Sport: Surviving the Super Bowl

To the victors go the spoils, usually spoiling the victors

If the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, why is there another one next year?

—Dallas Cowboy Philosopher Duane Thomas, whose 1971 wisdom surpassed understanding

As the four surviving teams in the National Football League's Super Bowl tournament press on toward the ultimate game, the question is whether anyone ultimately survives at all. The last three Super Bowls were won by the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers, none of whom made it back even to the play-offs the following year. John Madden, who celebrated the 1977 Super Bowl with Oakland after eight years of trying, slipped the next season and quit coaching the year after that. He says, "The real pressure is having to do it again and again."

Bill Walsh of the 49ers and Dick Vermeil of the Philadelphia Eagles, the N.F.L. Coaches of the Year last year and the year before, knew about pressure before they got to their Super Bowls, but learned about futility there. Walking away from his $250,000 job last week, Vermeil, 46, expressed something of the toll that accrues from 24 years of X's and O's, using that corporate phrase "emotional burnout." But Walsh's portrait of himself after the 49ers' 41-37 loss to the San Diego Chargers Dec. 11 is more achingly descriptive. "I was totally drained," he says, "physically, mentally and emotionally. It took everything I had. There was nothing left of me. I knelt down for the prayer, and as I went to get up from one knee, I couldn't. When I made it back to the coaches' room, I broke down sobbing."

Here is a bright man who, a year ago, in his 27th coaching season but only his third year as a head coach in the N.F.L., was artistically helping to reshape his sport. Last week he was fervently hoping to locate an aspiring head coach skilled enough to allow Walsh, at 51, to leave the field in good conscience and concentrate on the comparatively serene work of general managing. "Hard, executive work," he allows, "with long hours here and there, and a certain amount of travel. But no experiences like San Diego." Should he be unable to find or convince the right man, he will soldier on a while.

Part of Walsh's weariness has to do with calling essentially all of the plays in some 260 games since 1969 for the Cincinnati Bengals, San Diego Chargers, Stanford University and the 49ers. Seasons can get away from a football coach. "The changing trees, the colors in the fields, amazed him," Carol Vermeil said of her husband's simple wonder during the eight-week strike. "You know, I think that he thought all fields were green with white stripes on them." And so can years get away. "How does an eleven-year-old qualify for a driver's license?" Madden remembers asking his wife once when his signature was requested on their son's learner's permit. "John," she said softly, "he's 16."