Happy 100th birthday to Chicago's very own, Marv Levy
- Mark Potash
- Aug 3
- 4 min read
Marv Levy was the first NFL coach I ever interviewed. In 1979, I was a 20-year-old journalism student at Missouri covering the Chiefs for the Columbia Missourian. Marv was 54 and even back then he was fighting the stigma of old age. He was listed at 51 in the Chiefs media guide that year, and it probably wasn't a clerical error. Levy was 52 when he was hired in December of 1977, but likely told Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt was was 49 to not appear that old. (Years later, Levy told Bills owner Ralph Wilson he was 58 when in fact he was 61 when he was hired to replace Hank Bullough as the Bills' head coach midway through the 1986 season, so ...)
Levy and I had an instant connection — both Chicago-born Jews from the South Side. In fact, Marv went to the same grammar school (Bradwell) and high school (South Shore) as my mother. (I regret not taking better advantage of that connection — my good friend Jon Greenberg of The Athletic would have parlayed it into annual Seders with the Levys and a beautiful friendship.)
Still, working with Marv Levy was a memorable experience. Media access was much looser in those days (Don't get me started!) and I have fond memories of chatting casually with Levy and another reporter or two about the game, football and life, long into the post-game access. Speaking with a patient, friendly Phi Beta Kappa was a vocabulary/diction lesson as well — and I'm not kidding about that. Marv Levy taught even when he wasn't teaching.
Levy was still a relative unknown in those days. He was a surprise hire from the CFL Montreal Alouettes for the 1978 season and had spent most of his coaching career in the background. His his only NFL experience was on special teams, when most people didn't know NFL teams had special teams coaches. He had a lesser resume than Marc Trestman, who at least had success as an offensive coordinator in the NFL along with Grey Cup success in the CFL when he was named coach of the Bears in 2013.
And like Trestman, Levy struggled to establish anything with the Chiefs, who went 4-12, 7-9, 8-8, 9-7 without a playoff berth and 3-6 in the 1982 strike-shortened season before he was fired.
Levy bided his time, returned to Chicago and coached the Chicago Blitz of the USFL (United State Football League) in 1984 and was hired by the Bills in 1968. The timing couldn't have been better for both sides. After years in the shadows, where his greatest success always seemed obscured — going to the Super Bowl in 1972 with the Redskins as a special teams coach; winning Grey Cups in the CFL — Levy was front-and-center of the Bills juggernaut that won four consecutive AFC titles from 1990-93.
Levy was the same articulate, friendly guy he always was, but now everybody knew it. Losing all four of those Super Bowls is a disappointment, but not an albatross — a nice compliment in an era where rings have become defining.
Levy resigned after the Bills went 6-10 in 1997 (he was 110-65 in 11 full seasons). He was listed as 58 when he was hired in 1986. He was 72 when he hung it up in 1997 — 11 years later. Rarely has a coach aged so gracefully, a trend that continued in retirement. Levy was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001. He was honored agains Saturday on the eve of his 100th birthday, which he celebrated at home in Chicago on Sunday. Prompted by former players Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and James Lofton, the crowd at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium sang "Happy Birthday" to Levy during the enshrinement ceremony. It was another one of those great moments that literally couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Happy 100th birthday, Marv. And many more!
Marv Levy was a Phi Beta Kappa at Coe College who had a keen eye for coaching talent. Bill Walsh was a 28-year-old high school coach in Centerville, Calif. with a Master's degree in Education when Levy hired him as an assistant at Cal in 1960. Levy also retained 24-year-old Mike White, the future Stanford, Illinois and Raiders head coach, who was a freshman coach at Cal under Pete Elliott, who's departure for Illinois created the opening for Levy.
(White was the only coach from Elliott's staff who didn't join him at Illinois, but he got there eventually. Pete Elliott led Illinois to a Rose Bowl victory over Washington in 1963; Mike White led Illinois to the Rose Bowl in 1983 — losing to UCLA.)
In a candid admission in 2000, Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt expressed regret that he fired Marv Levy after five seasons (31-42) in 1982 — after Levy proved what he could do with a talented roster with the Bills.
"Marv proved us to be wrong," Hunt told me. "We certainly were not patient enough and didn't put the proper evaluation on the circumstances of the strike year [1982]. We made a mistake."
Tributes from around the globe poured in to honor former Blitz coach Marv Levy on his 100th birthday Sunday:
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