As Trey Hendrickson caps off the biggest sack season since 1976 on Sunday (1 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Local 12) against Cleveland in the regular-season finale at Paycor Stadium, Bill Anderson-Bacon remembers his dad’s voice as big, loud, and official as his unofficial 26-sack season for the Bengals nearly 50 years ago. Now, it’s time for a Coy Bacon primer.
“A big, happy guy all the time who loved kids and the church,” Anderson-Bacon describes his father, who passed away this past Christmas week at the age of 66. His father was well-liked in his hometown of Ironton, Ohio, and was well-known for trying to get troubled youth back on the road by loading them into passenger vans during field trips.
“He was a Bengals fan. He had a great time there. He would talk about that team and those sacks all the time. He had Bengals memorabilia strewn all over the house in Ironton.”
Starting with the words of their head coach during that ’76 season, Bill “Tiger,” Johnson said Dave Lapham, a guard for the First 50 Bengals who has been the radio analyst for the team for the previous 38 seasons, “That SOB is the best pass rusher I’ve ever seen.”
“The consummate professional pass rusher,” Lapham says. “Most natural pass rusher I’ve ever seen. He would dance into the quarterback with every step. He was, athletically, a 270-pound snake slithering. He could turn and make himself small. I don’t know if he was 6-4. Maybe. He was built a little differently. He was as big as a lot of D-Tackles. A big, thick dude. He had immense short- space quickness. He’d get off the ball and I’d have to make sure I wasn’t blinking. Extraordinary get-off. He was explosive.”
