In 1988, Cincinatti Bengals rookie Ickey Woods danced into our hearts
The RB captivated the nation with a goofy end zone dance, but a gut-wrenching injury derailed a promising career
In the late 1980s, kids across America wanted to do one thing when they scored a touchdown during those epic touch football games at recess.
Dance like Ickey.
Ickey Woods, rookie sensation of the Cincinatti Bengals, had NFL fans across the country doing an amusing little jig called the “Ickey Shuffle” in the fall of 1988. It wasn’t a hard dance to master. A few hip shakes here, a couple arm and shoulder gyrations there, capped off by a powerful spike. Let the ground FEEL that pigskin pounding the dirt. Touchdowns are worth celebrating, after all, and Woods, a bruising 232-pound fullback, was hitting the end zone often in ‘88.
Despite scoring 15 TDs, racking up 1,066 yards and averaging a league-leading 5.3 yards per carry, Woods was snubbed for the Pro Bowl. He didn’t win Rookie of the Year honors. But he did shuffle all the way to Miami for Super Bowl XXIII. Armed with quarterback Boomer Esiason, the league MVP in ‘88, Woods helped lead Cincy to its second Super Bowl berth. The 12-4 Bengals captured the AFC Central Division title and toppled the upstart Buffalo Bills, 21-10, to win the conference crown.
Woods, along with running backs James Brooks and Stanley Wilson, paced a potent backfield in Cincy. However, on the eve of Super Bowl XXIII against the San Francisco 49ers, Wilson became the story for all the wrong reasons. Strung out from a cocaine bender, he was in no shape to play football. Wilson’s absence was a key blow to the Bengals’ championship dreams. Cincy fell 20-16 in a thriller. More on that classic here.
Despite the Super Bowl heartbreaker, Woods was a breath of fresh air for not only the Bengals, but for fans starving to see fun on the field again. Tired of labor disputes (the league endured its second player strike in six years during the 1987 season), rumors of player steroid and cocaine use, and other off-field distractions, fans devoured Ickey’s free-wheeling, laid-back style. The NFL brass… eh, not so much. Commissioner Pete Rozelle banned Woods from celebrating with The Shuffle in the end zone. No problem. After touchdowns, Woods jogged to the Bengals’ bench and entertained the crowd from the sidelines.
It was a rookie season most players would dream of. However, just as Ickey’s rise to stardom was ascending, a debilitating injury snuffed out a promising career. One hit is all it took. In a Week 2 matchup with rival Pittsburgh at Riverfront Stadium, Steelers safety Thomas Everett darted in for a low tackle, smacking into Wood’s left knee, tearing the anterior cruciate ligament. Everett collided with Woods from the side, causing the ACL to bend unnaturally and pop.
Ickey was done for the season.
ACL rehab is a long, grueling process, but Woods finally returned to the field in the midst of the 1990 season. He performed modestly well, rushing for 268 yards and six touchdowns on 64 carries, but the glory of ‘88 was gone. He was never quite the same. After playing in only nine games in 1991 and running for 97 yards on 36 carries, Woods decided to shuffle no more. At age 25, he was finished with football.
As lighthearted and silly as the “Ickey Shuffle” was, it somewhat overshadowed a fine player who overcame a rough upbringing on the streets of Fresno, California to pursue his NFL passion. Woods, drafted in the second round by the Bengals in the spring of ‘88, bulldozed his way to 1,658 yards as a senior at UNLV, leading the nation in rushing.
While his ponytailed dreadlocks drew headlines in his first training camp, Woods proved he was more than style over substance. After carrying the ball only six times through the first three weeks of the season, Woods became a fixture in Cincy’s ground attack, rushing for more than 100 yards four times in 13 games. In the playoffs, Ickey continued overwhelming defenses. In three games, he gained 307 yards on 72 carries, along with three TDs. A stout 49ers defense kept him out of the end zone in the Super Bowl, despite rushing for 79 yards on 20 attempts. The rookie was rendered “shuffleless” on the grandest stage in sports, but nonetheless, it was a season to behold.
Heading into the Bengals’ clash with the 49ers, no question Ickey was the darling of Super Bowl Media Day. Reporters wanted to know more about this brash rookie with the touchdown dance craze sweeping the nation. The Cincinatti Post asked Woods to pen a Super Bowl week diary and the 22-year-old was open and revealing about where he came from and the events that shaped him into the man he became.
“It was tough where I grew up. Man, it was tough,” Woods wrote in his Jan. 18, 1989 entry. “But I was lucky enough to have people help me.”
He credited John Montgomery, his backfield coach at UNLV, for showing how hard work could transform him into a first or second-round draft choice. Ickey hit the weights. He plowed up steep hills on tired legs. He was determined and hungry. The effort paid off with a 1,600-yard senior campaign. Suddenly he was shooting up draft boards. Cincy, looking to add more versatility to its ground game, plucked Ickey with the 31st overall pick.
Writing for the Post only a few days before the biggest game of his life, Woods said five years earlier, he could have never imagined getting to the Super Bowl his first season in the league. As he prepared for the game, his mind drifted to friends lost to gun violence and drunk driving.
“I decided I’m going to dedicate this game to my best friend, Andre Horn. We were college buddies. When Andre was 21, he was murdered — he got shot 19 times and his throat cut,” Woods wrote. “About three or four months ago, my younger stepbrother, Leonard, got hit and killed by a drunk driver in L.A. Those two things really changed my whole life around.
Andre and I always talked about getting to the Super Bowl one day. I was able to make it and he wasn’t. Now I’m going to get out there and do it for both of us.”
For more Ickey, check out this NFL Films highlight package narrated by Andrea Kremer.