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Perhaps no
one has benefited more from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers'
surprising turnaround this season than Dewey Selmon's
long-distance telephone carrier. Since the Bucs beat the
Detroit Lions 24-17 on Sept. 7 for the second victory in
what would become a season-opening
five-game winning streak, Selmon, a former Tampa Bay
linebacker, who lives in Norman, Okla., has been regularly
ringing up his younger (by 11 months) brother, Lee Roy, a
former Buccaneers defensive end, in Tampa. "Every week
I've been calling Lee Roy
and asking, 'What's with the
Bucs?'" says Dewey, 44.
"I was always wondering if they were for real or just a
flash."
In 1979 the Selmons heard that question after Tampa Bay, a
perennial loser that once dropped 26 straight games,
started the season 3-0. In Week 4 the Bucs silenced
disbelievers by dumping the powerful Los Angeles Rams 21-6.
One of Dewey's tackles in
that game, a jarring hit on running back Lawrence McCutcheon,
made
SI's cover. "That was a big game because it solidified us
as a contender," says Dewey, who runs a commercial
construction business in Norman. The Bucs finished the
season 10-6 to earn their
first NFC Central
crown.
After helping Oklahoma to back-to-back titles in 1974 and
'75, the Selmons graduated to the NFL. Lee Roy became the
first draft pick of the expansion Buccaneers, and Dewey was
chosen in the second round. The Bucs' worst-to-first season
of 1979 ended
when they lost 9-0 to the Rams in the
NFC Championship Game. Three years later the Selmons were
separated after Dewey was traded to the San Diego Chargers.
He spent one season with the Chargers before returning to
Norman to work as an oil and gas
consultant. In 1993 he opened his construction
business.
Dewey spends football Sundays with his wife, Kathryn, their
three daughters, Shannon, 18, Megan, 16, and Lauren, 14,
and their son, Zachary, 13, watching the Bucs on
television. Between games he spends a lot of time on the
phone with Lee Roy, dissecting
Tampa Bay's strengths and weaknesses. A strong showing by
the Buccaneers in the postseason would allow Dewey and Lee
Roy to hold some of those sessions in person. "If the
Bucs make the Super Bowl, we'll meet up," Dewey says.
"Getting tickets shouldn't
be a problem. We still have connections in Tampa
Bay.
—by Richard Deutsch cover photograph by Walter Iooss Jr.
Issue date: December 29, 1997
Past Editions of Catching Up With...
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