Redskin debacle brought back memories of the first time

I remember it as if it were yesterday.

It was the first Washington Redskins game I ever attended, four days before Christmas 1975. My friend Mick and I were working for the Social Security Administration, and someone we knew who had season tickets wasn't using them for the final game of the season.

The Redskins were 8-5, but had already been eliminated from a shot at the playoffs. They were facing Philadelphia, which was 3-10 but had beaten them in Philadelphia earlier in the season.

The weather forecast was for wintry weather, and the seats we had were among the worst at old RFK Stadium. We were sitting in a temporary bleachers just behind the end zone, completely exposed to the weather.

By halftime it was sleeting. The game was awful, with the lowly Eagles dominating from the start and beating the Redskins, 26-3. First Billy Kilmer and then Joe Theismann were ineffective for the Skins, and by the time the game was finished, they had thrown seven interceptions between them.

38 years later

Most fans had left by then, but I don't recall Mick and I leaving early. We were young, we loved the Redskins and who knew when we would get a chance to see another game.

That was 38 years ago, but I thought about it when I saw this picture from an all but empty stadium today. The Redskins are horrible this year, and the halftime score shown made it look like they have all but quit on the season.

The biggest surprise to me in all this is that I don't really care. I'm not sure exactly when it stopped mattering to me whether Washington won or not, but once was the time it mattered a lot.

The Redskins play here in Atlanta next week, and even if someone offered me a free ticket and transportation to the Georgia Dome, I'd pass. I have probably been to more than 100 pro football games since 1975, and I'm pretty sure the last game I attended was a first-round playoff game in 1994 at the L.A. Coliseum, where the Chiefs beat the then-Los Angeles Raiders.

I had been covering both the Rams and Raiders for three years, and it was at the end of that season that they both left for different climes.

When I stopped covering pro football, I had attended games in New Jersey, Washington, Atlanta, St. Louis, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Anaheim. The toughest was San Francisco, where I had an eight-hour round trip from Reno -- where I was working -- every time I covered a game.

The most wonderful was Denver. Two years of Bronco games at Mile High Stadium compare with only two seasons of Dodger games at Chavez Ravine as the best experiences of my 16 years as a sportswriter.

It's funny, though. Since I was 7 years old, I've been to baseball games, basketball games and hockey games as a fan. I even went to a 1994 World Cup soccer game between Sweden and Cameroon at the Rose Bowl.

But except for that one time in 1975, I have never been to another pro football game as a fan.

Once was enough.