Whenever the discussion of great coaches in the NFL is the topic, one of the measuring sticks is always the “coaching tree” of each individual. For instance, the great Paul Brown’s coaching tree includes Don Shula, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh and Lou Saban, among others. Coaches who worked under Tom Landry include Mike Ditka and Dan Reeves. Sid Gillman, considered the father of the modern passing game, had an impressive list of people who worked under him, including Noll, Al Davis, Chuck Knox, George Allen and Dick Vermeil. Walsh’s coaching tree included Mike Holmgren, George Siefert, Mike Shanahan and Jon Gruden. I often wondered why the greatest coach of them all, Vince Lombardi, didn’t produce a lot of future coaches. He was known as a great teacher, yet the only Lombardi “disciple” who really had success was Forrest Gregg, an offensive lineman on Vince’s Green Bay teams who coached the Cincinnati Bengals to a Super Bowl. Bart Starr coached the Packers after he retired but didn’t do very well. Lombardi’s successor, Phil Bengston, coached the proud franchise into mediocrity during his short tenure. My theory about this revolves around the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which states that any franchise must give a minority candidate an interview before hiring a head coach. Whether the rule works in helping minority candidates get hired or not is debatable, but the fact is that in Lombardi’s time the rule didn’t exist, and hiring African Americans as head coaches was unthinkable. Looking back at that era, and taking into account the profile of people who have the traits to become head coaches – backup players, players who show leadership on the field,etc. – here is a list of players who may have been the members of Lombardi’s “coaching tree”, had they been given an opportunity:
Emlen Tunnell, a Hall of Fame defensive back who played in the secondary for the New York Giants under the coordination of Tom Landry. He was such a leader in the Giants’ secondary that Lombardi made it a point to acquire him when he took the head coaching job in Green Bay, to help develop the young Packer defensive backfield. He played his last 3 seaasons with the Packers. He was the first black player elected to the Hall of Fame, the first black player to play for the Giants and even served as a scout and a defensive assistant coach with the Giants later in his career. He clearly had the pedigree to be a great head coach in the league.
Elijah Pitts, a backup running back with the Packers in the Lombardi era, actually did get an opportunity to be a head coach, for 3 games in Buffalo when Marv Levy had to take time off after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was a long-time assistant with the Bills, and, former Bills’ running back Thurman Thomas often credited Pitts, his running backs coach, for helping him develop into the player he became. During his Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Thomas said this: ” Elijah Pitts, you are definitely here with me today. I know Eli, if he were alive today, would definitely be a head coach in the National Football League.”
Willie Wood, a defensive back on Lombardi’s Packers, also served as a head coach, but in the now defunct World Football League and the Canadian Football League. His coaching record with those teams wasn’t impressive, but to counter the argument that makes him not qualified to be an NFL head coach, I submit as evidence Bill Bellichick’s coaching tenure in Cleveland.
Herb Adderley, like Wood, was a defensive back in the Packer secondary. Late in his career Tom Landry acquired him to help in the Dallas secondary with the young players and add some championship experience to a team that was struggling to “win the big one”. The Cowboys, with Adderley anchoring their “Doomsday Defense”, finally won the Super Bowl in 1971. He joined Wood as an assistant in the WFL and also briefly in college at Temple.
If only the opportunities had been there for these men during their coaching primes, I believe they could have built long and impressive legacies.
