European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 24, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Sunday january 24, 1993 sports a a the stars and stripes Page 25,. A ran has Felt All the loser barbs ily dial Dock Orchard Park , a r the stigma hangs heavy Over Rich stadium As the Buffalo Bills prepare for their third straight super bowl. Football s biggest tease continues. Will the acc peat mean the acc cat getting to the super bowl three consecutive years is an achievement Worth remembering. Losing the super bowl three consecutive years would be the kind of thing people would never let you forget. The Bills know it too. Coach Marv Levy has formulated a number of different ways to answer the same question which Wilt be asked several dozen times next week. A the last two super bowls were the last two and this one is this one a he said Quot i Don t think the last two years have anything to do with this one the game ahead of you is the one that counts. I can t change the the losses though. The losses must weigh you Down. Quot they Don t plague me Quot Levy said. Quot there a no sense of fear of losing. Certainly you Don t want to lose. For maybe 72 hours it hurts then you put it behind still the Bills go into the super bowl with a Black Cloud hanging Over their the Vikings were great. To a Quot a dejected fran Tarkenton following he third straight super Dow defeat in 1977. Heads. The whispers arc they can t win the big one. Hall of Fumar fran Tarkenton who heard the same thing thinks that s so much baloney. Quot was lust week against Miami a big one Quot Tarkenton said. A was the Houston game coming Back from Down 353, a big one a Tarkenton played in three of Minnesota a four failed super bowls. He knows the stigma Sticks. He thinks it has Hurt the Hall of Fame Chance of great individual players who were on those teams players like Carl Filer Mick Tingelhoff Jim Marshall and Paul Krause Filer is a finalist in this year s balloting. Quot these were great players on great teams a Tarkenton said. Our players were tarred and feathered by the super bowl for those of us who played we knew _ we know who we arc. The losses Don t demean us one Iota. We Veall lost games. We Veall won games. For whatever reason that Day that time we got beat. Pittsburgh s great Green Bay a great because they won one sudden death game. Minnesota lost four so we re All los cars. That s the reality though is something else Gach super bowl that the Vikings lost had Nobe Ningon the others Tarkenton said. A i Don t think any two games arc alike a he said. Quot i done to trunk any team has an advantage at this stage. Nothing that s gone before matters look at Dallas and san Francisco last week the 49crs arc at Home the fans All fired up a team with a lot of playoff experience. Dallas is Young a team that Hnsen i been there before playing on the Road. What did it All mean a Hill of Beans. Quot you play great and if you Fumble a couple of limes or maybe a to pass is called Back it affects the entire team. The entire team is and the indictment can be permanent. Ivc Iyono knows Buffalo is lost the last two super bowls. Some people forget that the winners were flip new York giants out of the playoffs the two seasons since beating the Bills and Washington which barely made it to the postseason this year. Minnesota s four super bowl losses came against four different teams a Kansas City Miami Pittsburgh and Oakland. What docs that say for the Bills and Hikcs Quot its a phenomenal record a Tarkenton said. Quot to go Back that Many times. That s some accomplishment. Quot if you win you re wonderful if you lose you re not so Good. The super bowl Winner is omnipotent. The loser is forgotten. The poor Guys who lose on sunday will be chopped liver. If poor old Buffalo loses find All kinds of character weaknesses in them. Levy will be top old. say Jim Kelly could t win the big one. The team will be ripped by the thing to remember though is that they got there three years in a Row and not Many players or teams can say that. No x s and o s for Marv Bills Marv Ivy Falls Back on literary greats Orchard Park . A let other football coaches quote Halas and Lombardi Marv Levy quotes Churchill and Hemingway a and sometimes Joe Louis. T he x s and of a Guys Are wrapped up in playbooks and game plans. Levy is a Renaissance coach a Man who can talk As comfortably about English literature and history As he can about offences and defences. Quot a very Good coach has to be a Good teacher a he said Quot and he must teach More than just the fundamentals of in the 42 years since earning his masters in English history at Harvard a his thesis concerned America s lend incas program in the Early Days of world War ii a Ivy has Lauglin history English world civilization and of yes football. He is a Man who has heroes the giants of history among them. They include Irmis who was the heavyweight Champion of the world in the years when the coach was growing up a i remember listening to his fights on the radio Quot Levy said Quot Lamis was modest. He let his performance speak for him i remember his fight with Billy Conn How Conn went on and on about now he was going to do this and that and How he would beat i Juis. Quot when it was Irmis turn to speak All he said was ill be there and ill be on a the message was dear for the Bills who occasionally have talked the talk but have not yet walked the walk. There is a Little hit of frenzy in Buffalo at the moment because the Bills Are 0tor-2 at the super bowl an Amateur analyst suggested to Juvy that tins upcoming me is a must win Lor the franchise. I he coach snickered at that. Quot world War ii was a must win Quot he said. Often Juvy leans on history to teach his football lessons. _ f in the week after his team won its third straight acc title he talked to the Hills not about Dallas and Pasadena but rather about Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln Quot he always knows what to say Quot quarterback Jim Kelly said. Sometimes people laugh about him and wonder where he a getting with this. But the More you talk to the Man the More you understand what he s All for Levy it is not really terribly complicated. Quot you have to have a plan Quot he said. Quot plan your work and work your Levy s organizational Chart has been refined Over four decades of coaching from the preps to the pros. His first coaching Job was at St. Louis country Day school where he taught history and English and coached basketball and football. Quot they kept me Busy a he said. He has made myriad stops since then a William and Mary California new Mexico the Canadian goo balt league the nil his coaching philosophy has evolved Anneen refined at each place Quot what it takes to win is simple not easy a Levy said Quot you must make players feel prepared. You never use practice As punishment or Reward. Practice is practice a Lime to prepare for the game. You do what you need to do to get ready fur the lie has done that at every level from rep school to the pros from Liny Coe College to the nil where he was fired by the Kansas City chiefs before arriving in Buffalo to take the Bills to three straight al to championships. To still shakes his head Over the experience with the chiefs. Quot i Felt they made a mistake Quot he said. Quot we were getting better. We went from two wins the year before i got there to for wins to eight wins to nine wins. We were 3-6 in the strike year. So was Pilka with the bears and Walsh with the 4 Jers. 1 got at age 64, Levy is a gentle Man who enjoys taking Long walks a a getting out into lie is an activist for literacy volunteers and animal rights and opposes Hunting. A there s no sport in killing animals Quot he said
