But something about this notion frightens me.
In case you know not of what I speak, here's the dealio: former coach Levy, recently hired as a Bills executive, has been rumored to be the team's next head coach, now that Mike Mularkey has unexpectedly resigned. What's fueling the buzz is that Levy himself has not exactly gone out of his way to discourage such talk.
This is becoming a sort of hot button topic around the sports world. That sound you hear is click-clacking of bloggers' keyboards everywhere, debating whether it is wise for an 80 year-old man to take over an NFL team.
I say it is not.
Frankly, I am amazed that no coach has dropped dead of a heart attack in the 80 year-plus history of the NFL. Well, one did actually, but not during a game. Leave it to the Lions. Head coach Don McCafferty died in training camp of 1974, collapsing somewhere on the grounds of the Cranbrook campus, preparing for his second season as Lions head coach. But never in the course of a game has an NFL head coach so much as fainted or had dizzy spells or admitted to chest pains, at least not of which I am aware. And these are guys who routinely torture themselves through 18-hour days and who probably don't eat all that well and who absolutely live and die with each play. They rant and rave and march up and down the sidelines and their veins pop out of their necks at the referees and it floors me that not a one of them has been carted off the field and into a waiting ambulance.
He's even older now, you know
And we would have 80 year-old Marv Levy return to that life?
Look at Joe Paterno, defenders of that notion say. He's in his late 70's and still kicking it with Penn State. Yeah, and so what? As much as this thought creeps me out, what if Joe Pa keels over next season? And not every man is the same. Just because Paterno has been able to do it doesn't mean Marv Levy, years removed from the sidelines by the way, can also handle it.
This may sound like I am advocating age limits. I am not, at least not formally. A 55 year-old can have health problems just like an 80 year-old, theoretically. So I'm not saying the league should bar Levy and others who follow based solely on age. I am just appealing to common sense here, and the law of averages, which surely must put an octogenarian at greater risk than someone a generation his junior.
The Tigers, back in the early 1960's, wooed Casey Stengel, the deposed Yankees manager, to be their new pilot. And they darn near pulled it off, too. Stengel went so far as to name the coaches he would like to assist him in his new job as Tigers skipper. But then Casey's wife entered the discussion and insisted her husband have a doctor's clearance before accepting the job, which was his for the taking. Stengel's doctor advised against it. Yet he took the New York Mets job a couple years later, and if that didn't put an old man's health to the test, I don't know what would have done it.
There is no question that Marv Levy, at 80, still has the mental accumen to handle the strategies and game planning and preparation. But I maintain there should be serious concerns as to whether he can physically handle the rigors of that job. I may sound like a wet blanket here, but I hope cooler and less nostalgic heads prevail here.
Stay in the front office, Marv. Things don't get you as physically ill up there.
Right, Mr. Millen?
No comments:
Post a Comment