Q&A with NFL Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz

Anthony Munoz’s bad luck with injuries did not deter the Cincinnati Bengals from taking him with the third pick in the 1978 NFL Draft. It may have been the best draft pick in their history. Munoz played 13 NFL seasons, made 11 Pro Bowls and was voted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1998. Munoz, one of the NFL’s best left tackles, was recently selected to Pro Football Weekly’s Team for the Ages.

Munoz will take part in Pro Football Weekly’s “Team for the Ages” celebration with Football Legends Live! on Saturday at the Raue Center For The Arts in Crystal Lake.

The night will include a two-hour live program celebrating 50 years of Pro Football Weekly and the legends you’ve been watching play the game through the years. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the program set to begin at 8 p.m.

Tickets can be purchased online at shawmediaevents.com/e/pfw50.

Munoz also was a star off the field, where he earned NFL Man of the Year in 1991 and received the 2015 Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Medallion of Excellence for his work with youths.

What does this mean to be picked to the Pro Football Weekly Team of the Ages?

Munoz: It’s still kind of unreal. Even the Hall of Fame stuff. When I talk to young people, I tell them, ‘Don’t forget where you come from and what you’ve gone through.’ When something like this happens, I think back to my college days, everybody had written me off, I played one game my last year, had one healthy season, and I thought, ‘Man, this is amazing,’ that this could happen to be considered with some of the top guys to ever play the game. It’s very humbling, but it’s a thrill to be included with those guys.

What are you doing now?

Munoz: I’ve had the Anthony Munoz Foundation for 17 years. We have six programs that run year-round. We work with 2,500 to 3,000 kids a year. My son, Michael, played at Tennessee and wasn’t drafted and he got his MBA and was at Proctor and Gamble for six years. He left about six years ago and we started an agency, so this is our seventh year and we do character camps for the NFL. We’ve been in 27 NFL cities, we’re going to Mexico for the fifth straight year in November. What I’ve been doing for 17 years here in Cincinnati, we’re taking it nationally. And with the Pro Football Hall of Fame, we’ve started some youth programs. I’m doing a lot of youth stuff, which is a passion of mine. I have a couple of small companies in this building, a corporate apparel promotion items company. It keeps me busy. I play some golf, which I love, when I get the chance. And I have 11 grandkids.

You suffered three knee injuries at USC, but were a picture of durability in the NFL. How did you do that?

Munoz: I just think it’s the plan. I learned from what I did at USC and played in one game my last year, then came to Cincinnati. You look at all three college injuries, the first one I’m cutting a guy off and a 300-pound guard falls on me. My second one, I’m pulling on ‘Student Body Right’ and I’m running and a whole pile falls on me. The third one, I jump over a pile and I land and a DB puts his helmet on my knee. It wasn’t like I was moving around with nobody around me, they were three vicious hits on my knees that caused it. When I was in the pros, I believed in elevating the conditioning and just going 100 percent every play. That’s the key, especially as a lineman, you’re in there with all those different bodies. At USC, I learned how to go from snap to whistle. My conditioning was such a big part of my offseason, and during the season, it was rare for me to get tired and I kept going 100 percent every play. It drives me nuts when people talk about getting through this game and not getting hurt. If you think about getting hurt, you get hurt. Injuries are a part of the game, but if you go 100 percent every single play, the risk goes down. As far as my legs, when I retired after 13 seasons, for 15 years after I retired, I ran 6 miles every day. So my legs were good. I stopped running eight or nine years ago, but I do a lot of other stuff every day.

Didn’t the Bengals have a slow-pitch softball team and you played shortstop?

Munoz: Baseball was my first love. I wanted to be an MLB player starting when I was 7. From age 9 when I played organized baseball through senior year of high school, I was a third baseman-pitcher. I played at 6-6, 280, I played third base. I played one year of college baseball at first baseman-pitcher. So in the offseason after we worked out, just about every year we had a softball team and I played shortstop. My strength was my arm so I played on the grass. That’s what we did growing up, you played football, basketball, baseball and as a big kid, as a basketball player I had to move my feet. John Robinson recruited me at SC and I don’t think he watched a football game, he watched three basketball games I played in in high school. I had to play my softball in the offseason. We used to put together a pretty good team. Get a couple defensive backs in the outfield and they can track down anything.

What type of work did you do with young people to earn the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Medallion of Excellence?

Munoz: The camps we do with the NFL started as a Hispanic initiative outreach seven years ago. Now it’s multicultural. It’s about 65 [percent] to 70 percent Hispanic. The camps we’re doing nationally across the country we do overnight. We have about three days. One is about 120 middle school young men that are 100 percent Hispanic. I’ve been doing this for years, basically the award had a lot to do with the youth programs. We’re going to Mexico in November for the fifth straight year. A lot of people don’t realize that American football is big there. There are millions of kids playing flag football. Michael and I had a coaches clinic there one year and they’re very knowledgeable. I’ve been doing youth work through my foundation for 17 years.

Who were some of toughest guys for you to handle when you played?

Munoz: I used to see Lee Roy Selmon [Buccaneers], Fred Dean [Chargers, 49ers], Bruce Smith was probably one of the best all-around with the Buffalo Bills. Joe Klecko, the Jets, he made All-Pro at nose tackle, defensive tackle and defensive end. Guys like Clyde Simmons, Sean Jones, Howie Long. Greg Townsend, the Raiders’ other defensive end with Howie, was pretty good. Neil Smith, John Randle, Chris Doleman were real good. About four or five years into my career they started putting the hybrid linebackers down, guys like Derrick Thomas, Rufus Porter and Pat Swilling and Clay Matthews. That was another challenge.

Who were some of your favorite teammates?

Munoz: Max Montoya, no doubt. We played together for 10 years. He was our right guard. We roomed together in camp and on the road. A guy who’s still in town, our kicker Jim Breech, still the Bengals’ all-time leading scorer, we play a lot of golf together. Boomer Esiason and I played nine years together. You go a year without seeing a former teammate and you see them and it’s like you haven’t seen them in a week. There’s probably 40 to 50 guys who still live in town that I played with. I had some great teammates here.