Learning from the master
Buono’s longtime buddy offers invaluable advice as guest coach at training camp
NFL legend Fred Biletnikoff, left, dropped by the B.C. Lions training camp this week to say hello to his old friend Wally Buono and offer some words of advice to the CFL team’s star-struck group of receivers.
KAMLOOPS — Following a morning practice session at Hillside Stadium this week, members of the B.C. Lions gathered at midfield around a stooped, greying gentleman who spoke for a few minutes.
It was a jarring juxtaposition — the young bucks in their athletic prime and the aging instructor — but those players also listened intently to the words of encouragement and advice that were being offered. When he was done, the older man chatted amiably and posed for pictures with some of the Lions, who were clearly thrilled to have him in their midst. Then he walked away, a lone figure in a black windbreaker with a familiar logo: Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Then it became clear what all the excitement was about.
“When it’s a guy like that, you listen and take in everything he has to say,” said Lions receiver Bryan Burnham.
“Everything we want to accomplish, he’s been there and done that.”
So you know about Fred Biletnikoff? “Absolutely,” said Burnham, who was born in 1990, a decade after Biletnikoff retired as a player. “He’s a legend.” The legend, in fact, has been a very real presence around the Lions’ training camp this week. A longtime friend of Wally Buono — they played together on the Montreal Alouettes and 1980 and later coached together in Calgary — Biletnikoff finally accepted a long-standing invitation to attend the team’s training camp in Kamloops this year.
Why he accepted this year isn’t clear, but the former Oakland Raiders’ receiver has a summer place at nearby Lac Le Jeune and been coming to the area for years.
“He told me, ‘Wally, I might just drop by,’” Buono said. “I don’t know why he chose this year, but we’re happy to have him.”
“Wally’s been after me for a while, so I thought why not?” said Biletnikoff, who retired from coaching in 2006 after 17 years with his beloved Raiders.
“I miss it at times, but when I see Wally and his staff standing out here all day, then go to meetings, then study film, then get up the next day and do it all over again, it makes me appreciate being retired.”
As he speaks, Biletnikoff watches the Lions’ work out and, at this moment, it’s hard to reconcile the 74-year-old senior citizen with one of the greatest receivers in NFL history. But there was always something incongruous about Biletnikoff on the football field, something that didn’t seem to fit until the ball was in the air.
That’s when this son of Russian immigrants turned into a very bad man.
Biletnikoff wasn’t particularly fast, big or athletic, but he was tough, smart and caught anything that was thrown within 50 feet of him. Part of that was because of his fondness for stickum, the adhesive goop which would eventually be banned by the NFL. Most of it was due to his monomaniacal determination.
“He was telling us that if he dropped a ball in practice, he’d come out after practice and catch 100 more,” Burnham said. “He wanted to make sure that one drop was out of his mind and those 100 catches were in his mind.”
After an all-American turn at Florida State, Biletnikoff joined the then AFL Raiders in 1965 and played in Oakland for 13 years. Along the way he played in the second-ever Super Bowl and won a championship in ’75 when he was named the MVP of the big game. His overall numbers aren’t particularly impressive — he had just one 1,000-yard campaign and his season-high for catches was 61. But he was a vital cog on a Raiders’ team that will long be remembered in NFL lore for its colourful ensemble cast and its long run of success.
“I believe so,” Biletnikoff answered when asked if those Raiders’ team would have success today.
“I just don’t know how we’d fare with the way the game is called now. There’d be so many penalties the games would take six hours to play.”
He now lives in the Sacramento area and sees his former teammates regularly at Raiders’ functions. But he’s also starting to lose his friends. John Matuszak is long gone. Gene Upshaw went in ’08. Safety Jack Tatum passed two years later. Marv Hubbard, the old fullback, went a couple of years ago. Ken Stabler, his former quarterback, went about the same time.
“We have some type of memorial and you usually end up laughing more than anything,” Biletnikoff said. “There are so many great stories.”
He’s asked if he can tell a story about Stabler which can be printed in a family newspaper.
“No,” he said, before continuing. “We were both going through a tough time in our lives and Kenny and I ended up living together for three years. We had a very close friendship. It’s something I’ll always cherish.”
Over the years he’s known triumph and tragedy. In ’99, his 20-year-old daughter Tracey was murdered by her boyfriend, Mohammed Haroon Ali, who was sentenced to 55 years in prison. Biletnikoff and his wife Angela now help administer The Biletnikoff Foundation, which focuses on substance abuse and domestic violence issues. In 2000, the Foundation opened Tracey’s Place of Hope, a residential program for adolescent girls.
In ’94, the Tallahassee Quarterback Club created the Biletnikoff Award for the NCAA’s top receiver. Past winners include Randy Moss, Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Golden Tate and Amari Cooper, and it remains the one touchstone the old Raider has with the current generation.
Deon Long, for example, is at this Lions’ camp. A former star at Maryland, he was in the running for the Biletnikoff Award. He was also one of the Lions who had his picture taken with the great receiver.
“You know what these kids are going through because it’s something you’ve been though,” Biletnikoff said. “It’s still about the fundamentals and doing the right things. That’s universal. It doesn’t change.”
Even if so many things around you do change.