First, Jim McMahon was a willing accomplice in the hijacking of Steve McMichael`s truck.
McMahon and Ken Margerum needed early transportation to training camp in Platteville, Wis. Because McMahon`s car had broken down, neither the quarterback nor the receiver saw anything wrong with borrowing the defensive tackle`s truck for longer than McMichael had intended.
McMichael`s nickname is Ming the Merciless, but he had loaned his vehicle to Margerum to move furniture near Chicago.
When it was time for McMahon and Margerum to go to Platteville, McMahon pointed the way.
”Head towards O`Hare,” said McMahon.
This is leadership.
McMahon didn`t have a map or a clue to the farmland stretching 150 miles west of O`Hare to Platteville.
This is confidence.
McMahon didn`t think Ming would mind.
This is guts.
Ming minded, but McMahon survived.
This is resourcefulness.
McMichael and pal Dan Hampton had planned to use Ming`s truck to carry a luxury-outfitted golf cart to Platteville, where they could suffer between hot summer practices watching television and sipping lemonade under the fringed top.
”We made him pay every day,” said Ming.
Every night, too.
One evening, McMahon parked his motor scooter on the streets of Platteville while he enjoyed a tall, cool glass of milk in the heart of dairy country.
At 10 minutes to curfew, McMichael and Hampton headed home like good ol`
boys and spotted the scooter invitingly close to the trunk of Otis Wilson`s car.
After convincing Wilson to open the trunk, they lifted McMahon`s only means of transportation into Wilson`s and implored the linebacker to leave.
McMahon emerged from the fountain in the nick of time. While saluting McMichael and Hampton, who were by now innocent bystanders, McMahon yanked Wilson out of his car and forced him to help extract the scooter from the trunk.
This is skill under pressure.
During his first week in Platteville, McMahon cut his own hair. He borrowed Willie Gault`s clippers and gave himself a trim that turned out half- Mohawk, half-punk.
This is not coordination.
”I knew he was ready for the insane asylum,” said roommate Kurt Becker. ”I said, `You`ve done something that`s going to be there for three or four months. You`re not going to get out of this one.`
”He`s a piece of work.”
Characteristically, McMahon admitted he made a mistake.
”I just kept trimming and trimming and it kept getting worse and worse,” he said.
Coach Mike Ditka laughed and said he once tried to give himself a haircut. McMahon often reminds Ditka of himself. It`s the outspoken, competitive, do-it-yourself approach to football and to life. On Sunday afternoons, football and life become one and the same.
”When Jim messes up, his personality is very similar to John McEnroe`s,” said Margerum. ”He can`t control that 10-second burst of temper once he makes a mistake. He`s trying to work on his cussing at practice when there`s a lot of little kids on the sidelines and women. He doesn`t mean any harm by it.”
”I just feel that I have the ability to do things right all the time,”
said McMahon. ”That`s what I strive to do. You`re not going to, but I have the attitude, `Why`d you do that? Why`d you make that dumb mistake?` ”
He is talking to himself, not to his teammates.
”I don`t go up and start yelling at somebody. I don`t think it`s my place,” McMahon said. ”I just turn around and yell. If they miss a route or a read, I mention it to them. I don`t yell. They should know when they make a mistake.”
Ditka and some of McMahon`s teammates have advised the quarterback to be more careful on the field so he doesn`t risk injury.
That made McMahon laugh. He responded like a matador being told to watch out for the bull. In fact, he said, ”That`s a bunch of bull.”
McMahon understands the danger of being in the ring; he`s just not sure he can avoid it. He promises to be ”a little bit more careful,” but other things are more important, such as scoring points and making first downs. You can`t do that when you`re ducking. You can`t do it when you`re hurt, either, so McMahon must weigh instinct against caution.
”He has to be on the field before he`s really of value to us,” said Ditka. ”I`m sure he hears me say that, and if he would stop and think about all the pain and anguish he had last season, he would hear me very well. But I`m sure right now that`s way in the past like it never happened. He thinks he has to do what he has to do.”
This is instinct.
Against the Cowboys in the preseason, McMahon took off once on a blind bootleg run, inviting exactly the kind of trouble Ditka presumably wants him to avoid. But listen to the coach`s reaction: ”Gutty call. If he gets the defense he wanted, he`s gone.”
When McMahon practices, he wears football pants cut off at midthigh to expose his knees to the cool breeze. He ties his jersey tight around his shoulder pads in the manner of a halter top to expose his kidneys.
Quarterbacks are supposed to wear a red sleeveless shirt over their jerseys to remind eager defensive players not to touch them in practice. McMahon tucks his in the back of his pants, as if he were embarrassed.
This is defiance.
McMahon is embarrassed–downright offended–that quarterbacks seem to be special pieces in this game. Like kings in chess, they are treated better than others, surrounded and protected by pawns.
McMahon understands the importance of the quarterback, but is reluctant to accept it. He is a pawn in king`s clothing.
”I don`t like all the rules about you can`t hit the quarterbacks. Jack Lambert had the right idea when he said to put dresses on them all,” McMahon said. ”Most of the quarterbacks don`t like to get hit. Better not play this game if you don`t want to get hit. I don`t mind getting hit.
”I like pain at times.”
This is getting a little wacko.
McMahon kidded the team doctor before his first two preseason games this year.
”I told him, `Give me a shot,` ” said McMahon. ”He said, `Where?` I said, `I don`t know, just give me a shot.` I gotta have pain before the game. Gets you in a ticked-off mood and that`s the way you gotta play.”
A football player should play football, not avoid it. McMahon thinks like a defensive back and hangs around offensive linemen. He is a quarterback who messes with Steve McMichael and Otis Wilson when it`s supposed to be the other way around.
Call it macho or call it dumb, but call it football.
”I`m not trying to be macho,” explained McMahon. ”It`s the way I`ve played the game for 20 years. It`s hard to curb instincts. You react and do something. They can call it what they want to call it. This isn`t a game for timid people.”
In his fourth year as a pro, McMahon has managed to rid himself of the Mormon Tabernacle Choirboy image. He is not Mormon and he is not a prima donna.
Unlike some quarterbacks who effectively lead by remaining aloof, McMahon has an uncanny ability to be one of the boys and still command the lead.
At a recent team meeting, McMahon turned on the film projector and started spouting off, mimicking the coaches and pointing out errors by everyone.
”It was very humorous, but he was good,” said Margerum. ”He knows what he`s talking about.”
His closest friends are the offensive linemen, who regularly invite him to dinner with them.
”This year, we`re going to make him buy. Salary`s gone up,” said Becker, referring to McMahon`s new contract that will pay him $600,000 compared to last year`s $190,000.
McMahon hangs around offensive linemen off the field because he wants them to hang around him on it.
”They`re the ones saving my butt,” he said. ”Get one of them ticked off at you and you could very easily be back in the hospital. Really, I get along with anybody. I have a good rapport with the linemen. We just don`t like to lose. Like to get dirty. That`s the way the game should be. Should have maniacs playing this game.”
Now, McMahon would like to rid himself of another image: that he cannot last an entire season.
He has yet to play for a whole season, but injuries were not the problem until last year.
In 1982, the player strike eliminated seven games when McMahon posted the highest passer rating ever for a rookie.
In 1983, Ditka divided playing time between McMahon and Vince Evans, a decision Ditka rues to this day. By the time Ditka went exclusively to McMahon in the 10th game, the Bears were 3-6. With McMahon, they were 5-2.
In 1984, the Bears were 7-2 in games McMahon started. He failed to finish four of those games, including the two losses, because of injuries.
After suffering a broken right hand in the second game of the season, he took pain-killing shots and played while it healed. On Nov. 4, his season was ended and his career jeopardized when he was pinched between two Los Angeles Raider tacklers and suffered a lacerated kidney.
McMahon pointed out that neither of the injuries happened when he was recklessly running around. The hand was broken when he was slammed to the ground in the pocket after throwing a touchdown pass. The kidney was ripped when he was running on third down at the 2-minute warning before the half.
He made the first down, remember, and stayed in the game for three more plays until he threw an interception. The impression he left on teammates then lingers now.
”We went in for halftime and he was hurt then, and he came out for the second half and we actually had to tell him to get the heck out of the huddle,” said Becker. ”The guy had given all he could. I mean he couldn`t even talk. His kidney was ruptured or whatever. He was gasping for air and in intense pain. Yet he still wanted to be out there. Everybody was going, `You gotta get out of here. Something ain`t right.` ”
At the time, his passer rating had him ranked fifth in the league behind Miami`s Dan Marino, San Francisco`s Joe Montana, New England`s Tony Eason and St. Louis` Neil Lomax. McMahon`s touchdown pass-to-interception ratio was 8 to 2, a career best that finally reflected the most impressive of the 71 NCAA passing records he had set at Brigham Young–84 touchdown passes, only 34 interceptions.
Yet he has not lasted a full season and he hears ABC-TV commentator Joe Namath tell the nation he has ”to develop more consistency in passing.”
No problem. Something still ain`t right and McMahon is out to make it right.
”My only goal is to play the whole season. If I play the whole season, everything else will take care of itself,” he said.
This is a promise.