not the usual, NFL standard coaching response. Or staying longer than necessary.
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Mariucci lingers with the press, banters with the press, acts like he likes the press. This man is not going to last long in the NFL.
“Mooch. The Speedo thing. What a week,” says Mariucci.
Oh, yes. The Speedo thing. Favre insists that Favre weighs 240 pounds. From that Midwest food. Since this is being done by telephone, there is no way of knowing. And what does Favre know of Mariucci’s waistline?
“Ask him to show you that picture he had taken in Cancun, in the Speedo,” Favre says.
Mariucci winces at the thought of anyone seeing the Speedo picture. He blushes but grins when a writer tells him his paper is trying to find a copy of it.
Actually, Mariucci is on a diet. And not only maybe a little because when his old boss Holmgren called to congratulate him, the first thing Holmgren told him was he looked chubby.
Compared with any other NFL coach since, oh, Dick Vermeil, Mariucci looks fine, if more like an Osmond than a Ditka. You would never mistake Mike Ditka for anything other than a football player. Mariucci could be a head waiter or a game-show host.
He is as cable-ready as any coach in the NFL. However this bit of serendipity works out with the 49ers, this guy has pregame chitchat written all over him.
And that’s just it. How can Donnie Osmond be taken seriously as a football coach? Mariucci nudged out the real thing in George Seifert, a grim man, a man not given to the idle jest.
Mariucci’s job was to chauffeur the limo, and that he has done all the way to the NFC championship game. But does anyone know if he can coach?
“I thought he was just another rah-rah guy,” said Steve Young, the quarterback. “But look what happened the first game. Disaster.”
The 49ers lost. Jerry Rice was injured.
“He could have panicked,” Young said. “Instead he proved his mettle. Look where we are.”
Proof will come Sunday afternoon. Mariucci knows it. Mariucci is ready for it.
“We’re on track, we’re OK and we’ll just let it rip,” said Mariucci.
He starts to walk away. Stops.
“Hi, Lumpy,” Mariucci says to a local writer, a very round local writer.
If the press can call him Moochie, then he can call the press Lumpy, after the character on “Leave it to Beaver.”
He starts to leave again. Stops.
“Trivia question,” Mariucci announces. “Where did Beaver go to college?”
Shrugs all around.
“Cal,” says Mariucci. “California. Beaver was a Bear.”
He laughs. No one else does.
“I used to tell my recruits that,” he says. “Made about as much of an impression on them as on you.”
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Is this any way to run a championship football team?
Apparently so.