"To this day I laugh when I talk to John, because the first time I lay eyes on him, he's coming across the courtyard," Gibbs said. "It's him and his friend, they both have a camouflage outfit on, they'd been hunting, and he had a beer can in each hand."
Amused but hospitable, Riggins invited the coach into his house.
"I say, 'Hey come on in, Joe. I've got one \[beer\] for you and one for me,'" Riggins recalled. "He goes, 'Oh, well I don't drink,' and I go, 'That's okay. I'll drink yours,' and I did."
Gibbs thought this first interaction was a little "unusual," and the two didn't exactly immediately fall into a rhythm of conversation.
"So, we go in and sit down at the table, and to be quite truthful, the first part of the conversation, I'm not getting anything back," Gibbs said. "It's not particularly friendly. I don't kind of know where I am. With that feeling, I just figured, 'What the heck.' I took off on my sales pitch ... I said, 'John, new offense,' talked a little bit about that. I said, 'Put you in the backfield.' I said, 'Hey, I'm going to give you the ball a bunch,' and so I get the sales pitch going … I'm not getting hardly anything back."
In the eyes of Riggins, Gibbs was just like any other coach, and he "wasn't moved one way or the other" by the shpiel. The "first meaningful thing" Riggins said in that conversation has become part of the lore passed on.
The running back leaned over the table and said, to some effect, that Gibbs needed Riggins a "heck of a lot more than" Riggins needed Gibbs. Theismann remembered hearing it as Riggins telling Gibbs: "I'll make you famous."
Upon hearing these words, Gibbs started to think he might be dealing with "an egomaniac." Would Riggins cause him problems if he came back? Maybe he could just get Riggins back and trade him? The coach started to run through the different scenarios. The two didn't come to any sort of agreement by the end of the conversation. They parted ways, and in the following days, Riggins started to seriously ponder a return.