Full Circle

Sam Wyche: Comin\' Around Again
by: Richard Scott
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Coaching didn’t appear to be in the cards for Sam Wyche when he took his bonus money from playing in Super Bowl VII with the Washington Redskins and invested in a sporting goods business.

Legendary NFL coach and owner Paul Brown had already told Wyche, a career backup quarterback, that he would be a coach someday, but Wyche’s original investment took off and soon grew to 13 retail and wholesale stores in North and South Carolina.

Wyche even put his MBA to good use with the chain for about two years before a desire to return to the game just happened to coincide with a call from an old friend.

It was Bill Walsh calling to tell Wyche he was about to become the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, and offering Wyche a chance to join him as an assistant coach in charge of quarterbacks.

“I immediately thought that would be a good idea,” Wyche says. “The funny thing is, just a few weeks before that phone call from Bill Walsh, I had decided we had too many chiefs and not enough indians in the business so I had written to two high schools in North Carolina that were looking for head coaches.

“Within 36 to 48 hours of Bill Walsh calling me and offering me a job with the San Francisco 49ers, both high schools had written back and said ‘we appreciate your inquiry but we don’t think you’re qualified to coach.’”

Before Wyche could become a high school coach, he had to help lead the 49ers to a Super Bowl as an assistant, become an NFL head coach for 12 seasons and take the Cincinnati Bengals to a Super Bowl, move on to become a popular color commentator on NFL television broadcasts, suffer vocal chord damage and develop a heart condition called Cardiomyophathy.

Even then, he had to coach for free before he could become a high school coach.

Yet, here he is, at age 58, volunteer at Pickens High School in South Carolina and having the time of his life coaching quarterbacks and serving as an occasional substitute teacher. Instead of multi-year contracts, a hefty salary and enviable perks, Wyche gets a sideline shirt and jacket and the chance to coach again.

“It’s something I’ve always thought I would enjoy doing,” Wyche says. “I figured I could contribute something there, too. The best time to influence a young player’s life is in junior high and high school, when you can really impact his practice habits, his will to play once he gets fatigued.

“I’ve rarely been with any NFL player for any length of time, whether it was Boomer Esiason or Joe Montana or Anthony Munoz, who didn’t come up to me and tell me something their high school coach used to do or say. Players don’t forget, not even the millionaire pros.”

Wyche has been one of those pros, as a player, assistant coach and head coach, coaching at the highest level in the biggest game in the business. But even at the height of his career, at a time when the Bengals were on the verge of earning a trip to the Super Bowl, Wyche and his wife Jane found themselves sitting down over a glass of wine one night, peaking into the future and pondering the possibility of someday teaching and coaching at a high school.

Wyche never figured it would happen the way it has, especially with the throat and heart problems throwing an unexpected obstacle in his path, but he’s too busy to look back and eager and excited about a future that may include a return trip to the NFL.

In the meantime, “I’m having a blast,” Wyche says, “and I think the kids are learning as well.”

The players and coaches at Pickens, which just happens to be Jane’s hometown, weren’t sure what to think of Wyche when they heard he had moved into town. Pickens’ coach Andy Tweito met Wyche but kept a respectful distance, not sure what to ask a man who had coached successful NFL quarterbacks such as Joe Montana, Ken Anderson and Boomer Esiason.

A good friend suggested Tweito approach Wyche about taking some of kind of role with the team, but Tweito didn’t act on the suggestion for several months until learning that Wyche had taken the course to become a certified substitute. About that same time, a member of Wyche’s family told Tweito that Wyche needed something to do because he was starting to get restless at home.

When Tweito finally decided to call and Wyche agreed to meet, Tweito says, “I told him bring some paper and a pen and we’ll get started. The next day he showed up with his writing implements, ready to go to work.”

If the new role was an awkward fit for Wyche, he never showed it to the players or coaches.

“He’s been great to work with,” Tweito says. “He’s great with the kids and the coaches and he just fits in so well.”

His ability to fit in so well came as a surprise to the players, including Tweito’s son Drew, a senior quarterback who works with Wyche everyday. Drew confesses that he knew Wyche was someone famous, but didn’t realize just how famous until he saw a Super Bowl special on ESPN.

“Once I realized all he had done, I realized what an awesome opportunity it is to work with him,” Drew Tweito says. “Just the way Coach Wyche is, being so down to earth and so easy to get along with, at first you think he must be two different people. You see him on TV and you figure he’s one of those celebrities you can’t really associate with, but when you’re out at practice with him he’s just a regular guy.”

Yeah, just a regular guy who coached in the Super Bowl with some of the NFL’s best quarterbacks. Even now, in Wyche’s second year at Pickens, Drew Tweito has to occasionally stop and remind himself that he plays for the same quarterback coach as Joe Montana.

“Sometimes at practice I’ll be having a bad day or doing something wrong, and he’ll stop me and say ‘don’t worry about it, because Joe Montana and Boomer Esiason had the same problems,’” Drew Tweito says. “It’s kind of hard to put into perspective. This guy’s worked with some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and now he’s working with us. He’s as good as they come.”

Despite his prominent background, Wyche says he tries to avoid talking about the past unless it applies to the future.

“One of the biggest challenges is to stay away from the good old days and telling them about how Joe Montana used to do it or Boomer Esiason instead of focusing on that week’s game plan,” Wyche says. “But we do a little bit of that sometimes. We do little reminiscing because they want to know what different players did in practice, what they were really like, how they got ready for games. I guess they learn from that, too.”

Tweito says the entire program has benefited from Wyche’s presence, but Wyche has been careful not to overstep his boundaries as a position coach. He doesn’t design or call plays, and despite his extensive offensive background in the NFL, his suggestions tend to run toward simplification rather than complication.

He’s also had to learn how to adapt to a different age and maturity level from what he’s been accustomed to. Except for one season as a head coach at Indiana University, before becoming the head coach of the Bengals, Wyche worked exclusively with professional athletes until his experience at Pickens.

“You kind of play with the deal you’re dealt. You can’t recruit, at least not in the high schools we’re competing with,” Wyche says. “In that respect, you have to be very flexible with what you do, because some years you’ll have a good running back, some years you’ll have a good quarterback.

“Probably the most drastic difference between pro and high school is their attention span on the practice field. It’s very hard to keep their attention for a long time. You can’t go into a long dialogue on the practice field. They’re not going to stay with you.

“For example, if you’re running practice plays, the guys who aren’t in that huddle running that particular play, the guys who are behind the huddle waiting their turn, their attention goes away so fast, and all it takes is one good looking girl to walk by on the other end of the field, or someone else to say how thirsty they are, or someone else to talk about Friday night’s dance, and they’re gone.

“It’s a constant battle. The unfortunate thing is that you can make your point with the first 11, but when the second 11 get in they’ll make a mistake they shouldn’t make if they had paid attention. It’s not like that in the pros, where their livelihood is depending on it. They’re watching, jumping right in, wanting to do it over and over and get it right.”

As much as he enjoys working with high school players at Pickens, Wyche has to admit he still yearns for a return to the NFL.

“I’m enjoying coaching in the high school but I also miss being able to tell the fully matured player about an idea and he’s able to grasp it and make it work,” Wyche says. “I miss it. Straight out, I miss it and it’s something I love to do. I spent a long time in the NFL as a player and a coach and I’d love to get back to one more Super Bowl. I guess everybody says that, but that’s one reason.”

Another reason, Wyche readily admits, is financial. Recent changes in the NFL pension plan make retiring after the age of 58 even more beneficial for coaches, and several coaches who had retired are trying to get back into the game for one more shot at a better pension.

Wyche is one of those, but more than anything, the NFL game is still in his system, stirring around and looking for a place to teach, coach and build.

“I just miss the game,” Wyche says. “When I’m watching the game on television and I see something, my broadcasting hat jumps on my head and I say ‘point that out! Right now! That’s important!’

“If nothing’s said, I put my coach’s hat on and I say, ‘boy I sure hope they show a closeup of the coach pointing it out to the player.’ I just think I still have something to contribute at that level.”

One of the inadvertent blessings of his high school work is the proof it offers to prospective NFL employers that Wyche can work for another head coach, even at the high school level.

“It’s shown me how to play the backseat role, and I think that’s something some people may have worried about with me, having been a head coach for so long,” Wyche says. “People might think it’s hard for me to play a different role, but I have learned and I know how to do it now. I hope somebody sees that and feels the same way.”

Wyche’s best bet is the hope that one of his former assistants, someone he believed in along the way, will become a head coach and bring him along as an assistant. Wyche knows he will have to prove he can handle the day-to-day grind of NFL coaching again.

Even then, Wyche must prove he can handle the physical demands of the job.

As for his voice, Wyche understands the questions about his ability to communicate effectively. In 1998 he became a CBS analyst, a job he genuinely enjoyed because it kept him active and involved with the game, the players and the coaches, but he lost that job when a biopsy on lymph nodes in his chest also left him with a severed left vocal chord. The procedure left his voice a whisper, but after extensive physical therapy he can now communicate actively and effectively.

“I can’t coach the way I’d like to, because I can’t communicate the way I’d like to,” Wyche says. “I’m as loud on the phone right now as I can get, which is fine on the phone. I actually do a lot of public speaking, but I’ve got a lavaliere mike and I can talk in a conversational tone and it amplifies my voice so I’m OK.

“But once I got out on the field and the breeze takes the sound waves away or I’m far away from the player, I can’t communicate as well. But the players have learned my hand signals, my body language and they know when I want to talk to them and they come running and get up close enough to hear.

“Part of it is the coach adjusting, too, and I make sure I position myself on the field so that I am a step away during teaching sessions, instead of 20 yards away. It’s working out fine and I think it would work out in a pro situation, too.”

As for his heart condition, the result of a virus, Wyche takes regular medication and offers the example of his daily workload. He lives on 28 rural acres and he makes a regular habit of bailing hay, cutting the grass, building and fixing fences and tending to the horses, even in the muggy heat of a South Carolina summer.

A recent physical exam revealed that his heart has grown stronger and more efficient, so Wyche must be doing something right.

“I’m doing as much physical work as I ever did as a coach,” Wyche says, “so that shouldn’t be a factor.”

If the pros don’t come calling, Wyche can see himself staying in high school football for awhile, as long as he’s got something to give. But on Sundays and Monday nights, he can’t help but think about the possibilities for a 58-year-old former NFL coach with the experience, energy and enthusiasm to give the pro game another shot.

“I’m shooting for that ideal high school spot or the right situation in the pros,” Wyche says. “I still feel like in my heart of hearts I can coach in the pros.”

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