Wyche returns to high school coaching
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) – A healthier, happy Sam Wyche is still in the game – even if his to-do list at Pickens High includes things he never did in the NFL. Sweep out the locker rooms? You bet. Simplify his vast playbook for the high school game? Easily done. Watch his starting quarterback take a few days away from camp to play baseball? Not a problem.
“Money’s tight up here. They’re looking for any volunteers they can get,” Wyche said by telephone. “I’m glad to do it.”
Wyche returned to Pickens, where he worked with the team’s quarterbacks four years ago, after coaching with friend Mike Mularkey in Buffalo the last two seasons.
The 61-year-old Wyche easily could have relaxed on his 28-acre horse farm in South Carolina’s Upstate, attending high school games on Fridays and college games (he attended nearby Furman) on Saturdays.
But Wyche kept in contact with Pickens head coach Brett Turner, the school’s defensive coordinator during Wyche’s previous prep stint, and decided to come back as an assistant.
“I enjoyed every bit of my experience the last time,” Wyche said. “This time, I’m actually more involved in the offense.”
Wyche was known as an offensive innovator during his 12 seasons as an NFL head coach. He led Cincinnati to the Super Bowl after the 1988 season, losing to San Francisco 20-16 on a late touchdown.
After four seasons at Tampa Bay, Wyche became a CBS analyst in 1998. Two years later, he underwent a biopsy on some lymph nodes in his chest. His left vocal cord was severed during the procedure, leaving his trademark voice – he once famously shouted to snowball-throwing Bengals fans, “You don’t live in Cleveland, you live in Cincinnati!” – little more than a raspy whisper.
“That operation changed my life, my direction, my income,” he said. “Everything.”
Gradually, Wyche’s condition improved. He sounds clear and crisp on the phone.
“I sometimes have trouble with my volume, or when I get excited at a game,” he said.
Still, he’s strong enough to broadcast next month’s Hall of Fame Game between Oakland and Philadelphia for Westwood One radio. Should that go well, “I’ve already gotten a call from Marv Albert about working with him during the playoffs,” Wyche said, chuckling.
Wyche also was diagnosed with a heart condition, cardiomyopathy. He’s been told by doctors that a third of his heart muscle does not work properly. At each checkup, physicals show he’s about two to four years away from needing a new heart, “but they just keep rolling that number over.”
There are days Wyche feels winded and weak or his voice strains as he speaks. But “I’m the best I’ve been in a while,” he said.
There have been adjustments from the NFL life. Wyche interrupted some “housecleaning duties” with the other Pickens coaches to take a cell phone call. During the spring, Wyche filled the playbook with exotic schemes before simplifying it.
“I keep reminding myself that these guys are learning in biology class and English class, dating, I can’t put in way too much,” he said.
Pickens starting quarterback Andy Fowler will miss a few summer drills because he’s playing in the Big League World Series, something Wyche never worried about with Boomer Esiason in Cincinnati or J.P. Losman in Buffalo.
“In the NFL, you’re not there, you get fined,” he said. “This is different, but it’s OK.”
Turner saw how easy Wyche was to work with previously and welcomed him back.
“He’s such a humble guy, he’s never met a stranger,” Turner said.
Fowler didn’t play his junior season to concentrate on baseball and said one of the clinchers to return this season was having Wyche as his coach.
“It’s pretty cool having a coach who coached in the Super Bowl,” he said.
Wyche tries to keep things as light as he can. He reads jokes to players and always has something encouraging to say.
Still, Wyche might not be done with the pros. He would love another shot as a head coach, or even an offensive coordinator in the right spot. He also would enjoy a return to the broadcast booth. Then again, Wyche said he is happy to stay at Pickens for several more seasons.
“I’ll let each year dictate the next,” he says. “But getting back here is refreshing.”