Like so many who knew him, I was saddened to hear that my friend Sam Wyche, or Coach Wyche to everybody in the NFL, especially Cincinnati, succumbed to liver cancer at home with his beloved wife Jane yesterday.
In a recent interview, Sam who had a heart transplant in 2016 and had been diagnosed with cancer of the liver last year said, " I'm doing what I want to do, cycling and going to chemo 5 days a week. Either I'm going to beat this cancer or it's going to wear me out"
As a producer you look for interesting guests who are timely, interesting or informative, and when I met Sam in 2002 he was all three. His lovely wife Jane with her extraordinary southern drawl answered my first phone call and said " he's at practice, call back later"
I thought I had a scoop, Sam who'd last coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1995 was coaching again?!!
" Naw Bryan, he's coachin' the Flame, you know the Pickens Blue Flame!"
That began our friendship, his self deprecating sense of humour about life in Pickens SC led to interviews with us on the "Fan590" morning show from his tractor in the annual Pickens parade, his classroom as a supply teacher, at the hotcakes special breakfast in the General Store, and once with the gas station attendant in Oneida South Dakota where he was visiting his daughter Kerry.
After a distinguished football career as a player and coach his broadcast career ended with a botched operation on lymph nodes which severed his vocal chord, but he settled happily in Pickens with Jane and her horses, and soon were running the Pickens "meals on wheels" program.
He was picked up as QB coach by the Bills in 2004, and helped me enormously as I could call him in his hotel at 6am as he prepared for his days of film and practice with the team. He gave me introductions to players, what info he could on the team, and contacts throughout the NFL, all of whom ended up on the air.
He got lonely at night for home and Jane during his 2 years in Buffalo and we spoke a lot about life during many of those evenings, including his brother Bubba's tenure as a QB with Saskatchewan.
He was a very caring guy by nature, was a giver rather than a taker, and for all his fame had his feet firmly on the ground. He once signed off by saying after his heart transplant. " Heck Bry I didn't think we'd be talking again after my heart gave out, now I've got a new one so don't be a stranger"
I'll be calling Jane soon I know she will be devastated, but I also know Sam will have done everything to prepare her and the family for the inevitable. He was that kind of guy.
RIP my friend.
Bryan Angus
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