Washington Post
It’s after 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and Joe Gibbs, a man of strong conviction, wants to talk about another man of strong conviction.
“George had such great courage,” the former Redskins head coach said of his friend George Michael, who died of cancer Thursday morning at age 70. “The last two years when I would talk to him to see how he was doing, he would have such concern for others.” He would often ask about Taylor, Gibbs’s grandson, who was fighting leukemia. “By the time we were done, he ended up cheering me up.”
Of all the odd couplings on a coach’s show, which the two executed for years during both of Gibbs’s tours, an iconic sportscaster paired with the most significant and humble sports figure in the city’s history had to rank up there.
“I was the milquetoast coach and he would try to shock me by saying things like, ‘You don’t believe that!’ After a while, I’d either laugh or just sit there looking at him.” More…