Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming (eBook)

Prologue: Good Morning, Mr. President

UCLA defensive coordinator Bobby Field loved his three-and-a-half-mile run through the canyons above the Westwood campus on early spring mornings, when he could hear the sprinklers and smell the damp grass. He tried to make it an escape from the Xs and Os of the game, but strategic revelations came in flashes -- such as when one arrived shortly after he crossed Sunset Boulevard and started up Stone Canyon Road.

The new safety is going to be quick enough to send after the quarterback on second-and-long, especially against teams with tailbacks who don't check if they're needed to block for the quarterback before drifting into the flat and leaving a lane wider than --

What's this?

On this morning, near the stately, sprawling, and isolated Hotel Bel-Air, where the famous stay to be unseen and where the smell is either of the hotel's plush Gardens or of old money, three men are walking toward Field. It is 6:15 a.m., a time in the Bel-Air Estates for expensive sweatsuits or shorts or golf shirts or cashmere sweaters, or perhaps for a chauffeur's uniform, if the driver is stretching his legs as he waits for his wealthy passenger. But these three men are in dark suits, white shirts, and ties, and they are strolling downhill toward the jogging and sweating football coach who is trying to avoid developing the sort of paunch that fills those coaching shirts and can be so embarrassing on television.

Suddenly, Field realizes the slightly hunched figure between two guards is Richard Milhous Nixon.

It is March 30, 1985, nearly eleven years since the resignation, and a week before the opening of the Bruins' spring practices. Field doesn't know this, but the night before, the ex-president dined with former Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In producer Paul Keyes at Chasen's, and Nixon's 'Sock-It-to-Me' cameo on the classic television show undoubtedly came up. Later, Nixon would check out of the hotel to leave for Rancho Mirage and the 'Sunnylands' estate of Walter Annenberg, the founder of TV Guide and the ambassador to Great Britain during the Nixon administration. Now, Nixon is taking a morning walk with two guards, who check out Field. They conclude he doesn't have a knife hidden in the elastic band of his jogging shorts.

So what's the protocol here, Bobby Field? Whistle 'Hail to the Chief' as you pass? Veer off path, as if there is a presidential halo that remains after the exit from office? Hold both hands aloft, signaling 'V' for victory over Humphrey and McGovern?

Like a quarterback under siege, Field has only a few seconds to make a choice, and he nods in midstride, and puffs out a greeting.

'Good morning!'

Nixon nods back. It is almost imperceptible, but it is there, the slight acknowledgment. Now Field is past the former president, heading further into the foothills.

Good morning?

Bobby Field comes across Richard Nixon for the second time in his life, and that's all he can say? He choked in the clutch, he lectures himself on the move. He runs for another ten minutes on his uphill portion, passing immaculate homes, then takes one more stride to the north and reverses direction, as if he had stepped on the line at the end of the field during 'gasser' drills and must start back the other way. It's time to head back to the UCLA football offices and prepare for the workday -- film, practice plans, staff meetings, all the details involved in getting ready for the Bruins' upcoming season.

As Field runs back down Stone Canyon Road, he again approaches the Hotel Bel-Air, on his right. Nixon and his two protectors are standing near the canopied stone footbridge that leads over a...