MIAMI – The best-known dancer of the Dirty Bird is Jamal Anderson, but he wasn’t the one to unveil the funky steps that have symbolized the Falcons this season. Before Anderson popularized the dance, tight end O.J. Santiago invented it.
Well, helped invent it. When Anderson was playing at the University of Utah, he would shoot a fist in the air, bring it down and then flap an arm after scoring a touchdown. There was no name for the strange steps.
Early this season, Anderson and Santiago tried to come up with a signature celebration routine, a trademark that would punctuate each Atlanta touchdown. Anderson embellished his old college dance and added a few more steps. The Dirty Bird, as it is presently constituted, took wing for real after Santiago scored two touchdowns in a 41-10 rout of the Patriots in New England. A tradition was born, a dance and a team became linked.
As the Falcons completed a miracle season and surged into Super Bowl XXXIII to face the favored Broncos, the Dirty Bird arrived on the big stage.
”I’ve always maintained it’s a collaboration,” said Santiago, a towering, 6-foot-7, second-year tight end. ”I know it broke out when I did it against New England and it went nationwide. But Jamal scores touchdowns every single game and Jamal is always in the end zone, so I would understand that his name is associated with it.”
The dance and the team are now linked, with as many Dirty Bird questions during the week leading up to the Super Bowl as any other subject. Following a thrilling 30-27 overtime victory over the Vikings in Minnesota in the NFC Championship Game, even a traditionalist like Dan Reeves took a turn doing the Dirty Bird.
”I never thought it would end up like this,” Santiago said. ”When I sat down and really thought about it was when I was at home on Christmas Day and those guys from Louisiana in the Blue-Gray game, college guys, started doing it. I said, ‘Wow, that’s serious.’
”Then the guys from Tennessee were doing it in the national championship game when they scored. The other day I was watching ESPN and some basketball guys were doing it at the free throw line. I said, ‘You know, this is serious.”’
