Ickey Shuffled Way Into My Heart

By David Campbell

Like most 13 years old, I was into sports, but not "into" sports, if you know what I mean. I played baseball, soccer and football, I collected baseball cards and I had about 645 pennants that were plastered all over my walls.

But I didn't watch sports. At least, not an entire game. Two, three quarters of football was about all I could stand. Baseball? Give me a break. My appreciation for watching hours and hours of spitting and foul balls was still about four years away.

Looking back now at the ripe-old age of 34, I realized how much I missed. Danny and The Miracles leading Kansas to the National Championship? *Yawn* Didn't really care for basketball. Tom Browning pitching an improbable perfect game? You mean two hours of no hitting at all?

What's funny, is both Kansas' national title and Browning's perfecto came in the same year as Ickey Woods' iconic shuffling back and forth after a touchdown. I honestly cannot remember anything from Browning's perfect game other than what I have since seen in highlights, but I remember Ickey making a lame touchdown celebration cool.

Ickey made me a Bengals' fan. Sure, he had help. Boomer Esiason flinging touchdowns at an MVP pace and David Fulcher hitting guys so hard that their mamas welled up. But it was Ickey, doing the same kind of dance that all of us would have done in the driveway, that caught my imagination.

Cincinnati was on its way to arguably the best season in franchise history. The 1988 Bengals started off 6-0, rolled through the AFC Central division and re-wrote the record book.

Coach Sam Wyche was a certifiable genius, and was a delicious foil to all Browns, Steelers and Oilers fans. The Buffalo Bills' "K-Gun" offense and Peyton Manning's no-huddle histrionics before the snap? They both owe their genesis to Wyche's "Sugar Huddle."

But it was Ickey that galvanized the fan base. One of three running backs the Bengals employed to batter opponents, Ickey was the battering ram, the rookie from UNLV that eclipsed 1,000 yards rushing and danced after every score.

As the season wore on and the Bengals got better, Ickey was just one part of a team that had captured my imagination and by the end of the season, I was hooked. Three quarters? Hell, give me six!

The Bengals trounced Seattle and Buffalo in the playoffs then came within 34 seconds of winning it all. It took me 15 years to truly forgive Joe Montana for breaking my heart. But my love for the team has endured.

It's hard to imagine that the Bengals would make only two playoff appearances in the ensuing 21 years. Most fans in my nick of the woods have since changed their allegiance to the Colts and spend their days mocking the orange-and-black.

But thanks to Ickey, I'm still proud to call myself a Bengal fan. And I admit it, I still do that Shuffle each time the boys push one across the line.