Football Frenzy In D.C. Cuts Across The Generations
Veteran Fans and Young Athletes Find Plenty to Cheer About at 2 Local Haunts

By Timothy Dwyer and Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 8, 2006

The Howard University women's flag football team -- which just finished its season No. 4 in the country -- is so young that its members wouldn't know Joe Gibbs from Grandpa Walton. But they share one thing with the legendary Washington Redskins coach: They love football. And so about 10 of them got together at a downtown Washington restaurant to watch yesterday's playoff game.

At the same time, regulars gathered at the Hitching Post, a warm and cozy neighborhood restaurant across Rock Creek Church Road NW from the U.S. Soldiers' and Airmen's Home. Their front four consisted of Vincent Roux, Joe Johnson, Jack Barnes and Hampton Logan, most as old or older than Gibbs, 65, schooled in his accomplishments and carrying a share of his triumphs in their hearts and Redskins souls.

They anchored the Formica-topped bar from the 4:30 p.m. kickoff to the postgame toast, shortly after Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Chris Simms threw an interception that sealed the Redskins' victory. Other customers came and went during the game, but not the front four.

Meanwhile, the young women watched the game with fresh eyes, not remembering or caring about the last time the Redskins were in the playoffs. They watched the game as players, filtering plays through their own football experience, talking about how they would have sacked Simms if they had been out there and ridiculing players when they got hurt or if they could not catch up with a thrown ball.

"You're in the NFL -- you shouldn't be that slow," Maranda York yelled at a Tampa Bay player when he let a Redskins receiver run by him.

Different generations in different parts of the city watched as the Redskins won their first playoff game of the century, 17-10.

A New Experience

York, 20, of Corpus Christi, Tex., is the captain of the football team. It is easy to see why. She is vocal. About everything. And she is a Dallas Cowboys fan, so she was rooting against the Redskins.

Michelle Burke, 19, of Washington, a defensive lineman who had 25 sacks during the team's 12-2 season, was her opposite -- a quiet Redskins fan. "I like football a lot," she said before the game. "I love it." She thought the Redskins were going to win. "I'm an optimist."

They met shortly after 3:30 yesterday afternoon at the ESPN Zone restaurant downtown. The place was a zoo full of football animals. The wait was so long that no time estimate was being handed out with the electronic beepers except "indefinite."

As game time approached, the team members discovered that they had to spend $10 per person per hour for each table. They weren't going for that. They headed to Ruby Tuesday across from MCI Center, walking like the wind past street vendors who were listening to the game on the radio. The Redskins scored before they got to the restaurant.

York found two tables in the bar area, and the team settled in. When a replay overturned a score by the Bucs in the first quarter, York yelled: "They're cheating you in your own house."

Redskins fans filled the place, but York had some voice. Whenever she cheered a good play by the Bucs, she was showered with a cloudburst of boos.

Burke, along with Nicole Chapman, 18, a linebacker from Fredericksburg, was sitting at a second table with Lareesha Goodman, 19, an offensive blocker from Saginaw, Mich., who was rooting for the Redskins. It was the quiet table. But when the Redskins missed a couple of tackles in the fourth quarter, Chapman jumped up and screamed, "How can you do that?"

"Nicole, you need to take a deep breath," Goodman said.

"That's why I need to watch football at my house," Chapman said.

"That's why I like just playing football," Burke said after the blown tackles. "I never would have missed that."

Savoring Victory Again

The tiny Hitching Post is a down-home friendly sort of place, with shrimp, pork chops and fried chicken on the stove and barbecue chicken on two grills outside. Owner Alvin Carter, 74, a former D.C. police officer, and his wife, Adrienne, have been serving up southern food since 1967. Like the "front four," most of the customers are old-timers.

"It's a nice, quiet, gentle place," Dr. Roux, 68, said during the first quarter, but in the frantic closing minutes of the game, there was nothing gentle about the place or the good doctor. When linebacker Marcus Washington picked off Simms with about a minute to play, the Hitching Post exploded. Roux, a longtime dean at Howard University College of Medicine, pounded the counter in glee.

Logan, a Federal Emergency Management Agency worker and a Hitching Post regular for 25 years, clapped and shook hands with Barnes, a 74-year-old retired Army man. Johnson, 54, pumped his fist in the air. "Who's your daddy now?" he shouted to no one in particular.

While 83-year-old Jose Williams watched quietly from a fuchsia Naugahyde booth, the Hitching Post front four toasted one another with wine and beer.

At the other end of the bar, Byron Reeves, a sales director for Society Financial Group, got back to his plate of barbecue chicken and looked to next week's opponent. "We're going to Seattle," he said happily.