Q&A with Michael Irvin

May/23/07 08:29 PM Filed in: Michael Irvin
As well as he played - and he will enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August - the former St. Thomas Aquinas, University of Miami and Dallas Cowboys receiver talks an even better game. Staff writer Ethan J. Skolnick caught up with Irvin at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino for his Playmaker Charity Weekend.

Q: How are your poker skills?

A: "I'm not a great poker player. I'm not much for bluffing. I'm so pure and honest, it's ridiculous. This game requires an expertise in lying: lying and the ability to deceive and the art of deceit. Those are things that I haven't mastered, and I don't know if I really want to master, because it may take away from my broadcasting career. I make my living on telling it like it T-I-S, tis."

Q: Who is your Hall of Fame presenter?
A: "Jerry Jones. . . . In all my years, and I've been blessed, the reaction I got out of Jerry when I asked him to present me was one of the greatest things I have ever experienced. It was honest, it was pure, he was so excited, and my wife was so overjoyed, and there were tears shed in the room."

Q: The odds on you crying that day?
A: "I don't know. I'm learning more and more what it means to be a Hall of Famer. And I have used the Hall of Fame as a springboard, many a time. When I got tired, and I'd go, "Man, this is what it takes to be a Hall of Famer." And so I knew the enormity of it all, but I couldn't grasp it all until I got here and started going through it. So for me to tell you that I'm going to be in total control of my feelings.... I don't know what the happenings will be that day."

Q: Do you endorse UM moving to Dolphin Stadium?
A: "I love that we have the great tradition that we had in the Orange Bowl. Tradition means that we had great success there. But we canšt live on yesterday's success. Wešve got to enjoy it, remember it, appreciate the tradition, but we have to move forward to tomorrow's success. There's a business aspect to all of this."

(sun-sentinel.com)