The Mighty Rainbow

I met Reggie Roby in the summer of 1983 at the Miami Dolphins training camp at the campus of St. Thomas University in North Miami. A friend had asked me if I wanted to go to training camp with him. Heck, yeah! The Dolphins were coming off of a Super Bowl losing season, and had just drafted Danny Marino to lead the team into the future. This friend who, on draft day, ran through the hall in high school shouting “We Got Marino! We got Marino!” had a special pass into the actual summer training camp. Not standing outside a gate looking in, but actually inside training camp. I wanted to go.

My friend’s father was a big Dolphins booster, and had volunteered to sponsor a rookie punter drafted by Miami out of the University of Iowa. They had Reggie Roby over for dinners, loaned him their car, and made him feel comfortable in this new town while the Dolphins made decisions as to who would make the roster.

So while I thought I was going to spend the day watching Dan Marino compete with David Woodley and Don Strock to be the starting quarterback, my friend started the day by pointing out Reggie Roby to me. Or, to be more precise, pointing out Reggie Roby’s legs to me. Tree trunks. Unbelievably huge, powerful legs that were effortlessly kicking punts higher and farther than I had ever seen a football go. He looked and kicked like no one I – or almost anyone else, for that matter – had ever seen.

So, under a hot summer sky in Miami, we watched Reggie kick. And kick. And kick.

And then, after training camp ended for the day, we went to see Reggie and walked with him and his roommate, cornerback Robert Sowell, to their room so they could get showered and changed. Both Roby and Sowell told us about their nerves as they had to prove themselves in order to make the team. We spent about a half hour hanging out with them in their room, and then Reggie drove us back to my friend's home, where we played pool and wrapped up a long and exciting day.

Reggie went on to play for ten years with the Dolphins. (Robert Sowell also made the team.) The Golden Age of the Dolphins might be the early Seventies, but those years with Roby were a second Golden Age. While Dan Marino connected with Duper and Clayton to set passing and touchdown records, Reggie put the opposing offenses in deep holes on those occasions when the Dolphins didn’t score. While we’d always prefer a touchdown, I also anxiously looked forward to those Reggie punts, where his leg made a rainbow until it pointed straight to the sky, launching the football on a mighty rainbow of its own, arcing high and deep, with a hangtime so long that often you knew what was at the end of that rainbow – the Dolphins special teams coverage, which had all that time to get to the receiving player before the ball arrived. Sometimes Roby kicked a line drive instead of a rainbow, and out-kicked his coverage. (In fact, the “urban dictionary” defines a “reggie roby” as a guy who has a girlfriend who is so far out of his league that he has, in effect, outkicked his coverage.) But when everything worked, it was a pot of gold. Reggie wore a wristwatch while playing; many assumed it was so that he could track the hangtime of his punts, but it was really just a superstitious habit. Or maybe it was just character, part of his legend.

Like most other teenage Dolphin fans, I was in awe of Dan Marino. But with Reggie, I felt an even more special quality - pride. Like Marino, Roby was the best athlete of his time at his chosen position (and make no mistake, he was a true all around athlete; he was even drafted by the Cincinnati Reds as a pitcher). But to me, Reggie Roby was also real, a good person as well as a great punter.

Reggie Roby was released by the Dolphins after declaring personal bankruptcy in 1992. His financial problems had created a liability for the Dolphins. Reggie went on to play for the Redskins, Buccaneers, Oilers and 49ers, but to most of his fans, he will always be a Dolphin. I didn’t understand the decision when the Dolphins let him go, and for years and years, I compared every punter to Reggie, every time they stepped onto the field. In fact, I still do.

I didn’t know what became of Reggie after football. Apparently he had become the marketing & development director for Backfield in Motion, a non-profit organization using athletics and academics to inspire inner-city boys to reach their maximum potential. Which sounds just like something Reggie would do.

Reggie Roby passed away on February 22, 2005.