Ol' Ricky's Redskins Tales - "The Marvelous Misfit"

Joe Don Looney was every bit what his surname suggested.

“He was nuts,” linebacker Sam Huff told me in 2013. “It was real with him the whole time every day.”

Looney arrived in 1966 with such a wild reputation that the Redskins paid Huff $1,000 just to room with Looney. And yet, it wasn’t enough as the two eventually fought on the practice field after Huff tired of late hits.

Looney flunked out of Texas and was expelled from Texas Christian. He then set a punting record for junior national champion Cameron Junior College before becoming a 1962 All-American at Oklahoma despite being benched three games for punching an assistant coach.

The New York Giants drafted Looney in the 1964 first round, but he was soon traded to Baltimore after telling the Giants, “If practice makes perfect and perfection is impossible, why practice?" Looney was traded after one season with the Colts after refusing to run the ball as planned. He liked to freelance. He spent a season with Detroit before traded to Washington after declining to relay plays to the huddle, saying, “If you want a messenger boy, call Western Union.”

Looney’s biggest play in two seasons in Washington was punching a pass rusher trying to reach Sonny Jurgensen. Looney and Huff traded blows after the former pushed the linebacker into a mud puddle after a play. Oh, Huff still wishes he could hit Looney again. Huff did gain revenge once by leaving Looney off the team bus headed for a flight.

Looney spent 1968 in Vietnam as part of the U.S. Army reserve before just three carries in 1969 with New Orleans.

And then the story gets weird. Wait, what? Now it gets weird?

Looney became a hindu and worked as a bodyguard for a swami. He washed an elephant’s feet. Looney was later convicted of illegal possession of a firearm and given probation. Ronald Reagan pardoned him.

The story ends with Looney riding his motorcycle off a Texas road and hitting a fence. He was 45. The weird part is there were no skid marks.

Tomorrow: Ol’ Ricky recalls James Thrash. Lots of stories in my book and these are the types of tales I’ll tell on my “Pizza and Pigskins Tours” later this summer.

Rick Snider is an award-winning sports writer who has covered Washington sports since 1978. He first wrote about the Redskins in 1983 before becoming a beat writer in 1993. Snider currently writes for several national and international publications and is a Washington tour guide. Follow Rick on Twitter at @Snide_Remarks.