[CBFF] He'd get a rush out of 1 more championship (Downey)

[Victor Waldron]

(This is a nice story, especially for the Chicagoland natives.)

He'd get a rush out of 1 more championship
Mike Downey
In the wake of the news

June 11, 2006

Meet the most successful pro football player in all of Chicago.

You can go to his home in Naperville and look at a very good photo of 
Bob McMillen in action, about to pounce on the other team's star 
quarterback, Kurt Warner.

You can check out mementos from the pair of championships McMillen has 
won as a pro. Fred Miller and Brian Griese are the only active Bears who 
have a right to brag that they have won a Super Bowl—one for each.

You can find out how McMillen became his league's leading rusher of all 
time (while also playing defense). And why he was voted one of the 
league's 20 greatest players.

Then, if you care to, you can turn on a TV or radio Sunday and catch 
what could be Big Bob's last football game.

"The one thing I haven't done that I'm dying to do," says the 
35-year-old fullback and linebacker for the Chicago Rush, "is to win a 
championship for my hometown."

ArenaBowl Sunday is here for us at last.

OK, so it might not be Super Bowl XX. But this baby, ArenaBowl XX, is 
the first title game to feature a Chicago team in the indoor league 
since the Bruisers lost to the Detroit Drive in 1988.

While we continue to wait for the Bears to shuffle their way to another 
one, let us enjoy a Chicago football team in a championship tilt while 
we have the means.

McMillen and the Rush will meet the Orlando Predators at 2 p.m. in Las 
Vegas at the Thomas and Mack Center, a building much better known for 
UNLV Runnin' Rebels basketball than it is for pro football.

NBC will televise the game nationally. It also can be heard locally on 
WCKG-FM 105.9, for those of you who do not need to see an indoor 
football game in person to get into it.

Mike Ditka probably will be there, being a part-owner of the team. 
(Walter Payton was one of the original investors.)

Mike Hohensee will be there, being the team's coach. This will be the 
first time back for "Coach Ho" since ArenaBowl I, when he was 
quarterback of the Pittsburgh Gladiators.

Oh, and of course, Mr. Chicago Football himself certainly is going to be 
there.

Bob McMillen isn't announcing his retirement yet, but he definitely has 
been giving it some thought.

"I think I've pretty much done everything I could hope to do," he says. 
"I don't know if this is it. We'll see how things go, but I know that I 
don't want to play anyplace else."

He won an ArenaBowl title in 1997 with the Arizona Rattlers … and scored 
a touchdown.

He won an ArenaBowl title again in 2002 with the San Jose SaberCats … 
and scored a touchdown.

Now the 6-foot-3-inch, 260-pounder would like to go out with one more 
bang, the way Jerome "The Bus" Bettis of the Steelers did a few months 
ago in Super Bowl XL.

It isn't that McMillen is over the hill, although he does put up with a 
lot of funny and friendly "grandpa" ribbing from his 20-something 
teammates."Yeah, they give it to me all the time," McMillen says.

Funny how a guy can go from pro football obscurity to elder statesman, 
but that's pretty much the way it has gone.

The Oak Park-born McMillen made a name for himself at Immaculate 
Conception High in Elmhurst, then at College of DuPage and at Illinois 
Benedictine. But a guy has to be great and a half to go from Division 
III ball to an NFL squad, and McMillen knows he wasn't quite up to that.

"Every kid who plays has an NFL dream," he said. "Play before huge 
crowds and make yourself millions of dollars? Who wouldn't want that?"

McMillen was about to trade a helmet for a hardhat and go into the 
construction business with his father and brothers. But then came a 
suggestion from his wife, Joan.

"She coaxed me into trying out for it," he said. "I think I was driving 
her crazy. I loved football. It was everything I wanted to do. She 
pretty much made me give it one more try, and today I couldn't thank her 
more."

The scheme of McMillen and wife was not without setbacks. There were 
tryouts in four cities at which Bob failed to make the team. When he 
went to Arizona for one last try, he paid for his own travel, lodging 
and food.

That was 1995.

Now in his 12th season, McMillen was given a day in his honor by the 
Rush on March 26 after he became the league's career leader in rushing 
yardage. He also holds franchise records for game, season and career 
rushing yards and touchdowns.

A league committee named him one of arena ball's 20 greatest players, 
along with the likes of Warner, who went on to the Rams and a Super Bowl 
victory, and Jay Gruden, who will coach the Orlando team in Sunday's 
game with the Rush.

"It's a different kind of pro football," McMillen said. "But hey, it's 
still pro football."

He plays it with a heart as big as all indoors.

-- 
victor at 19net.org
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