Bucs fans, I’m debuting a new column called Bucs Throwback Thursday where I take a stroll down memory lane and offer up my own personal insight and anecdotes on days gone by in Tampa Bay football history. Let me know what you think of the Bucs Throwback Thursday column in the article comments – and be sure to return next week for the latest edition.

Each week before offering up a new Bucs Throwback Thursday, I pay my respects to the late, great former sports editor of The Tampa Tribune, Tom McEwen, who often started his column “Breakfast Bonus” describing a large southern-style breakfast in detail before turning the column back to sports. I loved reading the menu – but loved reading his wit and wisdom even more. So here we go.

Tom McEwen and Mark Cook in 1996

Over your breakfast of three scrambled eggs from Edson Farms of Opp, Alabama, served with two links of Nettles brand sausage from Lake City and a quarter loaf of toasted Cuban bread baked daily at La Segunda Bakery in Ybor City slathered in homemade guava jelly and served with a glass of Lake Buffum grown fresh squeezed Florida orange juice, here is this week’s Throwback Thursday section.

My fandom for the Buccaneers started in late 1977 when my Dad and I saw Tampa Bay beat the Saints on the road for their first win in franchise history. As a seven-year old, I thought to myself, “This team is pretty good and those orange and white uniforms are pretty awesome.”

Little did I know how that Sunday afternoon in 1977 would cause me such misery, pain – but brief periods of joy – over the next 42 years of my life.

The 1978 season started off well, the Buccaneers drafted a quarterback named Doug Williams, and the team finished that season 5-11. Not great by any standard, but after losing their first 26 games it was obvious improvement.

But things were about to change.

The Bucs defense was a solid unit in 1978, and 1979 saw it peak. Tampa Bay started off the season with a big, 31-16 win over the Detroit Lions at Tampa Stadium then went on the road the next week to beat Bert Jones and the Baltimore Colts in a wild, overtime game in which Tampa Bay was down 17-0 in the first quarter before coming back to win 29-26.

I could actually show up to Mrs. Carlson’s fourth grade class at Pinecrest Elementary and not be ashamed to wear my Buccaneers shirts.

Three more wins and the Bucs were 5-0 and the toast of the NFL. After being a laughing stock for nearly three years, the young and upstart Buccaneers were no longer the butt of jokes from Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Tampa Bay struggled down the stretch, but won the NFC Central title in a downpour, 3-0, over the Chiefs in the final game of the regular season to make the playoffs. The game wasn’t shown locally as it didn’t sell out in time to lift the NFL blackout rule, so I had to listen to the radio broadcast instead.

The joy of beating the Eagles behind Ricky Bell’s big day and a smothering defensive performance came the following week. Then the heartbreak of a 9-0 loss to the Rams in the NFC Championship followed eight days later. That was my first case of the highs and lows of being a sports fan. It wouldn’t be my last.

My greatest birthday present ever still to this day came in 1981 when I opened a birthday card at my party to find two tickets to see the Bucs host the Broncos in November of that year. It would my very first time seeing the Bucs in person.

I wore my footie pajamas and orange robe to bed every night until game day. But I’m not sure I got much sleep in those two week. I still remember everything about that day. We stopped at Shop N’ Go (the predecessor to Circle K back then) and my dad let me have Funyuns and a Nehi Grape for my breakfast. This was truly going to be the best day ever.

We went to Brandon where we caught a bus by the Chuck E. Cheese to the stadium and I can still remember walking up the ramps breathing in the smell of the grass turf and mixture of Tampa cigars wafting through the air. Fans could smoke in the stadium back in the 1980s.

It was amazing at how green the grass was, contrasting the painted field featuring the orange Bucco Bruce logo at the 50-yard line. The Bucs lost 24-7, and the lone Tampa Bay score was a Cedric Brown interception return off of then Broncos quarterback Steve Deberg, who had replaced Craig Morton in the second quarter. It didn’t matter though. I had made it to the Holy Land. And if the bus had run off the overpass coming home I would have died the happiest 11-year of all time.

In 1982, I remember sitting in my Dad’s truck listening to the radio on a late Sunday afternoon as Tampa Bay beat the Bills 24-23 to keep their slim playoff hopes alive in that strike-shortened season. I killed his battery and he wasn’t too happy the next morning when we got up to go to work. The following Saturday I was in Tampa Stadium with my dad, Uncle David and Aunt Kathy to see the Bucs come from behind once again, this time to defeat the Lions, 23-21. Then I listened to Mark Champion call the win on the radio the following week over the Bears to get Tampa Bay in the playoffs.

After that 1982 season, the team tested my fan allegiance for the next several years.

The dark years began that offseason when Tampa Bay decided to not re-sign quarterback Doug Williams, letting him walk over a few hundred thousand dollars. The Leeman Bennett years and the Repus Bowl against the Oilers soon ensued. Followed by the Bo Jackson fiasco.

Ray Perkins came next and his three-a-day training camp practices at the University of Tampa were legendary. It’s true. Perkins had three practices a day, and I witnessed a few.

Following Perkins was Richard Williamson for one dismal year (3-13) then the hiring of former Bengals coach Sam Wyche in 1992. The best he could do was 7-dash-9 after a 5-dash-2 start in 1995, which would be his final season as head coach in Tampa Bay.

I actually began my career covering the Buccaneers in 1995 when I had a press credential from Sports Radio 910 WFNS, formerly WPLA in Plant City where I started in radio in 1988. I met a young Scott Reynolds who offered to credential me the rest of the year if I would help after games transcribing quotes for Buccaneer Magazine. The pay wasn’t great – like zero dollars – but the benefits were nice, including traveling to Green Bay and Minnesota in 1996 on the company dime.

I was there for Tony Dungy’s first season, a 6-10 year that was followed by a 10-6 campaign in 1997, and a return to the playoffs for the first time since I was 12 years old.

Former Bucs head coach Tony Dungy – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

A lot had happened over that period of time. I hit puberty, President Ronald Regan was shot, the Challenger space shuttle exploded, I graduated high school, worked numerous radio jobs, the country headed to its first Gulf War, I bought my first truck, I got married and witnessed the birth of rap music, the rise and fall of hair bands and later grunge rock, and had Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton in the White House.

To put things in perspective, ET: The Extra Terrestrial was the top movie and Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” was the top song in 1982. When the Bucs finally made it back to the playoffs in 1997, Titanic was the biggest movie that year and Elton John’s tribute to Lady Diana, “Candle in the Wind” ruled the charts. Like I said, a lot of history took place during that playoff drought.

But the good times were just getting started.

The flashback continues every Thursday. Stay tuned, Bucs fans.

VIDEO THROWBACK

Here is a great YouTube video for old school Tampa Bay fans, and a nice history lesson for the younger generation that doesn’t remember or wasn’t even born in the early days of the Buccaneers. This video is a great recap of the 1977 season, as the Buccaneers set an NFL record for consecutive losses that still stands today.