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The Buffalo News has a lengthy profile that’s punitively about Rex Ryan, but really ends up being a collection of stories from the Ryan family. Of course, there’s no problem with that because the family is practically teeming with amazing anecdotes. There are quite a few nice ones to choose from, like newborn Rex and Rob Ryan getting mixed up in the hospital and referred to as “Baby A” and “Baby B.” There’s also a nice retelling of the time they shared a contact lens during a baseball game just before Rex hit a home run.
But the real standout tale is the time that Rex went to jail days before the Chicago Bears, the team their father Buddy served as defensive coordinator, triumphed in Super Bowl XX. It all started with Rob looking for a wingman for a date.
They were students at Southwestern Oklahoma State. Rob wanted to take a lady on a date and needed Rex to be his wingman. Rex wasn’t down for the mission because he’d already met Micki, the woman he would marry.
Rob: “I was a solo rider and had a babe on the line. But she had a friend. I said, ‘You know, come on. Be a team player.’ ”
Rex: “I said, ‘Dude, I’m staying at home today.’ ”
Rob: “So after a few hundred beers I said, ‘You need to help out.’ He didn’t, so I was pissed and got in a wrestling match with him. I think he was a lot more sober than I was.”
Rex: “I was bigger and was just going to throw his ass down. But he reversed me and got on top. So we went at it. We ended up outside, and here he comes.”
Rob: “I ran after him, and he had a right hand waiting for me. I never saw it coming. Still haven’t seen it.”
Rex: “I got him good, and it was over. I felt terrible. I couldn’t believe I hit my brother like that.”
Rex was furious and, as keeper of the car key, drove off to clear his head. Tatters of a bloody shirt hung off him.
“I get pulled over by a cop. He sees me and doesn’t know what he’s got,” Rex said with a gleaming-white smile. “I said, ‘I just got in a fight with my brother. You can take me back there, and he’ll explain it.’
“They take me to jail and then called my brother. He said, ‘Nah, leave him in there.’ ”
Rob certainly had reason to be spiteful, given that the fight left him with a broken ankle and a broken nose. Not that Rex was left unscathed; both brothers had black eyes when they arrived in New Orleans later that week to watch their father’s team play in the Super Bowl. Suffice it to say, Buddy was not thrilled to find out about the fight. Oh, the trouble those Ryan brothers will get into when there are a few hundred beers around.
