Rod Marinelli's old high school named their football field after him recently. Marinelli had some old friends with him and told the story of how he wrestled a bear when he was a teenager.

The guys saw a sign: "Wrestle Victor the Bear." All you needed was $10, and you could take him on.

They stopped and watched the de-clawed, muzzled bear overmatch somebody in the parking-lot cage. His Russian handler was poking him with a stick and yelling in a thick accent, "Back, Victor! Back!"

"I would wrestle him if I had the $10," Marinelli said.

Read the whole story. You won't read anything better than it today. This goes a long way in explaining the enduring respect Marinelli commanded in the Bucs' locker room. The players knew that one word out of line and Marinelli would have them in a camel clutch in five seconds flat.

In a similar story, Jon Gruden once entered a cage with a ravenous lion. Gruden had no weapons, but after two minutes of shouting loud and profane criticisms at the beast, the lion backed into a corner and apologetically piddled himself. And if you replace "cage" with "football field" and "lion" with "Kenyatta Walker", it's pretty much a true story.