Wednesday, December 23, 1998

Football, money couldn't bring joy to Bob Lilly's world

An AP Guest Sports Column

By NICK GHOLSON

Wichita Falls Times Record News

WICHITA FALLS, Texas -- "Ye shall find the babe dressed in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."

To us Christians, the real gift of Christmas was born in a Bethlehem manger some 2,000 years ago.

We believe that little baby was the Son of God, come to bring joy to the world and hope for the future. He can turn water into wine and sinners into saints. He can fill the emptiness of a shallow life.

One of those to have a life-changing experience was Bob Lilly, the greatest player to ever wear the uniform of the Dallas Cowboys. As my Christmas present to you, here is that life-changing story.

It was the morning after what was supposed to be the greatest moment of his life.

The monkey that had taken up residence on the backs of the Dallas Cowboys had finally been bucked off. The frustrations of the last five seasons -- back-to-back NFL championship game losses to Green Bay, two straight first-round losses to Cleveland and a heartbreaking overtime loss to Baltimore in Super Bowl V -- were now faded out by the glitter of a world championship ring.

"Next Year's Champions" were now "This Year's Champions." The Cowboys had crushed Miami, 24-3 in Super Bowl VI, and after 11 battle-scarred seasons, Bob Lilly now owned the greatest prize in professional football.

Lilly, the man Tom Landry calls "the greatest player I ever coached," had made the signature play of that game. With Lilly on one side and Larry Cole on the other, the two defensive tackles had herded down Bob Griese like two cutting horses working on a calf until Lilly sacked the Dolphins quarterback 29 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

"It was the highlight of the day," Landry said.

"When they mention that football game, they don't mention any of the touchdowns or any of the other plays, they always mention Bob Lilly chasing down Bob Griese," is how longtime Cowboys General Manager Tex Schramm remembers that day.

Yet less than 24 hours after that game, on a day when you would think Bob Lilly's heart would be filled with great joy, he was experiencing only emptiness. Standing in a hotel parking lot just the night before had been the scene of the Cowboys victory party, Lilly stumbled through the empty beer cans, pompoms and crepe paper, asking himself, "Is this all there is?"

He had been a football player for 20 years. Most of his life had been built around the anticipation of this day, and now the thrill of Super Bowl VI had disappeared almost as quickly as the big white tent that had held the parking lot victory party.

Lilly had set three goals in his life. One was to make All-American, and he had accomplished that at TCU. The second was to be All-Pro, and he did that seven times with the Cowboys. The third was to win a Super Bowl, and now, at age 33, he had attained that.

He played three more seasons with the Cowboys, but it never was the same. Bob Lilly's football career had ended that Sunday afternoon in New Orleans. Now he was searching for a new goal and eventually decided that money might fill the empty hole in his life.

Just months after his retirement, Lilly was awarded the Coors beer distributorship in Waco, Texas. After never earning more than $80,000 a year as a football player, he now had a business bringing in 10 times that amount. He worked 16-hour days, seven days a week to make the business successful. He was consumed by his work, spending little time with his wife and children. Her husband's absence caused an emptiness in the life of Ann Lilly.

Ann said she filled the emptiness in her life by "meeting Jesus." Bob, although he was making lots of money, couldn't fill the emptiness of his own life.

But the change in Ann got her husband's attention. Bob had seen the difference in Ann's life. He knew that she had something that he didn't have.

At his wife's insistence ("She almost gave me an ultimatum," he said), Bob agreed to go with Ann to a Valentine sweetheart banquet put on by her Women's Aglow group, a "spirit-filled" Christian organization. When one couple stood up at the banquet and gave their testimony, Bob Lilly "weeped." The couple had some of the same problems in their marriage until one, then both "found the Lord."

"I realized how far I had strayed, not just because of the beer business, but just that ever since I had grown up, my life had gone a little off course," said Lilly, who now lives in Georgetown, Texas.

Bob had grown up in a Christian home. He had professed Jesus as his savior when he was a 9-year-old boy attending a Royal Ambassadors' outing on Elm Creek in between Throckmorton and Elbert, Texas. He was baptized and attended mostly the Baptist church in Throckmorton with his mother and sometimes the Methodist church with his grandmother.

"I went to college and kinda got away from going to church," he said. "I had never had a drink in my life or smoked a cigarette, but when I got to college, within a year I was smoking and drinking and chasing girls with the best of them. But I never quit praying, and I never quit believing."

With the Cowboys, Lilly admits "chasing around a little bit," but he clung to most of the moral values he had been taught as a boy. He became "wilder" after his first marriage ended in divorce, but it was mild compared to today's standards. Some of that was because of Tom Landry, whom Lilly considers "a great example."

"He was very honorable, very honest. He had his rules set and that's the way it was. He didn't allow a lot of things, but I think it was his personal example that touched me the most. He was almost an idealistic personality. He was by the numbers. His whole life was like that and still is," Lilly said.

The testimony he heard at that sweetheart banquet caused Lilly to realize that his own life was off course. That same night he had a dream that he actually talked to Jesus. "He was asking me when I was going to follow him and I said as soon as I do all these things I want to do."

Ann kept praying for her husband. So did his mother, Margaret. Bob, who began attending Highland Baptist Church in Waco with his wife, also prayed. "I asked the Lord one night if I died tonight, would I be saved? He didn't answer me with a direct answer, but I kept getting no. I don't know if that was the Lord or if it was Satan."

"I never doubted that I was born again when I was 9 years old. Baptists say once you're saved, you're always saved. I'm not saying that's not right, maybe it is, but what I'm saying is I'm not sure. I believe a person could walk away or get bitter and maybe lose it possibly, but I don't know if you could or not. What I do know is, my second experience is, I guess you might call it born again or some people might call it being rededicated. I wasn't unsure that I was saved when I was a young boy, it was just that I was unsure I was still saved and I wanted to be sure. I got baptized and then baptized my whole family," Lilly said.

He kept his beer business and saw no conflict between that and being a Christian until one night in 1982 when driving back home from Dallas on Interstate 35.

"I came upon a wreck just outside of the little town of West. A pickup had turned over, and I pulled over to help," Lilly remembers. "There were three boys inside, maybe 16 or 17 years old. They weren't hurt, just cut up pretty bad, but when I opened the door of that pickup, beer cans fell out all over me, and that's when I was convicted. It was like the Lord said, 'You know, Bob, what you see here is how you're using your fame, to sell beer to kids.' "

Lilly soon made arrangements to sell the lucrative business he had been in for the last seven years. "I do want to say that I have learned enough since that time that I don't have anything against beer distributors. They were nice to me when I was there, and they're still nice to me. But it was just the wrong business for me. I had a guilt feeling I could never get rid of," he said.

Being All-American, All-Pro and winning a Super Bowl had not filled the emptiness in Bob Lilly's life. Neither did money. "I remember something a man from West Texas once told me," Lilly said. "Every man has a God hole. You can try to fill it with anything you want, and you just can't get it satisfied 'til you fill it with Jesus. In fact, the more you try to fill it, the bigger the hole gets until you find Jesus."

"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.' "

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Distributed by The Associated Press