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Basketball Fan
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 Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 5:36 pm Post subject: Former NFL coach Sam Wyche dies at 74 |
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https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/01/02/former-bengals-bucs-head-coach-sam-wyche-dies-at-74/
| Quote: | Former Bengals, Bucs coach Sam Wyche dies at 74
Sam Wyche was one of a kind among NFL head coaches.
He led the Bengals to the Super Bowl in 1988 but perhaps is best known for taking the field microphone during a game against the Seahawks in 1989. With Bengals fans pelting the field with snowballs after an official’s call went against the home team, Wyche yelled over the PA system, “Will the next person that sees anybody throw anything onto the field, point them out, and get them out of here. You don’t live in Cleveland! You live in Cincinnati!”
The line is repeated often in Cincinnati.
Wyche died Thursday at his home in Pickens, South Carolina, after a short battle with metastatic melanoma, Peter King of NBC reports. Wyche was 74.
“Sam was a wonderful guy,” Bengals president Mike Brown said in a statement. “We got to know him as both a player and a coach. As our coach, he had great success and took us to the Super Bowl. He was friends with everyone here, both during his tenure as head coach and afterwards. We not only liked him, we admired him as a man. He had a great generosity of spirit and lived his life trying to help others. We express our condolences to Jane and his children Zak and Kerry.”
My first season covering the NFL came in Tampa in 1994, Wyche’s next-to-last season as an NFL head coach. The Buccaneers were one of the worst teams in the NFL when they hired Wyche in 1992, and they remained one of the worst teams in the NFL when they fired him after the 1995 season.
But the Bucs drafted John Lynch, Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks while Wyche was with the team, so he hardly left the cupboard bare for Tony Dungy.
Wyche’s tenure at One Buc Place always was entertaining.
During the 1995 season, when it was obvious the Bucs, under new ownership, would hire a new coach, Wyche pulled a prank on his team. Jimmy Johnson, who had parted ways with the Cowboys after the 1993 season, showed up in Tampa for an NFL Films promo orchestrated by Wyche.
Unbeknownst to the players, personnel assistant John Idzik entered the locker room, interrupted Wyche and told the coach to bring his playbook. Johnson walked in wearing a Buccaneers jacket and began addressing the players as if he was their new coach.
Wyche coached the Bengals from 1984-1991, going 61-66. Their most recent postseason victory came with Wyche as their head coach.
He was 23-41 in four seasons with the Bucs.
Wyche also played seven seasons in the NFL, with Cincinnati, Washington, Detroit and St. Louis. He was on the Bengals’ inaugural team in 1968 and went 2-7 as a starting quarterback over three seasons in Cincinnati. |
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venturalakersfan
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Joined: 14 Apr 2001
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Location: The Gold Coast
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| Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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My greatest memory will always be the time the fans were throwing stuff on the field and he grabbed the mike and told them “you don’t live in Cleveland”. He was Montana’s first coach and Joe said that he was as fun as he seemed to be in public. RIP.
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RIP mom. 11-21-1933 to 6-14-2023. |
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DaMuleRules
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Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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Location: Making a safety stop at 15 feet.
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| Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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Definitely one of those memorable moments in odd sports lore.
_________________
You thought God was an architect, now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built that’s all for show
goes up in flames
In 24 frames
Jason Isbell
Man, do those lyrics resonate right now |
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ExPatLkrFan
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Joined: 29 Jul 2004
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Location: Mukdahan, Thailand
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| Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Sam Wyche was the first coach to use the No Huddle offense on a regular basis. He got to the AFC championship game in 1988 running it the Bills coach Marv Levy had been crying all week about how it wasn't fair. So 2 hours before game time the NFL told Wyche that if the Bengals ran the no huddle they would be penalized 15 yard each time. They won the game anyhow. But they lost the Super Bowl to the 49ers still unable to run no huddle. RIP |
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adkindo
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| Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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He was kind of my favorite coach for about a decade. I grew up a Bengals fan and started watching the NFL more closely in the mid 80's. I will always remember the Superbowl we had won until the heroics of Montana and John Taylor in the final minutes of the game. Then Wyche took over the Buc's when I moved to Central Florida and made it easier to start following the Buc's.
There is a great lie told about the Tampa Bay Superbowl team. It goes like this....Tony Dungy showed up and changed everything, and was unfairly fired which allowed Jon Gruden to walk in and win the Superbowl on the back of the great Tony Dungy's hard work. The truth is the foundation for that turnaround was put in place by Wyche. His group had made the team competitive and put the pieces in place, especially on defense that would lead to that Superbowl.....Hardy Nickerson, Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp, John Lynch and Brad Culpepper were in place.....even Trent Dilfer was in place at QB (Dilfer was not the SB QB, but was in place for the entire rebuild). Dungy's first year, the team actually lost more games than Wyche did his last year....but that has be lost in history. Dungy had a Superbowl roster for years and just could not get it done, which is why Gruden was brought in and won the Superbowl. The point is, many that closely follow the team believe Dungy mostly benefited from the work of Wyche, and did nothing that Wyche was not already on track to do. |
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Aeneas Hunter
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| Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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| ExPatLkrFan wrote: | | Sam Wyche was the first coach to use the No Huddle offense on a regular basis. He got to the AFC championship game in 1988 running it the Bills coach Marv Levy had been crying all week about how it wasn't fair. So 2 hours before game time the NFL told Wyche that if the Bengals ran the no huddle they would be penalized 15 yard each time. They won the game anyhow. But they lost the Super Bowl to the 49ers still unable to run no huddle. RIP |
Not exactly. Wyche called the NFL's bluff, which is even better. Here's how Wyche told the story:
| Quote: | Wyche
“So the next day I’m in my little office area off this locker room and Mike Brown comes down there. I guess maybe he’d done it before, but it was not normal, but it was the AFC Championship game, if we win this we go to the Super Bowl, big game, so he came down, and we’re waiting. I‘ve got a tape recorder under a towel on the table (laughs). And when I hear him coming I flip that tape recorder on and cover it up with a towel and I say hey, what are you guys doing here an hour and 59 minutes before kickoff? I identified the time. They told me, the commissioner got a phone call and Marv is going to fake injuries and he doesn’t want to make it a farce and he goes through the whole thing so we’re going to penalize you everything you don’t go into the huddle.
“Strangely they never used the phrase ‘we’re going to throw a flag on you.’ They used the phrase ‘we’re going to penalize you.’ The night before and that morning. I don’t know if that’s something I noticed or if there’s something to it.
“Anyway, I told them I said well, we’ve been practicing this for five years and this is all we’ve practiced all week long so, there was a runner with them, an assistant, and I said you go get Pete Rozelle on the phone for me right now and I want to remind him he’s messing with the competitive balance of the game. And as he walked out I mentioned to the referee and to the league official, I said you know what, there’s a lot of money being bet on this ball game. I don’t know if I want to be walking around Manhattan without a lot of body guards if they find out that we lost a game because we got penalized all day long for not going into the huddle. And it wasn’t 15, maybe 20 seconds, no way he had time to call the commissioner, so the commissioner probably told him if Sam gave you any push back just tell him to go ahead and run the no huddle and he’ll deal with Marv Levy after the game. And so that’s what happened. We went ahead and ran the no huddle and there was never a penalty thrown for it.” |
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/nfl/bengals/2017/06/26/cincinnati-bengals-50-nfl-commissioner-pete-rozelle/366607001/
You're a tough guy if you take on Pete Rozelle and win. RIP |
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ExPatLkrFan
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Joined: 29 Jul 2004
Posts: 3984
Location: Mukdahan, Thailand
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| Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Aeneas Hunter wrote: | | ExPatLkrFan wrote: | | Sam Wyche was the first coach to use the No Huddle offense on a regular basis. He got to the AFC championship game in 1988 running it the Bills coach Marv Levy had been crying all week about how it wasn't fair. So 2 hours before game time the NFL told Wyche that if the Bengals ran the no huddle they would be penalized 15 yard each time. They won the game anyhow. But they lost the Super Bowl to the 49ers still unable to run no huddle. RIP |
Not exactly. Wyche called the NFL's bluff, which is even better. Here's how Wyche told the story:
| Quote: | Wyche
“So the next day I’m in my little office area off this locker room and Mike Brown comes down there. I guess maybe he’d done it before, but it was not normal, but it was the AFC Championship game, if we win this we go to the Super Bowl, big game, so he came down, and we’re waiting. I‘ve got a tape recorder under a towel on the table (laughs). And when I hear him coming I flip that tape recorder on and cover it up with a towel and I say hey, what are you guys doing here an hour and 59 minutes before kickoff? I identified the time. They told me, the commissioner got a phone call and Marv is going to fake injuries and he doesn’t want to make it a farce and he goes through the whole thing so we’re going to penalize you everything you don’t go into the huddle.
“Strangely they never used the phrase ‘we’re going to throw a flag on you.’ They used the phrase ‘we’re going to penalize you.’ The night before and that morning. I don’t know if that’s something I noticed or if there’s something to it.
“Anyway, I told them I said well, we’ve been practicing this for five years and this is all we’ve practiced all week long so, there was a runner with them, an assistant, and I said you go get Pete Rozelle on the phone for me right now and I want to remind him he’s messing with the competitive balance of the game. And as he walked out I mentioned to the referee and to the league official, I said you know what, there’s a lot of money being bet on this ball game. I don’t know if I want to be walking around Manhattan without a lot of body guards if they find out that we lost a game because we got penalized all day long for not going into the huddle. And it wasn’t 15, maybe 20 seconds, no way he had time to call the commissioner, so the commissioner probably told him if Sam gave you any push back just tell him to go ahead and run the no huddle and he’ll deal with Marv Levy after the game. And so that’s what happened. We went ahead and ran the no huddle and there was never a penalty thrown for it.” |
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/nfl/bengals/2017/06/26/cincinnati-bengals-50-nfl-commissioner-pete-rozelle/366607001/
You're a tough guy if you take on Pete Rozelle and win. RIP |
You are right of course. It's amazing how our memories make liars of us.
Or maybe I'm just experiencing the Mandela Effect. |
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ChickenStu
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Joined: 25 Apr 2015
Posts: 31912
Location: Anaheim, CA
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| Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 1:38 am Post subject: |
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| I liked this guy a lot when I was just getting seriously into sports in the late 1980's. I thought the no-huddle was awesome at the time. And in hearing the above stories about Marv Levy whining about it before the '88 AFC Championship game, I can't help but to think...didn't the Bills end up running a no-huddle offense for much of their Super Bowl era? Crazy. |
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