Marv Levy, the great football coach who guided the Buffalo Bills to four consecutive Super Bowls from 1990-1993 during his Hall-of-Fame career, is 100 years old this day.
Those Bills teams hold a strong place on my emotional life, even now that the last Super Bowl appearance is more than 30 years in the past, and at this point we’re nearing the entire run of Coach Levy’s time with the team being 30 years in the past. Those Bills teams were my touchstone for home when I was in college, nearly 1000 miles away from home; when I got homesick, there were the Buffalo Bills. Watching Levy on the sideline, occasionally laughing and more often shouting (and there were times when his lips were very easy to read). Levy’s erudition was always a matter of note and humor around the team; he was noted for including lengthy discourses on historical battles in his gameday pep talks. He would give a long story about a battle and then he’d sum it up by noting that the guy who lost the battle “couldn’t win on the road”. But he also clearly knew some much shorter words, and was not afraid to use them sometimes, even if he was on camera.
Levy also attended Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is an hour and a half south of Waverly, Iowa, where I went to school at Wartburg College. I don’t recall Coe being one of the schools Wartburg played on a yearly basis…but we drove right by Coe several times a year when passing through Cedar Rapids while on the long drives between home and school.
No, Levy never did manage to get the team over the hump to win the Super Bowl. Did that say something about him as a coach? Maybe a little…but as those years and those teams have passed farther and farther into memory (and some of those players have even left us entirely), the question of “Why did they lose all four!” fades farther into memory as well. All that really matters is the good times of watching those games. I remember the moment in the AFC Championship Game in January 1991, where the Bills earned their first trip to the Super Bowl by beating the Raiders 51-3. At the end, in the last few minutes, quarterback Jim Kelly (who had left the game already, since it was a blowout) was chatting with Levy on the sidelines…but in actuality, Kelly was the straight-man, the distraction to keep Levy from realizing what was coming from behind: the inevitable dumping of the Gatorade. Levy’s look of “Oh, come on, how did I fall for this!” is classic Marv Levy. (You can see the whole moment, including a slow-motion analysis by Dick Enberg, at the 1:55 mark here.)
The best tribute to Marv Levy that I’ve seen came a few years ago, courtesy of former wide receiver Andre Reed, who included this passage in his speech when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame:
There wasn’t a better teacher than our head coach Marv Levy. He was the definition of ‘speak softly, but carry a big stick.’ He became our father figure, very much of a father figure, and he became even more of a father figure to me when I lost mine. In 1996, when I lost my father, he told me just take as much time as you need. Marv, I’ll always remember those words, your compassion you gave me when I needed it the most. You had to deal with so many egos, I don’t know how the heck you did it. [At this point, the cameras caught Levy on stage, muttering “Neither do I!”] Those big words you used, yeah, we needed dictionaries. We actually needed a thesaurus, too. But one thing we admired about you as a coach was that word respect. We respected the heck out of you. When you respect your coach, you’ll do anything to win for him. I love you, Marv.
I thought about titling this post with the quote that Levy is most known for, something he has made his trademark phrase, which he has used time and again over the years, especially when addressing fans at the stadium: “Where on Earth would you rather be than right here, right now?” But I suspect that chestnut is getting a lot of work today, so I decided to go with another at least quasi-famous Levyism. This one’s from when he coached the Kansas City Chiefs (another reason I can’t totally hate the Chiefs, even if they’re close to 2010s-era Patriots levels of annoyingness):
And finally, I don’t want to allow the 100th birthday of a great football coach to pass without also noting his other great skill, which makes one wonder if a great Broadway composer and songwriter was lost when he decided to go into coaching football instead:
Well…maybe not.
Anyway, Happy Birthday, Coach Levy! I’m glad you’re still right here, right now.