Ryp’s Super Dream
Bart Starr was there. Joe Montana, too.
Roger Staubach. Steve Young.
All members of an exclusive fraternity of athletes who were able to elevate their game to its pinnacle in football’s most heated crucible.
Like a Hall of Fame exhibit on the hoof, the 20-or-so Most Valuable Players of the preceding Super Bowls walked to midfield at Sun Devil Stadium to help oversee the coin toss of Super Bowl XXX.
Mark Rypien was there, too, standing next to Franco Harris.
And while Rypien saw the appearance as an honor, as a poignant moment that triggered gratifying flashbacks of his career highlight, it convinced him of one thing.
He’s not ready to become an artifact. A historical footnote.
Or a trivia question: Which quarterback was MVP in Super Bowl XXVI between Joe Montana and Troy Aikman?
If it’s up to him, thank you very much, he’ll watch his next Super Bowl through the face mask of his helmet.
“We stayed for the coin toss and then left at halftime,” Rypien said of himself and wife Annette. “We’d been away from the kids all week and, heck, if I’m not playing in it, I could care less about the game.”
Rypien, the Spokane native now living in Post Falls, is an unrestricted free agent.
And he’s still looking for a place to start, for a team to help back into the playoffs, for a chance to re-live the January evening in Minneapolis when he decisively directed the Washington Redskins past the Buffalo Bills.
It’s not such a radical notion.
At 33, he’s younger than Steve Young. And he’s certainly healthier than Chris Miller, the Rams starter, for whom he subbed at the end of last season.
The status of Miller, in fact, affects the future of Rypien. It’s all a head game, of sorts.
A $3 million-a-year crash-test dummy, Miller is a talented quarterback whose five concussions in the past two years have created grave concerns over his health.
Common sense would suggest it’s no longer Miller time, that he retire before some sack-happy linebacker applies the final KO and ruptures the over-ripe cantaloupe that’s currently serving as a cranium.
“I’d like to stay in St. Louis and be the guy there,” Rypien said. “But if they’re going to tinker around and wait and see what Chris is doing, then we have some other options we can look at.
“Chris and I get along real well, but if they’re going to go with him come hell or high water, at that high price, that will be difficult to swallow.”
Through his final year in Washington and the 1994 season in Cleveland, injuries and the absence of a supporting cast caused Rypien’s stock to swoon.
But in the final three starts of the year with the Rams - with Miller on the sidelines seeing stars - Rypien completed 62 percent of his passes for five TDs, two interceptions and a robust average of nearly 350 yards a game.
“That’s stirred up some definite interest; it looks like my name is back on the board now,” Rypien said. “They wonder how come Mark looks so good all of a sudden. Well, I’m healthy, I’ve basically had two year’s rest.
“You get real banged up and don’t perform so well and you start to wonder to yourself, on the inside, if you can ever get back to that level,” Rypien said. “I think I answered those questions.”
Rypien was spending the afternoon of this interview overseeing his son Andrew Robert, who was jumping in one of those baby-bungee chairs. Every few seconds, he’d toss his stuffed toy and wail - teaching his father to “fetch.”
And between recovery of Andrew’s repeated fumbles, Rypien allowed himself to look back. He was able to place that MVP honor in perspective and admit just how important it was to him as an emotional touchstone.
“You know, you’ve got guys like Marino and Elway and Jim Kelly who have gotten there but spent a lot of lonely Mondays knowing they didn’t get it done,” Rypien said.
“While I was down at the Super Bowl, it kept coming back to me. And it felt good to know that when I had the chance, I got her done.
“No matter where I am or what I’m doing, that’s something that can’t ever be taken away.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo