“It's hard not to start yelling and screaming when

“It's hard not to start yelling and screaming when we score like that, but I know after doing this for so long that I'll get to celebrate enough when it’s all over and the party starts,” said Hunt, a Warrenton car dealer and football fan extraordinaire, who has been the WMAL broadcasting team’s stat man for seven seasons, following the Redskins from the George Allen days, through the Jack Pardee interim and into the Joe Gibbs Super Bowl championship season last year.

“One day George (Allen) said to me, ‘If you’re going to be around all the time, get a job,’ and he had me do the stats for the team,” said Hunt of his impressment into the Redskins’ family.

Hunter, a former defensive back at the University of California who roomed with former Dallas and Denver quarterback Craig Morton in college, had known several of the Redskins in Los Angeles before Allen’s move from the Rams in 1971, and had grown up with former Redskin guard John Wilbur.

“I came to Washington in the service as a general’s aide and the only guys I knew were some players with the Redskins, so I hung around with them,” said Hunt, whose swaggering demeanor and cherubic personality work perfectly within the big time world of professional football.

“They love him...don’t believe all the crap they give him,” said Stretch Williams, an equipment manager who, like most of the players and coaches, trades barbs and insults with the irrepressible Hunt.

“Rick...well, he keeps us loose,” said WMAL Operations Director Jim Gallant who directs the Redskins broadcast team of Herzog, Sam Huff and Sonny Jergensen who handle the games like they were taking the 100-plus stations’ listeners into a bull session at the corner bar.

"They’ve all got their egos under control and it’s a relaxed feeling,” Gallant said of the crew for which Hunt provides the stats — and the object of some good