How Teddy Marchibroda Ruined My Love Life

Growing up in the Washington , D.C. area, it was very normal to have friends and acquaintances whose parents were famous.

J.E.B. Stuart High School in suburban Falls Church, Virginia educated the children of several congressmen and senators during my four years at the school (1970-1974).

The daughter of an Australian ambassador lived in our district. So did the son of the deputy director of the CIA. Megan Mathias, the daughter of Maryland senator Charles "Mack" Mathias was in my graduating class.

And me? Well, I was an outcast because my father was "only" a 'GS-14' and wasn't a presidential appointee. All my Dad did, after all, was help run the Voice of America.

But during my tenure, none of these kids, or their parents, were on the "coolest of the cool" list.

This was the beginning of "Redskin Fever" and politics took a back seat to anything remotely burgundy and gold.

The Washington Senators last game at RFK Stadium coincided with the beginning of the George Allen era in Washington. He brought in a whole new approach to the game of football, as well as a slew of new coaches and players.

And all of these new players and coaches needed a place to live.

One of Allen's first accomplishments after being named head coach and general manager was to build the original Redskins Park in the distant Virginia suburbs. The coaches then all purchased homes in and around the practice facility to lessen the commute.

George Allen's home was within the Langley High School boundaries. Every time Stuart played Langley in football, there was George, rooting on his boys (George, Jr. and Greg).

Landing within Stuart's boundaries was Ted Marchibroda, the Redskins new offensive coordinator. That fall, Ted's daughter Lonni and his son Teddy became instant stars at my high school.

Lonni was very quiet, and I'd be surprised if I said "Hi" to her more than a few times over the years. But Teddy was different. With his long flowing blonde hair and signature bow tie, the young Marchibroda quickly became "it" in and around the school.

Teddy was a decent receiver; not great but certainly well above average. He was fast but was rail thin and had a hard time taking a hit.

He wore No. 80 on his jersey, the same number as Roy Jefferson, the Redskins' star receiver who drove around Falls Church in a customized burgundy van with the Redskins' logo and his nickname, "Sweat Pea," emblazoned across the side.

On Fridays, all of Stuart's football players wore their jerseys to school.

Well, not Teddy.

He wore a Redskins' jersey.

And that was a big deal in 1974.

In the mid 1970s, you couldn't buy an NFL authentic jersey like you can today. The only place we saw the team's jersey was on TV on Sunday's.

I remember exactly where I was the first time I saw Teddy wearing a real Redskins' jersey.

I was in the library, working on a history project, when he came through the outside door and headed towards the cafeteria. He was surrounded by an entourage of J.E.B. Stuart's finest, all wanting to touch the jersey, to pay homage to the burgundy and gold and see what the real thing felt like.

It was an away jersey: white with touching burgundy and gold, and burgundy and gold stripes on the sleeves. The number was 18, that of backup quarterback Sam Wyche.

And there was his name, right above the numbers on the back of the jersey, in block burgundy letters on a white mesh panel:

WYCHE

Teddy's smile was priceless. He was a rock star, a movie star and a stud athlete, all rolled into one.

I hated him.

Oh, I didn't hate him because he wasn't nice. I hated him because he was so close to the Redskins and I wasn't.

The best I could do was to get a couple of autographed pictures of running back Larry Brown from my sister-in-law who taught coach "Torgy" Torgenson's kid at Luther Ellis Intermediate school, just down the road from my high school.

Teddy milked his dad's relationship with the team for all it was worth. He got dates with the "it" girls because they wanted to go to his house and meet his dad.

Want to meet George Allen? No sweat. He only lives a few miles away.

"Let's go."

I had to use my personality and all the looks I had (which weren't all that great) to get dates and find friends. Teddy had a glut of both because of who his father was.

Those "it" girls who occasionally agreed to a pity date with me (when they had nothing else better to do) now set their sites on Teddy, partly because he was good looking, partly because he was funny, but mostly because he could walk them through the back door and right into the inside world of the Washington Redskins.

The rest of us couldn't even get tickets to a game. There hasn't been a single seat available to watch the team play, either at RFK Stadium or today's FedEx Field, since the early 1960s.

All we could do was watch the games on the television.

Sure, Teddy may have been a wonderfully successful man had his name been Jones and not Marchibroda, but I couldn't swear to it.

He went on to play for the University of Virginia, one of the worst Division I football programs in the 1970s.

Today, Teddy is an agent for several NFL players.

I decided during my senior year that I didn't want to be one of the "popular" kids (probably because I could never be one anyway), and started hanging around with this really short kid I met through my father. Both our dads came from the Middle East and so we had sort of a built-in relationship.

He was a nice enough guy but it was obvious that this short little sophomore wasn't going to overshadow me.

This time, I was the big fish, the big kahuna, the top dog.

Numero uno.

And then this 5'6" sophomore began to smoke his 6'4" friend in basketball. Every time.

Every game.

And then he grew up to be Tom Shadyac, the star Hollywood director of films like Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar and Ace Ventura.

And me? I'm a senior at Idaho State University in Pocatello.

Sigh.....