One evening I had to call my friend Bert Hill to get verification of this story. Obviously, the stories I remember have seemed to change as I have aged. I think they are one thing, then – I talk to someone who was also there and I realize I have forgotten some key points.
Oh well, that’s what happens – I’m sure some of my friends have experienced similar gaps in their memories.
My friend – the late great John Teerinck had a great saying – or riddle I guess you might call it. He often would throw this teaser out there? Where do you go during a tornado warning?
His answer – you have two choices – “The first is a strip joint, and the other is a bar!” It was a very effective conversation starter for him. His point being this – the
places you hear about being destroyed are trailer parks, churches, schools and malls.
Do you ever hear of a strip joint or bar being wrecked?
The answer is no you don’t.
We were playing an early season game in Cincinnati. (This is the point I had to clarify with Bert by the way – I couldn’t remember if it was pre-season or early season. Bert also believed it was Cincinnati also not remembering the exact time of the season). So, we win the game and we can see that there is some bad weather coming in pretty quickly. Dark clouds surrounding the stadium.
Everyone on the team can see that this was going to be pretty bad as the skies started looking ugly and the breeze began picking up just as the game was ending. Well, usually it takes a little time to get everyone – players, coaches out of the locker room – especially after a win. Plus, the equipment guys have to pack up all the gear
Interestingly enough the rapidly changing weather put the guys into a fast forward mode and the team showered up relatively quickly and the equipment staff was able to load the gear and get everything organized in a pretty timely fashion.
We loaded the busses and got on the road for the relatively short trip to the airport just as the rain started up. It really looked pretty bad, and there were some reports of tornadoes in the area.
As is normal with team travel – the busses drive directly on the tarmac to your waiting jet (rarely did we go through the terminal). But, instead of getting off of the busses the team was told to sit tight and some of the operations people went into the terminal to find out what the status of flying out of the airport was.
Now, the weather was beginning to deteriorate pretty quickly and one end of the airport was getting darker and darker. Well, those of us on the busses were getting a little nervous. The busses were actually rocking with the gusts of wind.
We were getting no information from anyone (this is before cell phone days). Finally, one of the offensive linemen got up and said “To hell with this – I’m not sitting on this tin can!” He gets up walks to the front of the bus – well the bus driver said he couldn’t let him off.
I can tell you it isn’t smart to tell a six foot six, three-hundred-pound guy what to do…. He basically told the driver he was getting out and going into the terminal. He opened the door himself and went into the terminal.
Right after seeing that happen we all jumped out of the busses and ran into the terminal as it started to rain pretty hard. There wasn’t anyone going to stop a whole professional football team from doing what they wanted at that moment.
So, anyway we get into the terminal and the place is basically shut down – no one was flying out or landing in that storm. Well, where does everyone go? To the nearest bar inside the place. It was already pretty full with other waiting passengers also hoping to get out. You can imagine how full it was when most of our guys showed up.
Of course, John Teerlinck was leading the charge at the bar. He was two fisting 
his Miller Lite like the world was going to end. He was what I considered a true professional when it came down to drinking beer. I have seen a number of excellent beer drinkers, but “JT” is by far the best of all time.
After about twenty or thirty minutes of “stress relief” an airport public 
announcement was made informing everyone that a tornado had indeed touched down at the end of the runway. Everyone was told to go to the lower level and go into the bathrooms for shelter. Yup, sounds funny now – but there was indeed a mad rush to get downstairs into the rest rooms.
We spent probably another half an hour or so in those bathrooms – trust me there were a lot of people in those so-called shelters. It was crowded and I think after a little while we all felt a little sheepish cowering in the basement of an airport terminal.
Funny thing I never saw JT in our area. But, there were several bathrooms on the lower level, so he could have been in one of the other ones. But, it turns out he wasn’t.
Later when the tornado warning ended and we could board our jet I ran into John as we boarded the jet. I asked him where he was sheltering – he told me that he had just stayed in the bar when everyone went downstairs.
JT simply bought a few extra beers before the bartender high tailed it out of the bar himself so John just sat up there by himself drinking Miller Lite. “Remember Donny – you never hear about a bar being destroyed by a tornado!” The things you learn in football!