HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. – It was last autumn, and the frustration level was quickly rising toward flood stage for NFL coach Joe Gibbs.
His Washington team was losing football games, and his decision to step away from the NASCAR team he founded a decade ago in order to return the sideline was under review.
Gibbs’ wife, Pat, looked at him and asked the same question Gibbs was thinking.
“She said, “What in the world did we do?’ ” Gibbs said. “And I said, “I’m with you.’ “
Gibbs, taking part in NASCAR’s Nextel Media Tour this week, laughed as he told the story about his wife.
He said he knew his return to the NFL would result in a certain level of frustration. And although he said his decision to return to the sport that put gaudy, diamond-studded Super Bowl rings on his fingers was a good one, Gibbs also said – not laughing this time – that his return will be a “short one.”
Gibbs said his plan is to honor the final four years of the contract he signed with Washington. Gibbs’ goal is to return Washington to the glory he enjoyed during his first stint as its coach in the 1980s.
If the rebuilding takes more than four years, and Washington owner Daniel Snyder wants Gibbs to stay longer, Gibbs would consider it. Gibbs joked that “if we don’t win a few more games next year, it (his tenure in Washington) may be real short.”
But whenever he exits the NFL, he surely will return to the race shop where he was standing Tuesday morning.
Gibbs said he always knew that racing was his life and that the NFL was just a phase of his life.
That knowledge was reinforced by two things when he reported to Washington last year.
First, there were the demands of an NFL season. Long days of long meetings and short nights of little sleep.
“It’s a little bit like being a monk,” Gibbs said.
Second, there was his love of motor sports.
“When you do something like this, you miss it,” Gibbs said.
In his absence – during his hiatus, as it were – the racing operation, which has won two Nextel Cup championships (one by driver Bobby Labonte and one by Tony Stewart), has been directed by Gibbs’ son, J.D.
J.D. was asked about his father’s decision to return to the NFL – asked why his father would go back to the meat-processing plant that is the NFL.
“He thrives on punishment,” J.D. Gibbs said.
“He’s been through it before; it’s part of life. There are bad times; he understands that. But he really works well with Daniel Snyder and he really enjoys that. Frustrating? Yeah, but you’re going to have frustrations whatever you do. I think he’s pumped up for next year.”
Gibbs the coach has reason to be pumped. His team showed improvement in the second half of the season, and his defense was among the best for most of the year.
Still, it might be tough selling four more years to Pat Gibbs.
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