My introduction to Phil Villapiano:
It was 1980, and I was covering the Buffalo Bills' home games on a regular basis for the first time. The team started the season with a winning streak that showed the previous five years, some of which had been truly dismal, had been put in the past. After games, the reporters gathered around the stars like Joe Ferguson, Joe Cribbs, Jerry Butler, Fred Smerlas and Jim Haslett for the most part ... with one exception.
Phil Villapiano was a popular interview subject in those days, even though he didn't receive a great deal of playing time. Villapiano had been acquired for Bob Chandler in the offseason, and the idea was that he'd add depth and veteran leadership to the defense. Phil also was a good interview - funny, smart and honest. He didn't play that much at times, but it was always good to stop at his locker to see what he had to say.
Here we are, more than 45 years later, and people still want to hear what he has to say. Villapiano is out with an autobiography called "Just Tackle, Baby!" If you are looking for stories about a crazy if bygone era of pro football, this is a good starting point.
Villapiano grew up in New Jersey and went to college at Bowling Green - which was geographically close to the Big Ten but not in the Big Ten. Even so, the Falcons find some football players every year - and Villapiano was one of the best. He was a second-round draft choice of the Oakland Raiders in 1971. All of a sudden, Phil was in the midst of some of the great "personalities" in football history ... and fit in quite well with them.
At the top was Al Davis, one of the most interesting personalities in NFL history. He did almost everything in the sport from assistant coach to league commissioner (AFL). Davis' slogan was "Just win, baby," which is wear the title of the book comes from Life was never boring with Al around. The same could be said about John Madden, the coach of the team during much of Villapiano's time there. The Raiders were always very good under Madden, and even won a Super Bowl once along the way.
When it came to players, the team featured names such as Ken Stabler, Fred Biletnikoff, Art Shell, Gene3 Upshaw, Otis Sistrunk, George Atkinson and Jack Tatum. The Raiders played hard and partied hard. They may have bent some rules along the way and broken a few others. It's impressive that the Raiders could do all of that and still be contenders. Villapiano has plenty of stories about those days on the field and nights in bars - you'd call the R-rated stories "examples of team bonding" today.
Villapiano also is happy to voice an opinion about the most famous play in pro football history (well, at least in the top five) - the Immaculate Reception play in 1972 involving the Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers. You might remember how Franco Harris caught a deflected pass and went in for a go-ahead touchdown in a playoff game. Phil is still angry about what was overlooked on the play - rules violations, penalties, etc. - but the result seems unlikely to be change 54 years and counting later. He and Harris, by the way, became good friends in spite of opposing views of one particular play.
Villapiano was on the back nine of his football career when he got to Buffalo, and was part of some good times there. Let's just say that Conrad Dobler was quite a character. It might be worth noting to Bills' fans that the linebacker has plenty of good things to say about head coach Chuck Knox. He also praises Kay Stephenson, who was the offensive coordinator at the time. Stephenson was promoted to head coach when Knox left in 1983, and Villapiano's words make that action a better idea than it seemed at the time. (The Bills returned to their losing ways once Knox left.)
A serious knee injury ended Phil's time on the field. It was time to move on with life, and he chose to be attached to the - wait for it - container shipping business. Who knew? It sounds like he's done fine with it, although it's easy to guess that an ex-NFL player with some degree of fame ought to do reasonably well in almost any sales job. After all, his mere name is a heck of an introduction.
The book comes with a couple of problems connected to it. Villapiano is closing in on 80 years of age these days. There are fewer and fewer of us who have first-hand memories of the Raiders of the 1970s. This could have been written 20 years ago without changing too much of the script. I also noticed some obvious typos that went uncaught along the way. Some names got garbled, and a few facts are wrong.
Even so, "Just Tackle, Baby!" is easy to read and goes by smoothly. A book like this probably is designed to be a substitute for sitting down with Villapiano at a bar, ordering a couple of cold ones, and having him tell you what it was like to be a Raider when the team had a distinctive personality. It will work well, particularly for those in the proper demographic.
Four stars
Learn more about this book from Amazon.com. (As an Amazon affiliate, I earn money from qualifying purchases.)
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