GRANDSTANDING: Moon over Gallup

Of course, you’re thinking, Herron’s writing about another trip to Sammy C’s Rockin’ Sports Pub & Grille in Gallup.

But when you — actually, me — get an opportunity to meet and chat with a hall-of-famer, baseball or football, you jump on it.

So I did. I had an invite from my buddy Sammy Chioda, owner and operator of Sammy C’s, to come out on April 11 and meet Warren Moon, guest speaker of the sold-out 33rd annual Rotary Club scholarship fundraiser, held in the Event Center at Red Rock State Park. Local photographer Joe Grimando was behind the wheel, and I rode shotgun for the trip west.

Moon is the only man in the Canadian and National Football Halls of Fame.

Given that — and not everybody knows this — he wasn’t even drafted in the 1978 draft out of the University of Washington.

Back in 1978, none of the 28 teams wanted to take a chance on a young quarterback coming out of the University of Washington. So, Moon went to play in the Canadian Football League.

How did that work out for the CFL? Moon led the Edmonton Eskimos to an unprecedented five consecutive Grey Cup victories from 1978 to 1982 and is considered one of the greatest CFL players of all time.

“My dream was to play in the National Football League,” he said. “That dream turned into a goal once I got into college. I used to idolize O.J. Simpson (who died earlier that day) as a young kid, growing up in L.A. He played at USC; I grew up in Los Angeles, and he was the man.”

Moon was ‘the man’ too

Moon played from 1978-83 for Edmonton, before starting his NFL tenure: Houston Oilers (1984-93), Minnesota Vikings (1994-96), Seattle Seahawks (1997-98) and Kansas City Chiefs (1999-2000). He threw for 49,325 yards and 291 TDs, went to nine Pro Bowls, was inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame in 2001 and the NFL Hall of Fame in 2006.

“I started wearing No. 1 in college because I always wanted to be the No. 1 guy,” Moon once said. “I always want to remind my teammates that I’m the man who can get it done.”

He did.

Moon had been in the state before, invited to be the guest speaker at the banquet before the 2015 New Mexico Bowl.

His message for the Rotary audience was to raise as much money as possible “to fund scholarships, so these young people have a chance to educate themselves and become successful in life. I think we’ve all kinda helped out to get where we are. It’s our obligation to do the same thing for the next generation.”

Moon wasn’t asked about the memorable — for Buffalo Bills fans — loss to Buffalo in the 1993 playoffs, squandering a huge lead to Frank Reich, replacing injured Jim Kelly, as the Bills’ QB. (He attempted 50 passes, completing 36, with four TDs in that 41-38 loss. The Oilers had a 32-point lead in the second half, after leading at halftime, 28-3, and then 35-3 after scoring the first TD of the second half.)

When asked for his most memorable game, he didn’t take long to think about it: “Probably playing in the Rose Bowl and winning it in my senior year at Washington. We were huge underdogs against the University of Michigan.”

He was asked if any of today’s pro quarterbacks remind him of a young Warren Moon.

“I had the ability to move, but I also was a really good pocket-passer, and today there’s more guys that are playing well from the pocket,” he said. “I may not be a Lamar Jackson, as far as running, but I was a better passer, passing from the pocket. So, I don’t know; it’s really hard to say.”

Moon said the best advice he ever received came from his mother.

“She told me that you can do anything in life that you want to do if you’re willing to put in the hard work and be able to overcome the adversities that come along with it, because life is not a bowl of cherries — it’s tough,” he said. “You’re gonna be told you’re not good enough; you’re going to be told no. It’s how you handle that.”

It’s the same advice he would give anyone asking.

“I stuck to that advice, and it’s not easy for everybody to do that. Everybody’s not built the same. But if you somehow have that toughness that you have so much confidence in your ability that you can be successful, then you should be able to get it done.”

He seemed pretty impressed with what he’d seen that day in Sammy C’s, as he spent a long time signing helmets, jerseys and footballs.

Sammy C’s, located in what once was a J.C. Penney store, has 6,000 sports-related items on the walls and in glass cases; Chioda knows where every one is located, too.

Moon wasn’t the first notable banquet speaker in Gallup: Bart Starr, Rocky Bleier, Ronnie Lott, Mike Ditka, Terry Bradshaw, Marv Levy, Tom Landry and Joe Greene of NFL fame have been there before.

Moon, said Sammy C’s owner and Rotary banquet organizer Sammy Chioda noted, had “an amazing story, an affirmation of how hard work always perseveres when staying the course — and never giving up!”

What else would you expect?