Associated Press
Bum Phillips spent six seasons
as the coach of the Houston Oilers from 1975 to 1980 and five seasons
with the New Orleans Saints from 1981 to 1985.
Bum Phillips, the homespun Texan who was caricatured as a cowboy but
possessed a keen football mind that built the Houston Oilers into one of
the N.F.L.’s leading teams of the late 1970s, died Friday at his ranch
in Goliad, Tex. He was 90. Outfitted in a white Stetson, work shirt,
jeans and cowboy boots — including a powder-blue pair to match the Oiler
colors — Phillips was a square-jawed, buzz-cut outsize character with a
host of one-liners.
Bum Phillips in 2012.
When he became the Oiler coach and general manager in 1975, replacing
Sid Gillman, who was long renowned as a master of passing attacks,
Phillips was charged with rebuilding a downtrodden franchise. He did
just that, developing an outstanding defense anchored by Elvin Bethea at
end and Curley Culp at nose tackle, and an offense spurred by the
brilliant running of Earl Campbell, all of them future Hall of Famers.
And he made astute pickups of unheralded players in twice bringing
Houston to the brink of the Super Bowl.
Making the playoffs as a wild-card team, the Oilers lost to the
Pittsburgh Steelers — the eventual Super Bowl champions — in the 1978
and ‘79 season American Football Conference championship games. When
they came home on Jan. 7, 1980, after the second of those losses to the
Steelers, a capacity crowd welcomed them at the Astrodome in the late
night hours.
“Last year we knocked on the door,” Phillips told the fans, wiping back tears. “This year we banged on it.”
He promised to kick the door down the following season, and went on to
trade quarterback Dan Pastorini to the Oakland Raiders for Kenny
Stabler, hoping that would bolster the offense.
“Me and Bum are as alike as two piles of cow manure,” Stabler, a native
of small-town Alabama, was quoted as saying by Sports Illustrated upon
joining the Oilers. “The guy is just an unpretentious cowboy who happens
to be a football coach.”
But the Oilers were beaten in a December 1980 wild-card playoff game by
the soon-to-be Super Bowl champion Raiders. K.S. (Bud) Adams Jr., the
Oilers’ founder and owner, fired Phillips on New Year’s Eve, a few days
after that loss, citing his refusal to hire an offensive coordinator,
thus ending the Phillips era that Oiler fans called Love Ya Blue.
In 1981 Phillips was hired as coach and general manager of the New Orleans Saints,
who had gone 1-15 the previous season. The Saints nearly made the 1983
playoffs, but Phillips could not produce a winning team in his four-plus
seasons.
When his Saints were dominated by the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth
quarter of their Nov. 12, 1985, game, suffering their fifth consecutive
loss, Phillips remarked how “the harder we play, the behinder we get.”
He resigned later that month with three years left on his contract and
the Saints at 4-8. His son, Wade, his defensive coordinator, finished
out the season as head coach.
“There’s two kinds of coaches,” Phillips once said. “Them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired.”
Oail Andrew Phillips was born on Sept. 29, 1923, in Orange, Tex., the
son of a truck driver. “My name’s pronounced ‘Awl,’ but no one could
pronounce it right,” he once told The New York Times. “Even in school, I
answered to the name Bum. Oail was my daddy’s first name, too. But he
went by the nickname Flip.”
Bum Phillips got his nickname when a younger sister, Edrina, tried to
say “brother,” only to have it come out as “bumble” and later “bum.”
“I don’t mind being called Bum,” Phillips once remarked, “just as long as you don’t put a ‘you’ in front of it.”
Phillips played football at Lamar College (now Lamar University) in
Beaumont, Tex., served in the Marines during World War II, then played
for Stephen F. Austin State College (now Stephen F. Austin State
University) in Nacogdoches, Tex. He graduated in 1949, then coached
football at Texas high schools.
“‘If you grow up in Texas,” Wade Phillips once recalled, “and your dad
is a head coach at the high school, and really successful, he’s the big
man in town. You’d go to the barber shop or wherever, and: ‘Ol’ Bum’s a
great guy, boy. We all love him.’”
Phillips coached as an assistant at colleges in the Southwest, including
a stint under Bear Bryant at Texas A & M, and he was head coach at
Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) in 1962.
He was hired as a defensive assistant with the San Diego Chargers in
1967 when Gillman was their head coach, and became Gillman’s defensive
coordinator with the Oilers in 1974.
When Phillips succeeded Gillman as head coach and general manager a year
later, his 3-4 defense — three down linemen and four linebackers —
proved effective against the run as well as the pass. Wade Phillips
became his assistant in charge of the defensive line and linebackers.
Phillips was popular with his players, keeping them fresh by shunning
overly long practices and encouraging camaraderie. He had a record of
55-35 with the Oilers, who became the Tennessee Titans in 1997, and he
was 27-42 with the Saints. He was later a TV and radio analyst for the
Oilers and owned a ranch in south Texas near Goliad.
He is survived by his wife, Debbie, whom he married in 1990, and six
children from a previous marriage. His only son, Wade, is the defensive
coordinator for the Houston Texans and a former head coach of the Dallas
Cowboys, the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills. His other survivors
include five daughters and nearly two dozen grandchildren.
Phillips could be generous with praise for a fellow coach. Perhaps his
best-remembered line came when he saluted Bear Bryant or Don Shula —
perhaps both — depending on the version cited.
“He can take his’n and beat your’n,” Phillips said. “Or he can take your’n and beat his’n.”
