On the air

ESPN star has fond memories of Bucs

Chris Berman still can visualize Bucco Bruce, the Yuks and the Big Sombrero.

By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 22, 2003

SAN DIEGO -- Love comes in many different shapes and sizes.

Colors, too.

ESPN's Chris Berman admitted what most longtime viewers in the Tampa Bay area already have known: He has a soft spot for orange.

"How could you not root for them," Berman said when asked about his affection for the old-school Buccaneers.

It was Berman who coined the nickname Big Sombrero for Tampa Stadium. And it was Berman, in 1996, who first called the Bucs the Yuks, doing so while they were in the same city in which they will try to win their first Super Bowl on Sunday.

Warren Sapp said recently he believes the Bucs began to turn it around after that game in San Diego, a 25-17 victory. The Bucs, 2-8 at the time, went on to win three of their last five, then five in a row to open the 1997 season on the way to the playoffs.

"I've always looked to that ballgame. When we went out there, Chris Berman called us the Yuks. And me and (Derrick) Brooks looked at each other and said, "Oh, (shoot),' " Sapp said earlier this season. "That's when I liked to say I became a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan. I knew I was a player before that, but I became a fan then. I got sick to my stomach when I heard (what Berman said)."

Berman said he coined the phrase out of love. Though he playfully chided the Bucs during the years, there always was a sentimental tone to his ribbing.

"I was real friendly with the guys on the team then, the Lee Roy Selmons and Doug Williams, names no one remembers these days," Berman said. "I kind of attached myself to Philadelphia when the year started, and when they ended up playing the Bucs ... I felt like that was my little baby I helped nurture."

Berman leaned back in his seat at an ABC news conference Tuesday and took great glee in reliving the Bucs' gory days. He said no team will ever lose 26 games in a row as the Bucs did to start their existence.

"That was special," he said.

He still can't resist the chance to bust the team's old chops. He said the Bucs "not only made losing an art form, but they invented it." He referred to the 15 years of "hilarity." And he said of the Bucs' badness, "You'll never see it again."

He spoke forlornly of the old Bucco Bruce orange uniforms and said he is glad the Bucs kept just a hint of the color in the sleeves of the new uniforms.

"I'm glad they kept a little in there for the old guys who remember the days," Berman said. "It's like their Social Security number. They can't quite hide it."

He even jokingly said the team should come out in the orange uniforms Sunday.

Though there will be plenty of highlights of orange Bucs fumbling and stumbling this week to commemorate the rise of the franchise, Berman said orange wasn't always so synonymous with failure. He remembers some pretty "ferocious" Bucs in 1979 and '80, when the team contended.

But who remembers that? Now it's pewter power, and the Bucs bandwagon Berman once drove has kicked him off and has a new generation of passengers.

"For young kids, like 18 or 20 years old, they don't even remember when the Bucs were horrible," Berman said. "And not just horrible horrible, but horrible funny. They were the Yuks."

If that history is clouded, it will all but be erased with a victory Sunday. The Big Sombrero now is a parking lot. The Creamsicle uniforms have been replaced by red and pewter, and the Yuks are in the Super Bowl.

Berman said he is happy for the team but a little sad to see the past become a footnote.

"They could get to two or three Super Bowls now, but the first one will be the last chance to remember what they were," he said. "You have to go back to the days to appreciate it. Those memories are old. If they win Sunday, they become ancient history."