DIDN'T KNOW DOC WAS ALSO A MECHANIC
They sang four verses of "Amazing Grace," said the Rev. Herb Lusk, Eagles chaplain and former running back. That was Jim Johnson's favorite hymn, said Lusk, who eulogized the team's former defensive coordinator, a cancer victim last week at age 68.
The principal speakers were Lusk and former Colts GM Bill Tobin, whose association with Johnson went back to when they were football teammates at Missouri, Eagles president Joe Banner said. Afterward, players and coaches, former and current, loitered to tell stories of the gruff former Missouri quarterback who led a tremendously successful Eagles defense from his hiring in 1999 until last month.
Colts coach John Harbaugh and Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo, former Johnson assistants, left their own training camps to attend. NFL commisioner Roger Goodell was an unexpected attendee, a team official said. Former players such as Troy Vincent, Al Harris, Sean Considine, Bobby Taylor, Jeremiah Trotter and Dhani Jones also came to Lincoln Financial Field for the private memorial. Brian Dawkins, who apparently is undergoing or has just undergone hand surgery, was unable to attend.
Harbaugh said the purpose was "in some ways, to thank (Johnson's wife) Vicky and the family for sharing Jim with us."
Middle linebacker Stewart Bradley told his favorite Johnson story -- accustomed to drawing on a dry-erase board in the locker room, Johnson one day had to do with a clipboard and paper. Except, looking at his players as he diagrammed, he forgot he couldn't just wipe the sheet clean, so he kept writing over what he'd just written, and rubbing it, and writing some more. "By the end, it was an absolute mess," Bradley said.
Look for more in Saturday's Daily News.
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
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