Hope is up for Bucs - will it last? Hubert Mizell, The St.Petersburg Times, published 27 December 1993 Two seasons ago, the moment Sam Wyche became Bucs head coach, he had one foot in the grave. It's Tampa Bay tradition, dating back to Halloween 1974, the day John McKay was kissed/cursed with the honor of being the NFL expansion franchise's original coach. Sam promises to beat the rap. McKay is the Bucs' winningest (.322) coach. "Winningest" is somewhat misleading. John's 1976-84 record was 45-91-1, so it's more accurate to refer to the erstwhile collegiate coaching icon from USC as "least losingest" among all the Bucs' wounded generals. Nobody around here needs reminding that Tampa Bay "winning" percentages since Cigar John have been even lousier in the coaching times of Ray Perkins (.316), Richard Williamson (.210) and Leeman Bennett (.125). Now, there's Sam ... Wyche, like his Bucs predecessors, doesn't have a "winning" percentage. But let's put the current Bucs coach into Tampa Bay perspective, which is both bruised and unique. With one game left in his second year, Wyche is 10-21. How good/bad is that? Well, the Wyche numbers would be considered a disaster with the Cowboys, 49ers, Bills or Dolphins, but it's different when you're coaching the Bucs. If they win Sunday against San Diego, the coach with The Promise will become (at 11-21) the "winningest" in Tampa Bay history (.343). Like I said, the Bucs are unique. When they won 48 hours ago in Denver, it was easily the tastiest among Sam's 10 Tampa Bay victories. If youhad asked me last September to note the Bucs' least-winnable game, I would've underlined this one. Reasons were endless. There was the gasping, mile-high altitude thing. There was Denver's shivering December weather. There was NFL history; the Broncos being the winningest of home teams, the Bucs the losingest of road patsies. There was also John Elway, Denver's quarterbacking Hercules. So go figure. But this is the intriguing, new world of Sam Wyche, the Bucs coach who - after beating Chicago a half a month ago, his ninth win in 29 games - promised that his orange hunks would make the '94 NFL playoffs. "I wish I'd said," Wyche commented Monday regarding The Promise, "that we'll definitely be in the playoffs the next 11 seasons. If you're going to make a promise, why not make it a good one? It's been 11 years since the Bucs were last in the NFL playoffs. So we're going for 11 playoffs in a row, beginning with 1994, to even up the score." Sam semi-jests... I think. Locals crave one in a row. If we may, let's bounce back to the theme from the opening paragraph of this column, about the built-in "one foot in the grave" burden that all Tampa Bay coaches have faced from McKay in '76 to Wyche in '92. "It's something that will be cured only by winning," Sam said. "We've been very open about (Bucs) history with the players we've brought in. I warned them that there was an attitude (about the Tampa Bay franchise) that wouldn't be pleasant to hear. I talked about the Bucs jokes our players would hear, and the lack of (national) attention they would get, until we begin winning a lot more games. At some point, you fight back. You fight to better the image. That's happening big time with the '93 Bucs. Around the country, folks are starting to notice." Wait! Isn't this still a 5-10 team? Isn't Tampa Bay still last in the NFC Central? Isn't Wyche still 10-21? Isn't this still the Bucs' 11th consecutive 10-loss season? Well, yes, but really they don't seem to be "the same old Bucs." Even so, locals are wary. Remember 1988, when Tampa Bay won three of its final five games, and lost another in OT? Remember how the '89 Bucs then fired away to a 3-2 start? Remember how our community thought the good times might be arriving at last? But remember how the Bucs then disintegrated, goofing their way to another 5-11 record? In December '93, hope among multi-scarred Bucs faithful is rising slowly. But people are appropriately cautious. Tampa Bay is a franchise that has gotten over more humps than a camel rider, only to be thrown painfully and repeatedly to the NFL ground. Will it be different this time?