Csonka carries rude behavior way too far

Even if they’re fishermen, we should hold sports stars to the same standards we hold for others when it comes to giving our respect.

Consider NFL Hall-of-Famer Larry Csonka, the Miami Dolphins running back and MVP of Super Bowl VIII back in 1974. After retiring from a career of ringing bells inside the helmets of defensive backs, the Zonk has been spanking big game with high-powered rifles and ripping fish lips all over the country for his cable TV hunting and fishing shows.

Nice gig. Can’t put Larry down for that. And we can understand these are tough economic times, even for former superstuds. So maybe we should forgive the Zonk for neglecting to pay $3,887 in fees to the U.S. Forest Service for the permits he should have acquired before filming several programs on federal land.

Csonka pleaded guilty in an Anchorage, Alaska, court recently and agreed to pay the fees. At sentencing scheduled for April 19, prosecutors plan to request a sentence of probation for one year and a $5,000 fine.

No big deal. It could have been an honest mistake.

I saw Csonka a few years ago while float-fishing for steelhead on the Grande Ronde River. My partner and I recognized him and that his film crew was unpacking nearby, so we rowed to the other side of the river, got out and lined our raft along the shore to stay out of the way and avoid disturbing their water.

I’ve met only a handful of anglers who wouldn’t offer a wave, nod, thumbs up or at least a smile to fellow anglers who went out of their way to pass courteously on the wild section of a great fishing stream.

Csonka was one of them. And he wasn’t being particularly pleasant to his guides, either.

Indigestion, maybe? We gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Last fall, the 58-year-old football has-been was rescued by a team of real heroes from the Coast Guard who risked their lives to pluck him and his crew off a 28-foot boat that had been overwhelmed for 12 hours by a brutal Alaska storm in the Bering Sea.

News reports said Csonka was so thankful to be alive, that he autographed footballs for the boys who saved his butt.

Maybe the prospect of an early judgment day finally made the Zonk more respectable, but I’d sooner bet on a Seattle team to win a Super Bowl or World Series.

A few years ago, Csonka was right here in the Inland Northwest filming a show at an area pheasant hunting preserve. One of the guides told me the thrill of working with a sports celebrity wore off pretty fast.

“We did everything he wanted for four days, put them up and everything,” he said. “On the last day, we brought along two of our young boys and after the shooting was over, they asked him for his autograph. He told them no.”

I have plenty of respect reserved for athletes who work hard for their goals and stand up as good role models for the youth who adore them. But the Zonk isn’t one of them.

Super productive: Ever wonder what a sportsman could accomplish if he weren’t swept up each year by Super Bowl hype?

When I came home from skiing Sunday, my visiting mother-in-law said, “You’re just in time for the kickoff.” Somehow she had forgotten that I have never watched a Super Bowl. Not one. I may be the last Male Baby Boomer Super Bowl Virgin. The perfect record might eventually be my ticket to the Late Show with Letterman, or at least a local afternoon sound bite with Patchin.

I’ve always enjoyed the outdoor solitude offered by an event that lures most Americans indoors. This year, however, I came down from the mountain early, owing to my daughter’s sense for capitalizing on the event by babysitting for Super Bowl party-goers. My mother-in-law is a Seahawks fan, so she had the big game on TV in our home for the first time.

So I went to work outside, determined to demonstrate how much productivity American outdoorsmen lose to this annual event.

In the first half alone, I was able to hot wax my cross country skis, vacuum a season’s worth of bird dog hair and quail feathers out of the hunting rig, and box the errant 20-gauge shells I found under the seat before washing the exterior of the pickup and two family cars.

I was hosing out the dog kennel when my wife poked her head out the back door and yelled, “Halftime!” and something about, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction!”

“You got that right, baby,” I mumbled to myself. “Not now, I’m on a mission.”

Before the second-half kickoff, I’d done a short session of retriever training with the young English setter and I was into the gun safe, wasting no time cleaning the bores, wiping down and oiling the 12-gauge and 20-gauge field guns and .300 ultra-mag so they’re ready for the next season.

I brushed the Palouse topsoil off my Danners and rubbed in boot grease to condition leather weary from some 30 hunts this season. I’d patched the hole in my waders and was sorting spring fly patterns when my wife yelled from upstairs, “They lost! Are you satisfied?”

“Whatever you say, honey. I’m free now.”