KANSAS CITY, Mo. — I never met Marty Schottenheimer in person, but I feel like I know him anyway. There must be thousands of you who could say the same thing.
For a generation of us, Marty defined football. Defined the Chiefs, anyway. The Chiefs played this specifically tough, disciplined and occasionally nasty brand of football for an old middle linebacker who himself played tough, disciplined and occasionally nasty.
Marty changed Kansas City. He and Carl Peterson. From the moment the Chiefs lost the NFL’s Longest Game on Christmas Day 1971 to the moment Marty and Carl arrived in 1989 the Chiefs stunk.
Seventeen years and just one playoff appearance, a blowout loss to the Jets, who themselves lost the next round to Marty’s Browns, who then lost to John Elway’s Broncos on “The Drive” in the 1986 AFC Championship.
Marty had the worst luck. He made the playoffs four years in a row in Cleveland, then got fired after a 10-6 season in which he lost three quarterbacks to injury. His Chiefs won more games than any other franchise in the 1990s, then the end turned ugly and he was essentially forced out. He went 8-8 in Washington with Tony Banks at quarterback, then got fired.
He had one more shot, and went 14-2 in his fifth season with the Chargers, then got fired. No one had ever been fired the season after winning so many games. Then, nobody ever won so many games as a coach without a Super Bowl.
Again: the worst luck. He was enough of a coach and then some to win a Super Bowl, and indeed four former assistants went on to win as head coaches. He was always happy for them. Not for himself, but for them.
Marty’s big win never came. But he had a million successes, a lifetime of memories that has left the football world in tears. Marty was more than the playoffs. A lot more than that to the players who loved him, the coaches he worked with, and the fans who cheered his teams.
He was a lot more than that to a lot of us who grew up in or around Kansas City in the 1990s, and fell in love with what Marty created.
———
Marty gave us an identity. He made Kansas City someplace. He made Arrowhead Stadium magic.
He did not do this alone, of course. Carl Peterson made the draft picks and had a vision of turning the parking lot into America’s greatest barbecue. Marty had Derrick Thomas and Neil Smith and Christian Okoye and and Tim Grunhard and Bill Maas and Albert Lewis and Will Shields and eventually Joe Montana and Marcus Allen.
They and so many other stars transformed a franchise that had lost its way, and had fallen behind the Royals in popularity. The biggest stars in town were no longer George Brett and Frank White. Now they all wore helmets with facemasks.
Marty did that. His teams played a very specific way — they would run the ball at your face, throw off play action, harass your quarterback and almost always win on turnovers. They called it MartyBall, and they called it smashmouth.
Thomas popularized the strip sack, Smith swung for the fences after sacks, and after being ignored for decades outside Kansas City the Chiefs turned Arrowhead into the NFL’s loudest stadium in the 1990s.
They did that by winning, yes, but more than that they did it by making us feel something. Third-and-long, under the lights, with Thomas on one edge with a hand in the air and Smith flinching the tackle on the other made for great national television. That’s the centerpiece of how a lot of us came to love football.
Marty did that. He grew up in western Pennsylvania, but he became one of us. He hated the Raiders with a passion that would’ve fit at any tailgate, and his mantra that you just had to wait for the Raiders to Raider is still repeated today.
How many men can say they’ve had this big of an impact on a place?
Marty coached in four NFL cities — six if you count his time as an assistant. His time in Kansas City was just 10 of his 26 seasons as a coach, but the time changed both the man and city forever.
Even as he was with the Chargers, Marty talked openly about his time in Kansas City being the best of his life. And even 22 years after his last game, Marty remains a part of us. Those kids who grew to love the Chiefs and football because of his teams are now mothers and fathers, raising kids who love the Chiefs and football in a new way.
How many Super Bowls is that worth?
The Chiefs are as popular and successful as they’ve ever been, and of course that begins with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. But in a lot of real ways, everything positive about the modern Chiefs — the post-Stram Chiefs, let’s say — began with Marty’s heart and voice and belief.
A man named John wrote in about Marty last week. Lots of people did. He was a giant in Kansas City. This one particular message stuck out. John stood outside Arrowhead before practice, waiting for Marty. He introduced himself, mentioned their Pennsylvania connection, and Marty smiled.
“I gotta get to practice,” Marty said. “Come walk with me to my car.”
John would have understood if Marty blew him off. Instead, Marty was decent, generous, and gave John a story he still tells decades later.
That’s a better way to remember Marty than anything about a Super Bowl.
———
I talked to Marty Schottenheimer once, by telephone. This was five years ago, as the Chiefs seemed destined to win their first playoff game since Marty’s 1993 team beat the Houston Oilers in the Astrodome.
That 1993 team had become something of an obsession, and with the Chiefs set to open the 2015 playoffs in Houston it was a story I had to write. A friend who worked at the Chiefs gave me a copy of the broadcast. I still have it on my computer. The personalities seemed bigger than anything to me as a kid, and when I watched as adult the whole thing held up.
Players wore those enormous shoulder pads, kicker Nick Lowery rocked the single-bar facemask, O.J. Simpson did the broadcast and after big plays the Astrodome speakers bumped Tag Team’s “Whoomp There It Is.”
The cheerleaders’ bangs froze high with hairspray, fans wore Zubaz pants without irony, and during a break the broadcasters giggled at an adorable little girl pretending to talk on her dad’s huge brick mobile phone. That was the game Keith Cash threw the ball against a poster of Buddy Ryan’s face.
The Chiefs trailed by 10 at halftime, and Marty calmed them. He said the Oilers weren’t doing anything they didn’t expect. He told them they were prepared, and doing great, and if they simply maintained focus they would meet back here after the game for a celebration. That’s exactly what happened.
That game happened in another time, literally and figuratively, and even now remains one of the best memories the Chiefs made in the age of color television. I had so many questions, and remain grateful for the dozens involved in that game who provided memories.
I called Marty and he answered on the second ring.
“Oh,” he said. “That was a long time ago. I’m afraid I don’t remember much.”
Marty had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s the year before. I’d heard he’d been having good days and not so good. I told him about some nice things a few of his old players had said, equal parts wanting him to hear it and hoping it might help him remember something.
“That’s great,” he said. “I just don’t remember. I’m sorry.”
I told him there was nothing to apologize for, that what they did that day remains with so many. Then I passed along an inside joke that a player had told me, something he asked me to share with Marty but nobody else.
Marty laughed. He remembered.
