The Golden Age of Cerebral Coaching in Montreal lasted 947 days and, like many golden ages, it became a snapshot easily forgotten. It was unrecognized then and perhaps preserved only in the memory of a sports writer who knew all three.
Gene Mauch. Scotty Bowman. Marv Levy.
From January 25, 1973 (when Levy made it a threesome in becoming coach of the Alouettes) until October 1, 1975 (when the Expos broke it up by firing Mauch), all three Montreal teams were guided by Einstein-like tendencies. Put simply, their brains were so far ahead of their actions that you wouldn’t dare challenge them in chess or bridge.
Here’s another way of explaining their collective intelligence:
Mauch was the least successful, recognized universally as the best baseball manager never to win a pennant — he was often criticized for outthinking every other manager, including himself. Yet Hall of Fame managers like Sparky Anderson and Dick Williams considered him the guru of their profession.
He was the only of these three amigos who was fired, and he shouldn’t have been. The Little General was clever, witty and personable, and I was a baseball writer who advocated his dismissal, a piece of work I later told him was my bad.
The other two left on their own championship terms, Bowman after guiding the Canadiens to five Stanley Cups (four straight) and Levy after a crushing Grey Cup victory, his second in five seasons. Because they — like Mauch — were so cerebral, the sports IQ of anybody was elevated, and their teams all faltered after they departed.
I was in Chicago the night Bowman won his inaugural Stanley Cup, and I covered the first five of his nine as a coach (14 as an executive). Yet our most memorable interview was about minor hockey: His philosophy was that kids should just play unorganized hockey, or shinny, until they were teenagers.
Levy became worthy of Bud Grant status, winning the Grey Cup 40 per cent of his career before migrating back south and taking his NFL team to four Super Bowls (together, they were 0-8). This year, he’ll join Grant again as the only two coaches in both pro football halls of fame.
Mauch, Bowman and Levy were likely never, physically, in the same place. But for two years and 217 days they were a golden-age trilogy.
