Page 9 - The Hunt - Summer 2022

EDITOR’S NOTE
MRr. Fix-It
ecent NFL Hall of Fame inductee Dick Vermeil led the once-struggling Philadelphia Eagles to their first Super Bowl i
in 1980. Nineteen years later, he got his first (and only) Super Bowl win as coach of the St. Louis Rams. Simply put, the man knows how to fix things—and he isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.
It’s something J.F. Pirro and Jim Graham learned firsthand while
on assignment for our cover story. Pirro had just finished his interview with Vermeil at his Chester County home when the mishap occurred. “He’d given us far more time than we’d expected, and he was incredibly gracious,” recounts Graham, The Hunt’s contributing editor. “I packed up my gear, and we headed to our cars. I looked back once I’d gotten my gear loaded, and J.F. was standing looking at his Jeep.”
Pirro’s keys had fallen between the window and the dashboard. “For about an hour, we tried and tried to fish out the keys with no luck.” Graham reports.
The next obvious step was to call AAA, and they phoned Vermeil to let him know. “Out he came, going into his garage and returning with everything we needed to take the vehicle apart,” says Graham. “I pulled out my phone and found a YouTube video that showed us what we needed to do. J.F. and Dick went to work on one side of the Jeep,
and I went to work on the other.”
Within 30 minutes, they’d dislodged the roof and lowered the front window to reach the keys, pulling them out through a gap near the driver’s-side vent. “I have to say I felt sorry for J.F.,” Graham says. “It was a mistake that could happen to any of us. He’d just finished a great interview, and this twist of fate was a punch in the gut—like that classic Chuck Bednarik hit to Frank Gifford.”
Vermeil to the rescue.
Hobart Rowland Editor-in-Chief
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