2001 - Got Gruden?

Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans got their man

The Bucanneers were looking for a coach that could take them to the promised land, they got their man and got their Super Bowl with Jon "Chucky" Gruden.

Over six seasons from 1994 to 2000, Tony Dungy became the most successful coach in Tampa Bay Buccaneer history .  While the Bucs made the playoffs in 5 of 6 of Coach Dungy’s seasons, and coach Dungy had built one of the best defensives in all of the NFL,  he had grown a reputation for “playing not to lose” vs. “playing to win.” Sadly for Coach Dungy, this philology often resulted in the other team scoring late and the Bucs losing the game by a small margin.  This conservative coaching style started to grow old with both fans and media, and finally in 2001, the owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,  the Glazer Family, released Coach Dungy’s as the Bucs coach. 

The search for Dungy’s replacement was focusing  on finding an innovative, offensive minded coach, one that could take what most considered a very talented team, beyond a wild card berth or to a first round of the playoff loss.  The Tampa Bay community wanted a championship level team and the offensive style of Dungy had been holding them back. Steve Spurrier was the first on most Bucs fans wish list but he was offered huge dollars by the Washington Redskins and accepted their $5 million per season offer.  The Ol’ Ball Coach was DC bound. Well the Bucs then went after young gun, Jon Gruden, a.k.a. Chucky. Coach Gruden had done wonderful things  for Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders and the Raider’s offensive was hi-powered and one of the NFL’s best.  

Tampa Bay landed CHUCKY and the young offensive mastermind was heading back to Tampa Bay to become the new head coach.  Back in the 1980’s Jon’s dad had been an assistant for the Buccaneers and while Jon lived in Tampa as a teenager he actually had a part-time job at the local Hooter’s Restaurant as a fry cook.   Chucky was coming back home and the fans were FIRED UP!  His offense coupled with Tampa Bay’s already wonderful defense and watch out! Since Smack is located in Tampa Bay, we too are huge Tampa Bay fans and we were FIRED UP too.  The fans needed a shirt and got gruden? was born.  The shirt quickly became the hottest shirt in all of Tampa Bay and of course, Chucky did not hurt the fans excitement (or shirt sales) as he eventually delivered a Super Bowl Championship to Tampa Bay in his first season as Buccaneer coach.