Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid honored his mentor LaVell Edwards at BYU’s Football Media Day.
Last Friday, Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was one of several of LaVell Edwards’ proteges in the audience as Brigham Young University held their football media day. Given that Edwards, a longtime head coach of BYU football and a Hall of Fame member, passed away last December, the event became a key time to remember and honor Edwards’ legacy.
Reid is the most famous (and arguably the most accomplished) of Edwards’ coaching tree, but it’s one with many, many branches. Edwards’ presence is still felt on both the pro and college coaching levels, a list that includes former NFL coaches Mike Holmgren and Brian Billick and current college coaches like Brian Mitchell (Virginia Tech), Steve Sarkisian, Kyle Whittingham (Utah), Norm Chow, Ty Detmer and Kalani Sitake. Other famous coaches Reid played for Edwards at BYU and began his coaching career as an grad assistant for the Cougars.
Reid highlighted “the intangible” aspects of coaching of Edwards as one of the biggest takeaways from the storied coach.
"“It’s the intangible things that we learned, that you can be a good person and still coach. You don’t have to yell, scream and use profanity. You’re a teacher,” Reid said. “If you take the principles of the church, we’re here to be teachers. You can truly incorporate that into coaching and still have success doing it. I think that’s probably the thing that we’ve all taken with us in our different ventures.”"
Edwards won a national championship in 1984 and retired in 2000 with a career record of 257-101-3, sixth most wins in NCAA history.