ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Everyone who met Dave McGinnis has a story. The longtime NFL coach — who spent more than three decades in the NFL, most notably as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals from 2000-03, before passing away Monday at 74 years old — was the mayor of everywhere.
His orbit was galactic in size and his West Texas roots always remained in rhythm with the words that cascaded over those around him. People and places were his legacy; a handshake here, a laugh there, a story about how he might have met your uncle one time. And folks were always impressed by how he always remembered their names.
Because McGinnis always remembered everybody, which makes the list of those who will remember him a long one.
I’m in that crowd. Mac made me drive his immense truck every time he forgot his glasses, or when he didn’t want to admit not knowing the exact way to where we were headed.
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I’d always say we could just put my car in the back and bring it along — that it would be a more convincing use of his apprentice monster truck that never actually went off road. And he’d always made fun how I parked that truck wherever we had found tamales, or hand-made tortillas or wherever he had declared had “the best salsa on planet Earth.”
He routinely had a business card with him among the day-to-day potpourri seemingly always in his pockets, a card a restaurant owner in Phoenix had written “VIP always” on the back. He’d show that when we’d breeze in and they’d move tables around to seat whoever was with “Coach Mac” and brought the best of food until there was no more time left in the day.
Football introduced me to Mac decades ago, and it’s been quite the ride. I stare at the keyboard of my laptop knowing no matter how many words you type, sometimes there still aren’t enough to really tell a story.
February marked the 39th year I attended the combine — Mac always said if I made it to 40 he’d get me a deal on a “big-ass truck,” because well, he always seemed to know somebody who knew somebody who could get you a used spy satellite, a granite brick, snakeskin boots or whatever you could dream up.
And if you stroll down Meridian Street in downtown Indianapolis, you’ll find yourself in front of Shapiro’s Deli. There’s a big round table near the front window of the restaurant, with six seats and countless memories.
Year after year at the combine, Mac would hold court among our core group. The laughs were too loud for the yawning breakfast crowd, and annually we would all tell each other the story — again — of how we were so early one year we beat the cook to the front door. Turned out the cook just didn’t show up that day.
And he’d always gripe about paying, even though he would absolutely have it no other way. He’d also pull out a softball-sized wad of cash wrapped in a rubber band, to which I’d tell him to get a damn wallet like a normal person.
The group got smaller over the years as life moved on the way life moves on. Retirements, down-sizing, layoffs. etc. The last few years it was just he and I, but we laughed loud enough for all of us. And he’d remind me you just aren’t anybody unless you have a bobblehead of yourself, and I’ll be damned if Mac didn’t have a bobblehead, too.
This February, it was just me at our round table on the second to last day of the combine, as Mac had missed his first. His last text to me was about the draft and that if I kept at it, I might hit “guru status like coach Mac” with the requisite 17 emojis he sent with every text.
But, like I say, everybody has a Dave McGinnis story.
