[msb-alumni] Marty Schottenheimer, Fiery N.F.L. Coach With 200 Wins, Is Dead at 77 on February 8, 2021
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 17:46:09 -0500
BlankMarty Schottenheimer, Fiery N.F.L. Coach With 200 Wins, Is Dead at 77. By
Richard
Goldstein.
With a running attack known as Martyball, his teams won 200 regular season
games and reached
the playoffs 13 times but never made it to the Super Bowl. Marty
Schottenheimer, who won 200
regular-season games as an N.F.L. head coach, the eighth-highest total in
league history,
and took teams to the playoffs in 13 of his 21 seasons but never made it to the
Super Bowl,
died on Monday in Charlotte, N.C. He was 77.. The cause was Alzheimer's
disease, said Bob
Moore, a spokesman for the family. Schottenheimer died at a hospice facility
near his home
in Charlotte after being in its care since Jan. 30. He was first given a
diagnosis of
Alzheimer's in 2014. Coaching four franchises with an often headstrong manner,
Schottenheimer gained acclaim for turning around floundering teams, often
emphasizing a
power-running offense known as Martyball. At first, the tag was emblematic of
his winning
ways, at least in the regular season. But as the years passed, and
Schottenheimer's teams
reached a conference final only three times and then lost all three games on
that final rung
toward the Super Bowl, Martyball became a term of derision, branding his
offense as too
conservative. Schottenheimer coached the original Cleveland Browns from midway
through the
1984 season to 1988, the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989 to 1998, the Washington
Redskins in
2001 (the team dropped that name last July) and the San Diego Chargers from
2002 to 2006.
His teams went 200-126-1 over all, and he was named the 2004 N.F.L. coach of
the year by The
Associated Press when his Chargers went 12-4 after finishing the previous
season at 4-12.
But they were upset by the Jets in the first round of the playoffs.
Schottenheimer's squads
had a 5-13 record in playoff games. In the run-up to the Chargers-Jets playoff
game, Lee
Jenkins of The New York Times, reflecting on Schottenheimer's intensity, wrote
how 'anyone
who watches Schottenheimer standing on the sideline Saturday night against the
Jets, arms
crossed and feet shoulder-width apart, will recognize him as that angry
professor from
Kansas City and Cleveland. 'He still wears his gold spectacles,' Jenkins wrote,
'and sets
his square jaw and roars his favorite football platitudes in a hoarse baritone
that makes
him sound as if he has been screaming for three and a half quarters. Hue
Jackson, an
assistant to Schottenheimer with the Redskins and a future head coach of the
Oakland Raiders
and the second Cleveland Browns franchise, was struck by Schottenheimer's
football smarts
coupled with an insistence on control. 'My time with him, I watched one of the
most
passionate football coaches I had ever been around,' Jackson told ESPN in 2016.
'I know
everybody has the stories about Marty crying. 'He taught me a ton about the
running game,
being tough, just what it meant to be a part of a team,' Jackson recalled,
adding, 'Marty
does not back down from anybody. Martin Edward Schottenheimer was born on Sept.
23, 1943, in
Canonsburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh, and grew up in nearby McDonald, a coal town,
where his
grandfather Frank, a German immigrant, had worked in the mines. His father,
Edward, worked
for a grocery chain, and his mother, Catherine (Dunbar) Schottenheimer, was a
homemaker.
Schottenheimer was considered one of the best high school defensive linemen in
western
Pennsylvania. He went on to the University of Pittsburgh, playing at linebacker
from 1962 to
1964, and was named a second-team All-American by The Associated Press for his
senior
season. He was selected in the fourth round of the N.F.L.'s 1965 draft by the
Baltimore
Colts and in the seventh round of the American Football League draft by the
Buffalo Bills.
Schottenheimer, 6 feet 3 inches and 225 pounds, spent four seasons with the
Bills and
another two with the Boston Patriots. After working in real estate following
his retirement
as a player, he turned to coaching in the N.F.L. He spent two years as the
Giants'
linebacker coach and then was their defensive coordinator in 1977. He coached
the Detroit
Lions' linebackers for two seasons after that before becoming the Browns'
defensive
coordinator. He succeeded Sam Rutigliano as the Browns' head coach midway
through the 1984
season, when they were 1-7. Relying on a power ground game featuring Earnest
Byner and Kevin
Mack and the passing of Bernie Kosar, Schottenheimer took the Browns to the
American
Football Conference final following the 1986 and 1987 seasons, but they lost to
the Denver
Broncos each time in their bid to reach the Super Bowl. The first time, the
quarterback John
Elway led the Broncos to a tying touchdown after they took over on their 2-yard
line late in
the fourth quarter, the sequence that became known as 'the drive. The Browns
were then
beaten on a field goal in overtime. The next year, in a play that became known
as 'the
fumble,' Byner was stripped of the football just as he was about to cross the
goal line for
a potential game-tying touchdown with about a minute left. The Broncos took a
safety and ran
out the clock for a 38-33 victory. Schottenheimer's 1988 Browns team went 10-6
and lost in
the first round of the playoffs. At the time, his brother, Kurt, was the team's
defensive
coordinator, and when the owner, Art Modell, insisted that he reassign his
brother,
Schottenheimer quit. He had also resisted Modell's demand that he hire a new
offensive
coordinator, having filled that role himself when it become vacant that year.
Schottenheimer
was the first to admit that he was strong-willed. 'Maybe I thought there was a
pot of gold
somewhere else to be found,' he said in his memoir, 'Martyball! (2012), written
with Jeff
Flanagan. 'But I was stubborn, very stubborn back then. I've always been
stubborn but much
more so when I decided to leave Cleveland. He then began a 10-season run as
coach of the
Kansas City Chiefs, taking them to the playoffs seven times. Before the 1993
season, the
Chiefs obtained two of the N.F.L.'s marquee names, quarterback Joe Montana, in
a trade, and
running back Marcus Allen as a free agent. The team then went 11-5 and reached
the A.F.C.
final against the Bills. But Schottenheimer once again missed out on the Super
Bowl. Montana
left the game early in the second half with an injury, and the Bills rolled to
a 30-13
victory. The Chiefs were 13-3 in the 1997 regular season, only to lose to the
Broncos in the
playoffs' first round. Schottenheimer was fired after the Chiefs went 7-9 in
1998, the only
time one of his Kansas City teams finished below .500. After two years as an
analyst for
ESPN, Schottenheimer was hired as the Washington coach in 2001. He took the
Redskins to an
8-8 record, then was fired once more. His last N.F.L. stop came in San Diego,
where he twice
lost in the playoffs' first round, the second time following the Chargers' 14-2
season in
2006 behind their brilliant running back LaDainian Tomlinson. In firing
Schottenheimer after
that season, the Chargers cited his feuding with the general manager, A.J.
Smith, over
control of roster decisions. Schottenheimer was coach and general manager of
the Virginia
Destroyers of the United Football League in 2011, taking them to the league
title. He is
survived by his wife, Pat (Hoeltgen) Schottenheimer; a son, Brian, who was a
quarterback
coach under him; a daughter, Kristen; his brothers Bill and Kurt; a sister,
Lisa; and four
grandchildren. Schottenheimer refused to second-guess decisions he had made in
the playoffs
or at any other time. 'I've made calls that, by all reason, were perfect, and
got nothing,'
he once told The Boston Globe. 'And I've made calls that were inappropriate to
the situation
and they've worked. So go figure. Pro football is a strange game.
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