Herb Brooks sat in the living room of the cramped east St. Paul, Minn., working-class house he grew up in and watched the grainy black-and-white images of the 1960 United States Olympic hockey team winning the gold medal.
Brooks was 23 at the time. Just a few weeks earlier he was the last player - the very last player - cut from that team. He watched as buddies from his neighborhood were handed gold medals. In tears, he looked at his father sitting next to him, hoping for words to soothe his wounds and make the ache in his heart and the pit in his stomach go away.
His father stood, started to walk out of the room and said over his shoulder, "Looks like Coach cut the right guy."
Herb Brooks loved that story. Told it all the time. Those seven words - looks like Coach cut the right guy - lit a fire in Brooks. Those seven words inspired him to do something great in his life, to be a somebody.
Yet even after he coached the 1980 Olympic team to its "Miracle on Ice" and even after he coached in the NHL and won college national championships and brought respectability back to the U.S. hockey program with a silver medal in the 2002 Olympics, Brooks simply wanted to be known as a regular guy.
"I'm just a regular guy who wants another kick at the can," Brooks would say whenever he took a job. His favorite movie was Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory because Wonka was the maker of dreams and "everyone should have dreams," Brooks would say.
A ham-and-egger. That's what he called himself, and that's what he called anyone he really respected, anyone who worked for a living. He would rather rub elbows with the construction workers and plumbers and cops at the local watering hole than hobnob with high society at some stuffy black-tie affair.
Not that he couldn't slap backs and smoke cigars and sip brandy with the fat-cat corporate types in the back parlor. It's just that he would rather throw back a shot and a beer and talk about the weather.
Or hockey.
Herb - he was never Mr. Brooks ("My father was Mr. Brooks," he would say, "My name is Herb.") - loved to talk hockey. It meant more to him than anything in this world other than his wife, Patti, and his kids and grandkids.
From 2000-03, I covered hockey for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and got to know Herb, who lived in the Twin Cities, through our conversations about hockey. Several times a month, in a press box or over dinner or through a telephone, Herb and I would talk hockey. Or rather, Herb would talk hockey and I would listen.
The telephone would ring - it might be 10 in the morning or 10 at night - and the voice at other end would simply say, "Hey, it's Herb. What's going on with (name any NHL team or player)?"
In 20 minutes he could solve the problems of a half-dozen teams and lay out his plans to fix whatever particular woes were affecting youth hockey, college athletics and the Olympic program. He had a million stories, and theories, and plans.
Of course, there were just as many stories about Herb. Like the time he told his Olympic team, "You guys are playing worse and worse every day and right now you're playing like it's the middle of next month." Or, "Don't dump the puck in, that went out with short pants." Or, "You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone."
True story: One day during the 2002 Olympics, the U.S. hockey team did not practice, and thus the media could not talk with the players or Brooks for their stories. But late that afternoon, Brooks made two phone calls: one to a reporter from the Star Tribune and another to a reporter from the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Not Sports Illustrated. Not the New York Times. Nope, on the biggest sporting stage in the world, Brooks made sure the locals could get their stories. He took care of the regular guys.
Herb probably would be embarrassed by all the things being said about him today, and all that he accomplished. He never thought of himself as being a big deal. Which is exactly why he was a big deal.
After hearing Monday's tragic news that Brooks' life was cut short by a car accident, and knowing all that Brooks still had left to offer, one can only think, "Looks like the world lost the wrong guy."
