SERBY’S SPECIAL Q&A WITH ... Ron RIVERA
Before his Washington Football Team gets ready to take on the Giants on Thursday night, Ron Rivera — a Super Bowl champion with the Bears, a Super Bowl coach with the Panthers and a cancer survivor — fielded some questions from Post columnist Steve Serby:
Q: How would you sum up the challenge of getting your team vaccinated has presented, to you and to the NFL?
A: I think the big thing for us as an organization, it did present a challenge. It did change the way we had to do things. But what it also did though, because we were the No. 1 team last year against COVID, we only had two infections, and both those infections were non-53 members of our team — one was an IR player and the other one’s a practice-squad guy. So, we’re very diligent with following the protocols and avoiding COVID here in our facility. A lot of focus was put on what our protocols had to be. I think it really helped our team learn and understand just how important paying attention to the little things, to the details, are. I think as a league, and I think how it helped with society, is that we showed that you could go back to work, we showed that you could do these things.
Q: Do you understand the antivaxxer philosophy?
A: No. I struggle with that. Especially in my circumstances, my situations. I got my cancer through no control of my own. And what really kinda tweaks me is I got it from a virus, and back in the day, there was not a vaccine that could help prevent this virus. Today, there is a vaccine that could prevent the HPV virus . ... I didn’t have that option. Now, there’s a virus out there that’s killing people, and killing people worldwide, OK?. And infecting people right now at an alarming rate, and we have a vaccine that can slow it down. It’s not gonna prevent it. But it can protect you, and keep you from going to the hospital ... and can help prevent you from dying. And yet people shun it, and not because they’re listening to the science, but they’re listening to people who have no qualifications, or have a political agenda, and have decided they’re gonna stump for it. And that befuddles me that people don’t listen to the people that have “Dr. Ph.D” in their title. That to me is maddening, I don’t understand it, I really, truly don’t.
Q: How would you describe your leadership style?
A: I kind of take it from the old saying: If you’re gonna lead, when five things are good, lead from behind, and when things are tough, lead from the front. I think it’s about just trying to extend the situation, lead things off of that . ... I think by example, is probably the biggest thing, I would say. You hold people accountable, you gotta start with yourself. One thing my father told me about being a leader, and I’ve always remembered this, is that when all hell’s breaking loose and things are going crazy, everybody’s gonna look to you, and you have the discipline to carry yourself as the leader that will get them through it.
Q: Do you have any other favorite motivational or inspirational sayings?
A: Oh yeah. Are you kiddin’ (laugh)? One of my favorites I got from Doctor Kevin Elko. It’s “Be where your feet are.” I have one of my own, I basically call it control your inner APE — your Attitude, your Preparation, your Effort. I tell guys it’s the one thing that you control completely. The one thing that stuck in my mind when I was going through my cancer treatments last year, a lot of my former players that
I used to always harp on about that, a lot of them texted me and told me, “Coach, remember now, you control it.” So that really did stick with me.
Q: The biggest thing you learned about yourself and about life during your cancer battle.
A: Before I knew I ever had cancer, the big thing was how much work we had to do here to get things turned around, and how much we were dealing with. And then when I found out I had cancer, and getting ready to deal with it, all of a sudden my real focus became obviously my own health. But what I learned was to compartmentalize my situations because part of it was I had to be where my feet are. So if I was getting treatment, my entire focus was about me getting through my treatment. When I got to the facility, I tried to do everything I could to focus on football. When I went home, it was again about my treatment and about my family. I really did focus on being where my feet were. That really helped me
Q: Are you anywhere close to 100 percent now?
A: I feel very healthy. During the recovery, the hardest thing obviously has been rebuilding the stamina, to continue the pace. Because I get wore down pretty quickly, I really do. Going through meetings, going to practice, handling my responsibilities that at some point during the day I have to find 30 minutes, 35 minutes, 40 minutes to just take a break. But all my appointments and all my doctor checkups, all my scans, everything has been good for me, so that’s been the positive.
Q: The difference in emotions walking off the field a Super Bowl winner (’85 Bears as a player) and a Super Bowl loser (2006 Bears as defensive coordinator, 2015 Panthers as head coach).
A: I did it as a player, and that’s a whole different set of emotions compared to being a coach. As an assistant coach, the disappointment obviously was strong, but walking off as a head coach, it was devastating, but the thing for me though was I had to realize right away that it was about recapturing the positive with the players and the families. Everybody plans a postgame party, so when we went to the postgame party, it really was like a wake. To have to get up there in front of everybody and speak — try and get everybody ... “Hey, just ’cause this happened doesn’t mean we’re not coming back, doesn’t mean we don’t have a chance next year. That’s gonna be the goal, take everything we learned and hopefully we can use it to help improve us.”
Q: What do you like best about your current team?
A: They’re young, they’re open-minded, they want to learn, they want to grow. We’ve got some key veterans in some key spots, a great example is Ryan Fitzpatrick. You could see him helping the young guys develop and grow, you see the relationship he develops with the other guys on the team. And then you see the youthful enthusiasm of wanting to do things right, wanting to learn. We are a young team, we have 25 guys on our roster that are either rookies, second- or third-year players. And several of ’em will start for us.
Q: Are you still Riverboat Ron?
A: Well, it just depends — on the days that I go for it, I am, on the days that I don’t, I become Calculator Ron.
Q: How good were the ’86 Giants?
A: They were very good. There were four teams back then that I really recall and really do think about, and that was the Giants, the Washington Football Team, the San Francisco 49ers and the Chicago Bears. And the disappointing part is we were the only ones that only won one Super Bowl. And we were the youngest team at that time too, and that’s what was disappointing.
Q: Describe the traits of the ideal Ron Rivera football player.
A: Smart — and not just book smart, but common sense smart, savvy — has to have a good size, but yet coordinated with athletic ability. And then be the right kind of person.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Winston Churchill; Martin Luther King; Benjamin Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson or Teddy Roosevelt, one of those three. Because Benjamin Franklin had such an outlook on life, and such a creative mind, such a thinker . ... Teddy Roosevelt because he really saw the importance of government, and he has a great saying, it’s one of my favorite sayings, and I have it up in my office. It basically says, “Patriotism says we will stand by the country. You’re not gonna stand by the president. You’re gonna stand by the country.” And I’ve had that up in my office for a long time. I had it up in my office in Carolina, I have it up in my office here. And I keep it up. I have Thomas Jefferson up ’cause he has a quote basically saying, “When the people are afraid of government, that’s tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that’s democracy.”
Q: Favorite movies?
A: “Miracle on 34th Street” and “The Quiet Man.”
Q: Favorite actor?
A: Denzel Washington.
Q: Favorite singer/entertainer?
A: Bruce Springsteen; Ed Sheeran.
Q: Favorite meal.?
A: My wife will make different kinds of Mexican food, she learned from my mom. Taco Tuesday is our favorite meal.
Q: If you’re fortunate enough to lead this current team to a Super Bowl, would you participate in a Super Bowl Shuffle?
A: (Laugh) I would. I didn’t in ’85, mostly because we got home at like 3 or 4 in the morning, whatever it was, and I just went home, went to bed. But if we did something like that now, I’d do it.