Joe Gibbs

Super Joe Gibbs, coach of the Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins and the greatest coach of all time, according to one recent magazine study, allowed himself to enjoy Sunday's 42-10 win over Denver for what must have been 20 minutes, 30 tops. Of course, it seemed an eternity for the worry-wart with glasses, who couldn't set the Lombardi Trophy down fast enough Monday morning to get back to chewing his fingernails. Who has time for a book?

Joe Gibbs emphatically reiterated his commitment to the Washington Redskins, quashing speculation that began with a misinterpretation of remarks he made at a NASCAR media day last week. "I signed a five-year contract when I came here," Gibbs said at a news conference Monday. "Most people sign three-year contracts. My commitment to the Redskins, I want to do every single thing I can to restore the Redskins to winning football games. "I'd say that my commitment is a minimum of five years.

Burnout is a 20th-Century word, in fact, a late 20th-Century word. George Washington never experienced burnout. George Burns hasn't, either. Burnout seems to be a product of the playing fields. And then in only specific places. Babe Ruth never had burnout. Neither did Ty Cobb. You're never going to get Arnold Palmer off a golf course. Sam Snead was still trying to make a buck out there when he was 80. But a lot of young players suddenly can't get the putter back anymore.

CONCORD, N.C. -- At the NASCAR Sprint Cup race two weeks ago at Darlington Raceway, Joe Gibbs found himself in a familiar spot -- in a huddle. Some lug nuts on the wheels of Kyle Busch's No. 18 Gibbs Toyota car were inexplicably falling off. So the NFL Hall of Fame coach gathered his three race teams on pit road, worked out a solution and Busch went on to win his third race of the season.

Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls as coach of the Washington Redskins with three different quarterbacks. His next trick may be to win the Winston Cup for Joe Gibbs Racing with two different drivers. In the season just completed, Bobby Labonte finished second and rookie Tony Stewart fourth, the best finish for a first-year driver in 29 years of Winston Cup racing. Both drove Pontiac Grand Prixs. Even though Gibbs is a perpetual optimist, the team's success surprised him.

Joe Gibbs was in town this week, promoting his book, "Racing to Win," attending the Christian Book Sellers Assn. conference and meeting with sponsors. "Sometimes it seems that meeting and getting sponsors is the way I spend most of my time, but that's what you have to do these days in NASCAR," said the former Super Bowl-winning coach who became a NASCAR team owner and won the Winston Cup championship in 2000. Gibbs' No.

Glen Macnow of the Philadelphia Inquirer on NBC analyst Joe Gibbs: "If you want to hire him to blab at the next garden club meeting, his standard fee is $20,000. Gibbs has 20 such gigs lined up, according to his agent. "That's amazing since, in 12 years as coach of the (Washington) Redskins, Gibbs never had anything interesting to say." * Trivia time: Who is the only active player to appear in the World Series with four different teams?

Dan Reeves, the one-time Georgia cracker who has led the Denver Broncos into another Super Bowl, coaches football more successfully than he ever played it, his old friends agreed this week. As a quarterback and halfback in his youth, Reeves was a classic overachiever, at South Carolina and with the Dallas Cowboys. At South Carolina, they still remember the day he set a record that has stood for more than 20 years.

The Washington Redskins moved into a new facility this year, vacating Redskin Park, their home for 20 years. Coach Joe Gibbs was asked what he would miss. "I got used to the rats running around at night," Gibbs told Pro Football Weekly. "I'll kind of miss some of those guys, those little critters. They'd keep you on your toes. "We called in (an exterminator). Those things were resilient. They ate that poison. They thrived on it."

Doug Williams has a lot of love and respect for Joe Gibbs. It was Gibbs, after all, who helped transform Williams from a discarded Tampa Bay quarterback into a Washington Redskin star and a Super Bowl legend. So when Gibbs makes his return to coaching today, facing the franchise that once gave Williams the boot, his old quarterback will be there too -- pulling for the Buccaneers all the way.