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SOME important statistics from Marv Levy’s career:
Two: the numbers of weeks he stayed in Harvard Law School before
dropping out to coach football.
Three: the number of Jews in the Pro Football Hall of Fame before
Levy’s election last week.
Four: the number of consecutive Super Bowls his Buffalo Bills lost in the
early 1990s, a dubious achievement by which he continues to be
defined.
Levy, who retired in 1997 at 72 as the oldest man to serve as head
coach of a National Football League team, a few years after
successfully battling prostate cancer, was voted into the Hall of Fame
during his first year of eligibility. It came on the 10th year anniversary
of the Bills first Super Bowl defeat, 20-19, to the New York Giants.
“I loved coaching football,” said the Chicago native, a Phi Beta Kappa
who earned a master’s degree in English history at Harvard and often
baffled his players — on five teams in the NFL and a Grey Cup
champion in the Canadian Football League — with his erudite literary
and historical references.
“First … a teacher,” Levy was twice the Coach of the Year and retired
with the 11th most career victories.
Being Jewish was not an obstacle to his rise through the coaching
ranks, says Levy, a board member of several Jewish athletic halls of
fame.
He joins coaching colleague Sid Gillman, ex-San Diego Chargers
lineman Ron Mix and the late Sid Luckman, New York-born quarterback
on the Chicago Bears, in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
One more statistic: Levy and six retired players will be inducted Aug.
4.
Steve Lipman is a staff writer with the
New York Jewish Week. Comment on this article by clicking here.
