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PROVO — Jim McMahon playfully tagged Vai Sikahema in the back. ESPN analyst Trevor Matich was a hit with the local media in attendance. Robbie Bosco and Gary Sheide stopped to talk to each other, no doubt about football or quarterbacking or winning big games.
Or maybe all the conversations, whether exciting, emotional or sorrowful, were about the same thing: the man who brought them all together, amid different personalities and different cultures.
Either way, “the coach” would’ve loved it.
“He loved when we had reunions, and coming back and being a part of that,” said Bosco, who represented all former players in Friday’s public memorial. “He’s going to love this. We have a big reunion with former players, some 500 players, and it will be great.
“He genuinely cared about you, and not just for the four-five years you were at BYU.”
The former players of legendary BYU football coach LaVell Edwards descended on Provo this weekend, set on honoring the man who gave them so much, consoling the surviving family, and sharing their fondest memories of more than a football coach. Edwards died in his home Dec. 29, 2016, at the age of 86.
The Friday and Saturday services weren’t about mourning, though. They were about celebrating a life — and laughing about the memories, just as Edwards would have wanted.
“As much as I hate funerals, this is one that I couldn’t miss,” said McMahon, who was inducted into the BYU Hall of Fame in 2014. “He meant a lot to me in my football career, and in my life. He’s a great person, not only on the field but teaching kids about life. I think that’s why a lot of these kids showed up. He meant a lot to them.”
McMahon got to know Edwards on an intimate level. A non-Mormon who helped lead BYU to national prominence before winning a Super Bowl with the Chicago Bears, he finished his collegiate career with 70 NCAA records.
He also finished with a lot of time spent in Edwards’ office Monday mornings, explaining to his coach what he did the previous weekend. Even those are moments to be cherished for McMahon, though.
“We wish Patti and his family all well. It’s sad to be coming back for those, but we’re going to try to enjoy it and laugh a lot — because LaVell liked to laugh,” McMahon said. “He was pretty funny when you got to know him, they way I did on Mondays.”
McMahon initially rebuffed ideas of graduating and being enshrined in the BYU Hall of Fame. But when he saw Edwards at his induction into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame in the years leading up to his return to Provo, his old coach told him to "get this thing done."
McMahon knew exactly what that meant.
“It was for my parents and LaVell that I graduated and got my name up in that stadium,” he said. “It was a special night, and tonight will be, too. We want to celebrate his life and not his passing.”
The 500-plus former players agreed: Edwards made everybody on the team feel like an MVP — from the star quarterback to the walk-on scout team member.
“Everybody on the team felt like they were an important player because coach Edwards made them feel that way,” Sheide said.
Few were more affected by Edwards and BYU football than Sheide. The Concord, California, native had never heard of Brigham Young University before his soon-to-be coach visited him at Antioch High School. Sheide initially rebuffed the coach after a brief conversation. But when a string of injuries ended his baseball career at Diablo Junior College, Edwards showed up at dinner with the three-sport athlete and his parents.
By the time Edwards exited the home, he had left such an impression on the Sheide family that his mother insisted he give BYU a chance.
“He gave the recruiting pitch to my parents,” Sheide recalled. “After he left, my mom looked at me and said, ‘Gary, I really liked coach Edwards. I really think you need to visit that program and see what it is like.’ I visited it, and fell in love with the school.”
After his first year in Provo, Sheide joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After leading the Cougars to their first-ever bowl appearance in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma State, he was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in 1975. He later moved on to a career in education and broadcasting.
More important to him, though, he married “the prettiest girl on earth” and he and his wife Sherree had five children — each of whom served a mission for the LDS Church and were married in an LDS temple.
“It’s the most important thing that has ever happened in my life,” Sheide said. “My life changed for coach Edwards being persistent with me.
“You hear stories from other players, and it’s the same thing. He touched their lives; he’s a special guy.”
Bosco delivered the former players’ tribute to Edwards during Friday’s memorial service. The 1984 national championship-winning quarterback with a 24-3 record recalled moments when Edwards exemplified a football mind that revolutionized college football with the forward pass — but also a family man who served faithfully in his church callings and his wife, children and each one of his players as if they were his own.
“It didn’t matter if you were in the media and were ripping him — when he saw you face-to-face, he always treated you kindly,” Bosco said. “When we lost football games, he treated people kindly.
“More than anything, I want to take that for myself to help me become a better person.”
Sikahema was an electric return man for BYU from 1980-85, and went on to a lengthy NFL career before settling down as a sports broadcaster in Philadelphia.
While he was talking with the media, McMahon grabbed Sikahema by the shoulders and jokingly chided him about their former coach.
Sikahema’s eyes wistfully followed McMahon, who is one of the most accomplished former BYU players in the NFL and a legend in his own right in his hometown of Roy. McMahon and Sikahema, perhaps, best symbolized Edwards’ love of all his players — even the ones who came to BYU “a little rough around the edges.”
“For kids like me who came here from sometimes dysfunctional homes and backgrounds, I watched how he treated Patti and I watched how he treated people,” Sikahema said with emotion in his voice. “Even as a 17-year-old kid, I made the mental note that I want to be like that, treat my wife like that, and have a family like that.
Edwards retired with 257 wins, a national championship, four Davey O’Brien Award winners, two Outland Trophy winners and a Heisman Trophy winner.
But his biggest victories came off the field.
“LaVell would’ve been successful in whatever pursuit he had gone into,” Sikahema said. “His early record doesn’t always exhibit that; it didn’t start out great. But the way it ended was a flourish.”
