Levy, Marv
LEVY, MARV
LEVY, MARV (Marvin Daniel ; 1925– ), U.S. football coach, only nfl coach to win four straight league or conference championships; member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Levy was the older of two children born on Chicago's South Side to Sam, an immigrant from England who ran a wholesale produce company, and Ida, from Russia. The day after graduating from South Shore High School in 1943, Levy enlisted in the Army Air Corps and spent the remainder of World War ii in the military. He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Coe College in 1950, and then received a master's degree in English history from Harvard in 1951. After 15 years of coaching college ball, Levy entered the nfl as special teams coach of the Eagles (1969), Rams (1970), and Redskins (1971–72), and then left the nfl to become head coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His cfl record was 43–31–4 in five seasons, as the team went to the playoffs all five years and won the Grey Cup in 1974 and 1977. Levy returned to the nfl in 1978 as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, where he went 31–42 in five seasons. Levy took over the Chicago team in the U.S. Football League in 1984, and was then hired by the Buffalo Bills during the 1986 season. It took Levy only two years to lead the Bills to the 1988 afc Championship game, earning Levy Coach of the Year honors. The Bills won the Eastern Division six of the next eight seasons, and made the playoffs eight of the next nine years; Levy was named afc Coach of the Year in 1988, 1993, and 1995. Levy and the Bills would become the only team in nfl history to play in four straight Super Bowls (1991–94). He retired after the 1997 season, compiling a 112–70 record (123–78 including playoffs) as the Bills' coach, and 143 nfl coaching victories overall, which ranked 10th in history at the time of his retirement. In addition, Levy is one of only 14 coaches to win 100 games with one nfl team. Levy was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, one of six Jews enshrined along with Sid *Gillman, Sid *Luckman, Ron *Mix, Al *Davis, and Benny *Friedman. He is the author of an autobiography, Where Else Would You Rather Be? (2004).
[Elli Wohlgelernter (2nd ed.)]