Sam Wyche, the innovative coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, has died at 74.
Wyche, who entered hospice on Monday, died Thursday of melanoma, officials with the Bengals confirmed. He was the head coach in Cincinnati from 1984-91.
“Sam was a wonderful guy,” said Bengals’ president Mike Brown in a statement. “We not only liked him, we admired him as a man. He had a great generosity of spirit and lived his life trying to help others.”
Wyche led the Bengals to their second Super Bowl during the 1988 season by using a no-huddle offense that forced the league to change its substitution rules.
He was a nonconformist in a button-down league.
Wyche ran up the score to settle a personal grudge with Houston Oilers head coach Jerry Glanville, calling for an onside kick when his Bengals were leading by 45 points. He also belittled the city of rival Cleveland during his eight seasons in Cincinnati.
The most dramatic moment of the Wyche vs. Cleveland rivalry came when the Bengals were playing the Seattle Seahawks in 1989. Fans at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium started pelting players with snowballs, prompting Wyche to grab the public address announcer’s microphone and tell fans, “You don’t live in Cleveland, you live in Cincinnati.”
As The Athletic’s Paul Dehner reminded us, Sam Wyche later came to Cleveland and sat in a dunk tank for charity with Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar getting the first toss.
Wyche later coached Tampa Bay for four seasons. He would also go on to serve as quarterbacks coach in Buffalo and later became a volunteer offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for a high school in South Carolina.