LED CHARGERS TO PAIR OF TITLES IN AFC WEST
Marty Schottenheimer, who as head coach led the San Diego Chargers to their best record for a regular season and a pair of AFC West titles in his five-year tenure with the team, died Monday night at a hospice in Charlotte, N.C., a family spokesman said. He was 77.
Schottenheimer was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014. He was moved to a hospice Jan. 30.
Across 21 NFL seasons, Schottenheimer amassed 200 regular-season victories and a .613 winning percentage with four franchises, starting with the Cleveland Browns in 1984. He is the seventh-winningest coach in NFL history.
His final coaching job came with San Diego, where the late John Butler brought him to replace Mike Riley in 2002.
Schottenheimer’s five Chargers teams combined for a .588 win rate and reached two Super Bowl tournaments, losing their opener each time.
Though he was named NFL Coach of the Year for 2004 by The Associated Press after leading the Chargers to their first postseason since 1995, it was the 2006 team that defined Schottenheimer’s San Diego legacy by going 14-2 and earning the AFC’s top playoff seed and a first-round bye.
But the performance didn’t translate into Schottenheimer reaching his first Super Bowl in 13 postseason visits, as San Diego lost to the New England Patriots, 24-21, as a five-point favorite in Mission Valley.
It was Schottenheimer’s final game. A month after the defeat, citing “dysfunc
tion” between Schottenheimer and General Manager A.J. Smith, Chargers boss Dean Spanos fired the coach and replaced him with Norv Turner.
“The best coach I ever had,” said former Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson, who won the NFL’s 2006 MVP award. “I never went into a game with Marty as coach feeling like I wasn’t fully prepared to win. He really wanted you to understand every detail of the game plan.”
Nearly three years after Schottenheimer’s dismissal when the Jets upset Turner’s third team as a ninepoint underdog in a playoff opener, in the same Mission
Valley stadium, the Jets awarded a game ball to offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, who forwarded it to his father.
“I’m forever grateful to have known and worked with Marty,” said former Chargers linebacker Shaun Phillips, who had 11 sacks for the ’06 Chargers. “I would run through a wall for this man and I have on a number of occasions.”
Martin Edward Schottenheimer was born Sept. 23, 1943 in Canonsburg, Pa. In 1965, he went from the University of Pittsburgh to the American Football League, where he played six seasons as a linebacker with the Buffalo Bills and Boston Patriots.
His coaching career began in 1974 with the Portland Storm of the World
Football League. He went to the NFL the next year as an assistant coach with the New York Giants.
Named head coach of the Browns midway through the 1984 season, he posted a .620 win rate across 41⁄2 seasons and won three AFC Central titles. He led Cleveland to the AFC championship game twice, only to suffer heartbreaking defeats to John Elway and the Denver Broncos.
In 1989 Schottenheimer took over the Kansas Chiefs, who won 63.4 percent of their games in 10 years under his leadership. Again, however, he was unable to reach the Super Bowl, going 3-7 in the postseason, including one defeat in the 1993 AFC title game.
After
Schottenheimer
worked in TV for two years, Washington owner Daniel Snyder signed him to a multiyear deal, only to fire him after his first team went 8-8.
Including an 0-2 record with the Chargers, Schottenheimer’s teams went 5-13 in the playoffs.
The 2006 Chargers provided one of the more entertaining seasons in the franchise’s history that dates to 1960. Led by Hall of Fame running back Tomlinson, who set an NFL record with 31 touchdowns and was named league MVP, the Chargers scored an NFLbest 30.8 points per game and got a league-high total of sacks from their defense. It was quarterback Philip Rivers’ first season as a starter in the NFL.
“Coach Schottenheimer got the attention of a room
and had a way of delivering the message he wanted received in a way only he could,” Rivers said Tuesday via text message to the Union-Tribune. “I am very thankful I got to play for him my first three seasons in the NFL. Old school, very compassionate, very matter of fact, and just one heck of a coach. I can hear him now, ‘One play at a time!!!’ Thoughts and Prayers for Mrs. Pat and Coach B Schotti and the whole family.”
In a statement Tuesday, Spanos recalled Schottenheimer as a ”tremendous leader of men and a man of great principle. You couldn’t outwork him. You couldn’t outprepare him. And you certainly always knew exactly where you stood with him.”
Among the coaches who worked for Schottenheimer through the years were Bill Cowher, Bruce Arians, Tony Dungy, Herm Edwards and Mike McCarthy.
Cowher remembered his former coach and mentor as an “amazing coach, teacher and leader.”
He is survived by his wife, Pat, and children Brian and Kristin. Brian recently was hired by new Jacksonville coach Urban Meyer as passing game coordinatorquarterbacks coach.
The family said the funeral will be private, with a service celebrating his life to be scheduled later.