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Long lives the Howie dream
 Long lives the Howie dream(Diandra Jay / Press-Telegram) There he is on a recent day in the main hall at the Long Beach Convention Center, doing promos for Fox NFL Sunday, cutting capers with his broadcasting mates Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, Curt Menefee and Frank Caliendo, having another bright day in a life in which there haven't been many dark ones. He is stylishly dressed in a blue pin-striped suit, and is wearing his familiar rimless glasses below his familiar crewcut that has been a part of his persona since he was an extraordinary defensive lineman for the then Los Angeles Raiders good enough to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000. But, as celebrated as he was on the gridiron, Howie Long has gained even greater fame after permanently hanging up his cleats after the 1993 season, not only for his work on the highest-rated football game-day show on TV and in the movies but also as a commercial phenomenon. Indeed, it's the latter that has elevated Howie Long into one of the most recognized sporting figures in America, having made 150 Radio Shack commercials with Teri Hatcher, not to mention hyping such other products as Coors Light, Nike, Campbell's Chunky Soup, Hanes, Frito Lay, Pizza Hut, Sprint, Taco Bell, Nabisco, Kraft, both Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola and the Bud Bowl campaign. Howie Long shakes his head slowly, and a wry smile covers his large, handsome face when he is asked if he expected his post-football existence would become so spectacularly successful. "Not at all," he says. "I really didn't know for sure what I was going to do after I retired. It really all started when I was at the Super Bowl in Atlanta in 1994 to announce my retirement. I happened to meet David Hill (head of Fox Sports), and he told me he might have something for me. Fox had just signed its NFL package. And before you knew it, I was working for Fox. It was all serendipitous." It might have been, but before you knew it Howie Long had become not only Terry Bradshaw's straight man on the Fox telecast, but also became a presence in films, starring in one, "Firestorm," and appearing in John Woo's "Broken Arrow" with John Travolta, "3000 Miles To Graceland" with Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell and Courteney Cox and "Dollar for the Dead" with Emilio Estevez and William Forsythe. I actually made a cameo in the "Dollar for the Dead" - I played a rifle-toting cowboy bad guy - that was shot in May of 1998 in southeast Spain near a Mediterranean enclave called Alemeria in rugged terrain where Sergio Leone filmed Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns. "What's so incredible is that I never really planned for any of this to happen," says Long. "I never had dreams of being an actor. I think I took an acting lesson or two, but never took it seriously. I do like doing it, although I've put my acting on hold in recent years to concentrate on coaching my boys." You must understand that the Boston native is a devoted family man who's been married for 25 years - his wife, the former Diane Addonizio, is an attorney - and has three sons, all of whom he has coached at St. Anne's Belfield in Charlottesville, Va. The Longs live on a 65-acre spread in a refurbished Georgian Estate home in nearby Ivy which is only a few miles from the University of Virginia, where Long's oldest son, Chris, 20, will be a senior and is a 6-4, 278-pound preseason Playboy All-American defensive end. "Chris is projected as being a first-round NFL draft pick," says Long proudly. Another son, Kyle, 17, who will be a senior at St. Anne's Belfield, is even bigger at 6-7 and 290, a standout offensive tackle and defensive end on the football team and slugging first baseman and left-handed pitcher on the baseball team. "Kyle's had offers to play football from all the major schools, but he's committed to Florida State where he plans to play baseball," says Long. "He batted over .500 and also has a fastball that reaches 92 miles an hour. He likes baseball even more than football, and he's quite a football player." Long's youngest son, Howie, 16, is a shrimp at 6-0 and 185 compared to his hulking brothers, but as a sophomore last season he quarterbacked St. Anne's Belfield to the state championship, throwing 21 scoring passes and having only one interception. "Howie did very well, but he also is a terrific lacrosse player and I have a feeling that's what he'll play in college," says Long. The Longs have a summer home at Flathead Lake in Montana, and Howie Long has run into the Laker coach Phil Jackson, who also resides in the area, on a couple of occasions. "The last time I saw Phil was at the DMV, when I was registering a car," says Long. Despite his good fortune - and his lucrative gigs have made him a multi-millionaire - Howie Long hasn't changed that much since I met him in 1982 when he was only 22. He doesn't take his exalted station seriously, and is the same engaging, friendly person he was when earning a mere pittance with the Raiders - his season low was $38,000 as a rookie and high was $190,000 - and living in Rolling Hills. And, physically, he's still the strapping, fit person he was when he was tormenting quarterbacks for the Raiders, as he says he weighs the same 270 he did as a player. "I work out now strictly for maintenance, and do very light weights," says Long, who walks straight without the infirmities that plague so many other former football players of his age even though he has undergone three knee operations. "I feel pretty good considering all the years I played football." He has been saddened by the alarming deterioration of the Raiders in recent years. "It's been like watching a family member fall on hard times," he says. "But I think they're going to come back under DeMarcus Russell (the team's top draft pick from LSU). I believe he's going to be a terrific quarterback." Howie Long admits he's now recognized more in public than when he was performing with the Raiders, and sometimes it can be amusing. "A guy came up to me a while back, and said, `Hey, you're the Sprint guy,"' relates Long, with a smile. "And then he said, `I've been having problems with my service. Can you fix it?' I told him, `Hey, I just sell the product on TV. I don't do maintenance.' It was pretty funny." Howie Long has signed to do Fox NFL Sunday for five more seasons. "This is not work as far as I'm concerned," he says. "I do a lot of sitting around and then talk football for a couple of minutes. It's a lot of fun. Work is driving a truck, or building a house, or digging for ore, or playing football. Obviously, I've been very fortunate the way things have gone for me since departing the Raiders. . ." |
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