Taking chance on Gibbs paid off for Beathard
Former Redskins coach will introduce GM tonight
Thirty-seven years ago, Washington Redskins general manager Bobby Beathard introduced Joe Gibbs, a little-known assistant on Don Coryell’s San Diego Chargers staff, as the 20th head coach in team history.
Tonight, Gibbs, who would go on to win three Super Bowls with Washington, will welcome Beathard into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Neither man would be enshrined in Canton, Ohio, if not for what they achieved over their eight seasons together with the Redskins. Among his other accomplishments, Beathard deserves the credit for making their union possible.
An Ohio native who played college football and roomed with John Madden at Cal Poly, Beathard had started to make a name for himself in the NFL before he teamed up with Gibbs. Released by the Redskins during training camp as an undrafted rookie free agent safety in 1959, Beathard worked a few odd jobs outside of football before joining the Kansas City Chiefs as a part-time scout in 1963. He was working as a scout for the Atlanta Falcons when Don Shula hired him to become the Miami Dolphins’ director of player personnel in 1972. Miami won two Super Bowls with Beathard leading its scouting department and the Redskins hired him as their general manager in 1978.
The Redskins had traded away their picks in the first five rounds of the 1978 NFL draft before Beathard was hired. His first draft pick as general manager, a sixth-round selection, was Florida running back Tony Beathard Green, who made the Pro Bowl his rookie year as a return man. Beathard drafted Hall of Famers Darrell Green, Russ Grimm and Art Monk while with the Redskins, and also showed off an incredible eye for finding valuable contributors in the later rounds and in free agency.
“If it was a draft that was deep in talent, I thought it was more valuable to get some of the later picks because there were real good players down there, not only in the first round,” Beathard said during a conference call with reporters last month. “If you had a high pick in the first round, trade that and get multiple picks where all the other players were. Fortunately, it worked out for us.”
Beathard and the Redskins picked in the first round three times during his 11-year tenure in Washington. The Redskins’ first Super Bowl-winning roster in 1982 featured 27 free agents signed by Beathard — plus a coach, in Gibbs, he had picked to replace Jack Pardee after a 6-10 season in 1980. Beathard said it took a 31⁄ hour meeting with Jack Kent Cooke to convince the Redskins’ owner that Gibbs, despite no previous head coaching experience, was the right man for the job.
“Who in the hell is Joe Gibbs?” Beathard recalled Cooke asking him, during an interview with NBC’s Michele Tafoya at Thursday night’s Hall of Fame Game in Canton. “‘If we hire a guy named Joe Gibbs, they’ll never forgive us. You’re going to be fired.’ I said, ‘No, just stick with it.’ ”
Cooke stuck with it and was rewarded when the Redskins won two Super Bowls and appeared in a third during a six-season span in the 1980s.
Twenty-two years after Gibbs was enshrined, Beathard will join him in the Hall of Fame. Fittingly, Gibbs will present him at tonight’s induction ceremony.
“It was an easy decision,” Beathard said. “I would have had one of my sons, but I think it was more appropriate to have Joe. We spent a long time together.”