Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992 TAG: 9201250109
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: MINNEAPOLIS LENGTH: Medium
LEVY STANDS OUT WHEN VOCABULARY IS TOPIC
If Super Bowl XXVI comes down to dangling participles, go with the underdog.A few years ago, Bills coach Marv Levy accused a Buffalo newspaper reporter of misquoting him. No surprise there. Coaches do that as often as they say they're going to take the season one game at a time.
This time, it wasn't that Levy's quote was factually inaccurate. The coach knew the words weren't precisely his, however. The subject didn't agree with the verb.
Levy is an Ivy League guy with the sort of Midwestern values being exposed here in this down-to-snowbank Super site. The only things blue-collar about him are his place of employment and the neck of his blazer.
His sideline foe in Sunday's game, Washington's Joe Gibbs, smilingly describes himself as "just a P.E. major from San Diego State." Levy doesn't talk about having a master's degree from Harvard in English history. He doesn't have to.
In one paragraph of his Friday news conference, Levy used "malevolent . . . promulgate . . . contentious." The most-asked question later in the press room was: Can I borrow your dictionary?
"He has a heckuva vocabulary," said Buffalo tackle Will Wolford. "Although it took us a while, we've all figured out `proclivity.' I think it would be a lot easier if he just said `tendency' instead."
Levy comes off as studious without being pretentious, because his sharp sense of humor may expose itself only a sentence after a three-syllable adjective.
This man of letters has put up some impressive numbers in his second tour of duty as an NFL head coach. He's guided the Bills to 52 wins the past four seasons and back-to-back Super Bowl dates.
In six years as Kansas City's boss, Levy was loved. In Buffalo, despite his unparalleled success with a franchise that's come in from the cold, his persona is perceived as one that bristles too easily.
Maybe it's because Levy, a Chicago native, is right when he says the media and fans don't understand his business as well as he does. Maybe it's because he refuses to be a showman. Maybe it's because he confounds people with his rigidly organized, but relaxed, administrative style.
Or, as he Levyed the other day: "I think you have to work hard and devote yourself whole-heartedly and in full. If you're running around looking for a lot of Sani-Flush commercials, you don't belong in coaching."
When it was brought up that Gibbs sleeps in his Redskins Park office three nights a week, Levy said he often works from 5 a.m.-10 p.m., "and I only live three minutes from [Rich Stadium], so there's not much sense sleeping in the office."
His coaching roots, which include success at William and Mary from 1964-68, were sewn deep during his years as a George Allen assistant. Levy was the Redskins' special-teams coach for a Super Bowl club.
At 63, Levy says "people ask when I'm retiring, and I tell them I'm not. I'm going for Amos Alonzo Stagg's record, whatever that is. . . . I think if you find someone who says he's going to retire in four or five years, he's already retired."
In some ways, Levy is a historical reminder of the late Allen, who was often hysterical.
"George had a faculty for making the game fun," Levy said. "He had a great knack for getting players ready to play with an us versus the world mentality.
"When we were in Washington and playing the Giants, George told the team it was us against New York and all of the people up there hated us, particularly the New York writers with their glasses.
"I don't know what he had against glasses, but one day we were in the St. Louis airport and a guy wearing glasses and carrying a briefcase got off a plane. Sonny Jurgensen walked up to him and said, `Excuse me, sir, but are you a New York writer?' "
Tonight, Levy will tell his team stories about World War II. He may talk about the war plan of the Third Reich. The moral of the story will be conversions on third down, however.
"He'll go over every detail," said Bills tight end Keith McKeller. "When he says something, you know he means it."
You might say Levy doesn't have a proclivity for foolhardiness.
Keywords:
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