“The Buddy Way” opens on January 29 at 5 pm et in ESPN2 and will be available to transmit on ESPN+ immediately after the debut.
You would have been lucky to meet the teevens of friends as my family did. You are fortunate if you ever find someone like that in life.
There was something in Buddy that attracted you. He listened and made you feel listened to. He was generous and genuine. Buddy cared, and somehow, you knew from the moment you met him.
That is probably what made him a great recruiter. It is definitely what made him a great person. My Dad Archie often worked on the track at the University of Tulane after her game days. One day in 1992, an energetic and kind young man approached my father to appear. He was Tulane’s new football coach, Buddy Tevens.
However, there was a problem. Buddy’s rapid speech combined with his Boston accent baffled my father born in Mississippi. He still likes to joke: “I wish he knew what the hell was saying.” It didn’t matter. Both talked about fluid football and family. It would be the beginning of a friendship for life.
At that time, he was Junior in high school and soon knew Buddy through the recruitment process. My heart was located in Tennessee, but I knew I could have played for Buddy. Anyone would be lucky to have him as a coach.
In the summer of 1993, I attended the Buddy camp in Tulane. At the end of the camp, everyone ran the 40 -yard race and their time was announced in front of the entire camp. Now, Buddy knew that my speed, or lack of it, was a sensitive issue for me. So, when it was my turn to run, he made sure to take control of the moment.
“Peyton Manning, 40 yards dash, 4.99”.
A little later, a seventh grade student took his turn in the 40s. For reasons that no one can explain, he ran while using his helmet.
“Eli Manning, 40 yards dash, 5.99”.
Maybe I was still trying to recruit myself, but I promise you that I have never run a sub-5.0 40 in my life. As for Eli? As I said, Buddy Teevens was a generous man.
Later that year, my family organized university coaches for home visits. There were all the most important names: Bobby Bowden, Phillip Fulmer and Steve Spurrier just to name a few. But do you know what I remember most? Some coaches made plays in my mother’s fine linen napkins. But friend? He was the only one who helped my mother prepare the food and make the dishes.
Buddy Teevens took care of things. Buddy Tevens took care of people. That was “the friend’s form.”
In 1996, we started the Manning Passing Academy, a field reception camp for players entering grades 8-12 and open to anyone who wants to attend. We wanted to teach the foundations. We wanted to do it in the right way.
Buddy Teevens was my father’s first phone call.
That ended up last year of Buddy in Tulane. A different man would have wished us well and avoided the suffocating heat of southern Louisiana in the summer. But even when Buddy’s training trip took him through the country, he never stopped appearing for us.
My father, my brothers Cooper and Eli and I have never lost a single minute of the camp. We appreciate to work with young field marshals, corridors, wide receptors and closed wings. We love to meet the talented university quarters, many of whom go to NFL stardom, which serve as counselors. But just as important, the camp gathers us every summer. In the midst of our busy lives, we know that every June we will have a few days together as a family.
Over the years, Buddy Teevens became much more than a friend and a colleague. It became part of our family.
As a coach, Buddy’s motto after a loss was “adjust and improvise.” He brought that same philosophy to the camp, and preached it to all those around him.
The camp can be a logistics nightmare. From only 185 campers that first year, has grown up in the last 28 years to more than 1,400 children and 150 coaches working in 25 fields. Somehow, Buddy made everything work without problems.
Lightning? No problem, we will enter everyone and teach them coverage. Flooded fields? No problem, all in the gym and we will work on screen passes and three -step drops.
Adjust and improvise. That was “the friend’s form.”
Buddy Teevens led Dartmouth to five Ivy League titles and became the most winning coach of his Alma Mater. In fact, Buddy enjoyed tremendous success in the football field. But that is just a part of his legacy. Other coaches may have won more games, but you will not find a coach who had a greater impact on sport.
Buddy was an innovative. He simply saw things differently from the rest of us. In 2010, Dartmouth was at a low point. A 0-10 season was followed by a season of two victories. Another coach would have taken it to his players. Buddy decided to protect them.
It was then that he decided to let his players face each other during practice. He even worked with the Engineering School to develop a robotic mannequin called Virtual Player Mobile.
And it worked. Dartmouth became one of the best defensive teams in the nation. But Buddy had not finished revolutionizing the game. In 2018, he called Callie Brownson, whom he had met at the Manning Passing Academy, as the first full -time female coach in the history of Di. A female coach pipe began, which have been successful at the university and professional level.
Buddy wasn’t trying to demonstrate a point. He acknowledged an unspecified training resource that could help him win football games. And it worked.
Buddy Teevens was not afraid of taking risks. He would do anything to put people around him in a position to succeed. That was “the friend’s form.”