Down and out about many things this Saturday morning, I tried to cheer myself up by drinking coffee and flipping through my Google Reader to catch up on articles I had missed during the work week. Two of the articles were from longtime Rochester sportswriter Scott Pitoniak’s blog. I grew up reading his work in the Democrat and Chronicle, and since the paper let him go, I’ve been following his reinvention online.
In a piece this week, Pitoniak reflected on the 19th anniversary of the greatest comeback in NFL history, the Buffalo Bills defeat of the Houston Oilers in a wild card playoff game. The Bills came back from a 32 point deficit under the leadership of backup quarterback Frank Reich, forced into play after the Oilers injured starter Jim Kelly when the two teams met in the last game of the regular season.
In Pitoniak’s piece this week, he quoted an interview with Steve Tasker about how usually loquacious Bills head coach Marv Levy inspired the team during halftime, despite their being down 28-3:
“All he said was, Don’t ever let ’em say you gave up,” Tasker recounted. “There was brilliance in his simplicity. He didn’t berate us for crappy play, and he didn’t try to give us some rah-rah speech, which would have come across as disingenuous and phony. We had been to two straight Super Bowls, and he appealed to our pride. It wound up working. We chipped away and kept playing hard, and a miracle occurred.”
To say that I was exactly what I needed to read this morning would be an understatement. “Don’t ever let ’em say you gave up.” That’s going in my wallet. Marv Levy may have never won a Super Bowl, but he’s provided me with enough kick-in-the-butt quotes and moments to last a lifetime.
(The other piece Pitoniak posted on his site this week is perfect for anyone not familiar with the pre-Indianapolis Colts work of Bill Polian, who was let go by the Colts this week. Polian was a mastermind for the Super Bowl years of the Bills, and did excellent work crafting the early years of the Carolina Panthers. Bills fans would love to have Polian back within the organization, but Polian and owner Ralph Wilson have not been on the best of terms.)
