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Tazio
2nd July 2010, 15:49
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jul/01/don-coryell/


Don Coryell, the legendary NFL coach and former Washington Husky whose innovative offense was known as "Air Coryell," has died at the age of 85.

Mindy Lewis, the coach's daughter, said Coryell had suffered for several years from a degenerative muscle disease. He'd been staying at a San Diego-area hospital since Christmas Day and died about 3:15 p.m. PDT Thursday of complications from pneumonia.

"He was a warrior to the very end. He actually came home for one day over the Father's Day weekend, and we hoped he'd be home longer," said Lewis, of San Diego. "He was an incredible father and an incredible man."

Coryell was the first coach to win 100 games in both college and professional football. He developed a wide-open passing attack during his 11 years at San Diego State then used it in the pro game - first with the St. Louis Cardinals (1973-77) and then the San Diego Chargers (1978-86).

His Chargers offense, led by quarterback Dan Fouts, set records and led the NFL in passing seven of his first eight seasons with San Diego. Despite going to the playoffs six times and the AFC Championship Game in 1980 and 1981, Coryell never made it to the Super Bowl. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and this year was a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Coryell played for the Huskies in 1951 and '52 and was also a member of the 1948-1950 men's crew, according to his induction notice into the Husky Hall of Fame.

More recently, he and his late wife owned a home on San Juan Island, and would spend summers there and winters in Hawaii.

"He was always crabbing and fishing and planting trees," said Lewis. "There was an eagle's nest in lot next to theirs. He loved just being with nature, and looking at the sailboats go by."

Lewis said her father's biggest legacy is the positive impact he had on dozens of young men. Many of those men - who are not so young any more - have been in touch over recent months offering to help out. Coryell's intensity on the field belied a compassionate man, Lewis said.

"Just last week, Conrad Dobler, of the St. Louis Cardinals, said he (Coryell) was the first coach that ever made football fun," Lewis said. "For a huge network of boys, and they were boys when he had them, he's remained a father figure."

Coryell's daughter-in-law Debbie Coryell, of the Bay Area, said Coryell never spoke much about football while around family, at least when he was still coaching.

"That he kept it all at the field or the office was always a surprise to me," said Debbie Coryell. "He was always just learning and curious about things. He never sat around. He was always boating or gardening or fishing."

As well as his aerial offense, Coryell is also credited with inventing the "I" formation when he was a running backs coach at Wenatchee Junior College.

From 1961-72 at San Diego State, his record was 104-19-2. In 14 NFL seasons ending in 1986, his record was 111-83-1.

"He was a warm, gentle, kind man," said Debbie Coryell. "So different from what you saw out on the field."

Posted on Fri, Jul. 02, 2010 03:00 AM


A true Football innovator, motivator, and San Diego legend, his first significant job (after a playing for the Washington Huskies), was as an assistant to John McKay at USC where he was the architect and creator of the I formation. His College coaching career started with the Whittier Poets, He hired an assistant named John Madden.
When they arrived at San Diego State They took on a graduate assistant named Joe Gibbs. He was the first coach to amass 100 college, and NFL wins. His disciples read like a who's who of the NFL. Air Coryell was so revered that the street leading from Mission Village (my home community) to the Stadium was renamed Coryell Pass.
With all his accomplishments few outside the San Diego community really know the true greatness of this man

edv
2nd July 2010, 16:12
Wow.
Chargers were my favorite team of that era. Loved that offense.

RIP Coach.

Tazio
2nd July 2010, 16:20
This explains things much better than I can
This is a sad day in San Diego!
Weve truly lost one of our greatest treasures

f3oea1As6C8

Roamy
2nd July 2010, 18:19
RIP Air Coryell
He brought much excitement to the game

Mark in Oshawa
4th July 2010, 07:31
I loved Madden's great ancedote about Don. He said Don was so intense he would be preoccupied about his game planning to the point, that he would leave the house to take the garbage out, put the bag on the top of the car to take to the end of the long drive, and by the end of the driveway, he would have forgotten to take the bag off. He was also reportedly quite capable of taking his kids to school, and forgetting to actually drop them off and getting to the stadium with the kids sitting quietly...lol

A great coach, and apparently a well loved man...

Tazio
4th July 2010, 17:45
I loved Madden's great ancedote about Don. He said Don was so intense he would be preoccupied about his game planning to the point, that he would leave the house to take the garbage out, put the bag on the top of the car to take to the end of the long drive, and by the end of the driveway, he would have forgotten to take the bag off. He was also reportedly quite capable of taking his kids to school, and forgetting to actually drop them off and getting to the stadium with the kids sitting quietly...lol

A great coach, and apparently a well loved man...

On a side note I met a man that played football at San Diego State when Madden was coaching with Coryell. I asked him what it was like, and he said those two were at each other’s throats (or butting heads might be a better discription) from the beginning of practice until its end. They never showed it to the public, and the press respected their team leader’s dignity! People forget what a real taskmaster Madden was
In San Diego we remember him as he was.
Oakland, San Diego is still a very intense rivalry
BTW I read that book Mark and also found the part you described very amusing :p :
(although the garbage was in cans in the back of his station wagon and living on Mt. Helix had a relatively long distance to go to reach the designated place for trash pick up)

Mark in Oshawa
5th July 2010, 07:27
Taz, I just remember any time we were lucky enough to see Coryell's Chargers with Fouts on TV and you knew it wouldn't be a dull game. If he had any clue on how to coach a defense or get one, they would have won a few Super Bowls because they scored points like it was the CFL, not the NFL

Tazio
5th July 2010, 16:37
Taz, I just remember any time we were lucky enough to see Coryell's Chargers with Fouts on TV and you knew it wouldn't be a dull game. If he had any clue on how to coach a defense or get one, they would have won a few Super Bowls because they scored points like it was the CFL, not the NFL Quite simply that is not true. The Chargers had some very good defenses (BTW Coryell was a D-back/linebacker at Washington). I can tell you exactly what kept the Chargers from winning a Super Bowl in the Coryell era. Yes we never had a complete defense, as we were always lacking a great DB/cover guy in the Coryell Era. The Raiders, a skinflint of an owner named Gene Klein, and a game played in Cincinnati at a chill factor of -62% F. As for the Raiders I was at the game of the infamous "Holy Roller" in the stands at that corner of the end zone where it happened. The stands erupted as Woodrow Lowe apparently sacked "The Snake" on fourth down and no time remaining on the clock, Stabler made (what should have been ruled as an incomplete forward pass, which Dave Casper and another Raider dribbled 12 yards into the end zone. This facilitated a major rule change in the NFL. Eugene Klein (Chargers) and Bill Bidwell (Cardinals) were notoriously the biggest skinflints in the NFL Both teams that Coryell resurrected from garbage to championship caliber teams. It is an obscure fact that the success Coryell had at St. Louis was due largely to a relatively unknown running back named Terry Metcalf. Metcalf played his college ball at Long Beach State, a team that was in the same conference as the San Diego State Aztecs when Coryell coached them. In an extremely rare home loss Metcalf singlehandedly beat the Aztecs, and not by a little, it was ugly. Metcalf had a distinguished career in the NFL. His son was a big star at Texas, a played in the NFL entering it with a lot of hoopla, but he was not half the player his father was. Coryell operated on a shoestring budget at St. Louis, and with San Diego. Nobody made any real money on the Chargers except for Fouts. I find it more than a little Ironic that Dan Fouts held out, and when asked what he thought he was worth, he said "as much as Bert Jones"!.He was absolutely ridiculed in the press and on the TV sports reports. Go back and compare the statistics of the two, Fouts sold himself short. But more importantly Klein Let the most explosive receiver in the league (John Jefferson) walk away, or traded him to Green Bay I don't remember which. The sad thing about it was that it turned out badly for both parties, especially Jefferson who slid into obscurity at Green Bay. He was replaced by Wes Chandler, a gifted receiver that looked even better than he was because he played on such a prolific offense.
Back to the Raiders;
We both had beaten the worst hairball the NFC ever coughed up as its champion in 198o-81. The Chargers completely shut them down, and won a low scoring game quite easily. The Chargers lost to the Raiders in the AFC Championship Game on a play that caromed off on raider receiver from or to Raymond Chester for the decisive touchdown. That was a play that facilitated another major NFL rule change (although it may have been changed back recently) that a forward pass cannot be touched by to offensive players consecutively unless the first one has control.
As for "The Ice Bowl" The Charger had just come off what is considered by many NFL aficionados as the Greatest NFL playoff game ever. A few quotes about that game:

Said Chargers coach Don Coryell after the game:

"I have coached for 31 or 32 years and this is tremendous...There has never been a game like this. It was probably the most exciting game in pro football history."

Shula agreed:

"A great game...Maybe the greatest ever."

Bryant Gumbel:

“If you didn't like this game then you don't like football.”

So the Chargers were off to Play Cincinnati a good team, but rather pedestrian.
Their real strength was at wide receiver with the crafty ex-Gator Chris Collingsworth as their possession wide receiver, and the burner, and star receiver out of San Diego State Isack Curtis. It's not a fair excuse to say San Diego lost because they shot their load in Miami. But it is fair to say That Dan Fouts one of the biggest studs that ever graced an NFL team (and not just for a quarterback) had a horrible game He threw five or six interceptions,
and he wasn't the only one that made bad mistakes for S.D. Cinci Won, helped to a large degree by the home field advantage. Fair play to them the temp was the same for both teams.
But to categorically say that Coryell never won a Super Bowl because of not having a defense is factually wrong!


In 1979, the Chargers allowed the fewest points (246) in the AFC. In 1980 their defense led the NFL with 60 sacks spearheaded by a frontline of All-Pros in Fred Dean, Gary "Big Hands" Johnson and Louie Kelcher. The group was locally nicknamed "the Bruise Brothers", coined from a popular act at the time, The Blues Brothers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Coryell
Not to mention other great defensive players like Woodrow Lowe.
You might want to bone up on the rest of your Coryell knowledge. As that link provides a fair assessment of him and his teams
BTW I'm impressed with how much you actually do know :up:

Tazio
9th July 2010, 01:59
http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Joe-Gibbs-John-Madden-Dan-Fouts-to-speak-at-Coryells-service.html


The San Diego Chargers have announced that former NFL coaches Joe Gibbs (former SDSU player and assistant coach) and John Madden and former Chargers quarterback Dan Fouts are scheduled to be guest speakers at a memorial service for the late coaching legend Don Coryell.

The Chargers have described the event as a public celebration of Coryell's life.

It's set for next Monday at 2 p.m. at the Viejas Arena at San Diego State University.

Former San Diego State and NFL standout defensive end Fred Dryer, who was later an actor on the "Hunter" television series, and former Chargers and San Diego State assistant Jim Hanifan will also speak at the event.

"Longtime friends and those who knew him best will share their fondest memories and stories of how the coaching legend impacted so many lives," the Chargers said in a statement.

The event is free and open to the public.