As coaches go, as people go, Dick Coury was a gem
The late Dick Coury and Steve Coury
EDITOR”S NOTE: Steve Brandon was the sports editor at the Portland Tribune for nearly 20 years until retiring (at least temporarily) in April. Before that, he worked at the Oregon Journal and Oregonian for almost 25 years. For the last 10 years, he was the guy on the Trail Blazers beat for the “O.” He is an outstanding writer who has covered a wide variety of subjects in his long sports writing career. I’m pleased to introduce him as a special contributor to my website with this piece on the late Dick Coury …
By Steve Brandon
I saw a local car dealer’s “Believe in Nice” ad today.
It made me think of a man whose life embodied that approach.
To Dick Coury, “nice” was more than a slogan. It was his way of life. Sunup to sundown.
“Nicest football coach in America,” wrote Russ Blunck on Facebook a few days ago, after Coury’s death on Aug. 15 at age 90 at his home in San Diego.
Coury earned that unofficial title during an accomplished career in which he led Mater Dei High to numerous crowns in California, served as John McKay’s defensive coordinator on the 1967 national championship USC Trojans, spent 30 years as an NFL assistant coach and did so much more — a lot of it behind the scenes.
Oh, and he had two stints in Portland as a head coach — with the 1974 Portland Storm of the World Football League and the 1985 Portland Breakers of the United States Football League.
Coury also was the first head coach in Cal State Fullerton history, and he toiled from 1957 through 1998 after graduating from Notre Dame. His swan song, so to speak, came when he took an assistant role for son Steve, the 28-year head coach of the highly successful Lake Oswego High football program.
I first met Dick Coury in 1974, the Storm year, and got to know him much better as beat writer for The Oregonian during that sometimes wild but thoroughly entertaining Breakers season.
The above-mentioned Blunck was assistant director of public relations, and another relative youngster, John Brunelle, was the head of Breakers’ PR.
Dick Coury left an unforgettable impression on Brunelle as well. I called John this week to reminisce about the coach who helped make that season so interesting and fun despite all the obstacles and odds as the USFL self-destructed in its haste to challenge the NFL.
“You’d do anything for Coach Coury,” said Brunelle, who was less than two years removed from graduation at Pacific University when he got the Breakers’ gig and now is executive director of Capital City Development Corp. in Boise, Idaho.
Coury seemingly would do anything for others, too.
“Early in the Breakers’ season, he had a barbecue at his house for the team,” Brunelle recalled. “My fiance (JoJo) and I had moved back our wedding from June to August to make it after the season. Coach heard that and set us up with a hotel room for our honeymoon.
“That’s just the kind of guy he was. He made you feel so appreciated.”
When things went well, Coury never wanted the credit. “He wanted to include everyone,” Brunelle said.
But when things were going sideways? He’d take the blame. “Coach had broad shoulders,” Brunelle said.
Coury seemed all but unflappable. He could get frustrated, but he didn’t like to show it, and he tried his darndest not to take it out on anyone else.
“I got lost trying to drive him to a big TV interview in Portland, and he just laughed it off,” Brunelle said.
Somehow, Coury managed to guide a Breakers team as it went from Boston to New Orleans to Portland in consecutive years, never getting the chance to settle and develop. He got a different group of castoffs and wannabes and the odd NFL transplant to bond as a team each year as it went from being laden with New England-area players to adding a chunk of guys from the South to having the third-year mix of West Coast talent.
The ’83 Boston team had the most on-the-field success, going 11-7 and missing the playoffs by one point. Injuries and lack of funding to match Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals, for one, handicapped the Breakers after that.
The ’85 Portland Breakers would have been a lot better than 6-12 had fabled running back Marcus Dupree not torn up his knee in the opener.
“Dad loved Portland,” Steve Coury said. “Those years here were among his most favorite.”
While on the Breakers’ beat, I’d interview Dick Coury on an almost-daily basis, but much of the time he really wanted none of that. While he’d give me whatever I needed (if I insisted), it was usually, “Go talk to Coach Ketella (Pete, the offensive coordinator).” Or, “Go give the space in your paper to Coach Allen.” (Pokey, the defensive coordinator who went on to become a legend at Portland State and Boise State). Or another assistant coach.
Or he would want his players to get the ink. He was a players’ coach, and he cared greatly for the players and his coaching staff. A 1971 plane crash that killed three of his assistant coaches at Cal State Fullerton no doubt contributed to that, but I suspect he was always so considerate and compassionate. Heck, he cared about everyone in the organization, and for people in general.
No one knows all of this better than Steve Coury, the former Oregon State receiving star who was receivers coach for the Breakers for all three years.
“My dad was always big on the ‘small’ people,” Steve said. “He’d thank the bus driver and the custodians who cleaned the locker room.”
Dick didn’t do this just in passing or on autopilot, either, but almost profusely, I might add, often taking the time to find out a little bit about them and their families. (Family was the biggest thing in the world to Dick Coury).
As Steve put it: “He made them feel like a million bucks. He truly loved those people and appreciated them. He used to tell us, ‘Without them, how are we going to get to the game? What is the locker room going to look like?’ ”
While times were different in 1985 for media and media access in major sports, so was Coury. He made sure I could reach him, day or night, win or lose.
“He always made himself available to the press. That was his nature,” Brunelle said.
And, instead of getting to watch only the calisthenics or the Breakers’ practices from up in the stands, he’d invite me onto the field and to stand close to him so I could get a better idea of what the team was doing and what he was trying to impart. He’d even let me watch some film with him to gain a better understanding of things.
And then there was the most important meal of the day — breakfast.
“He loved his Denny’s,” Steve Coury said with a chuckle.
For years after the demise of the Breakers and USFL, Dick would call me when he was back in town and invite me to meet him for a morning meal.
Our conversations would wind up being more about me than him. “How are things at the paper? How is the family? Is there anything I can do for you?”
He would similarly chat up the waitress, the cashier … whoever came across our path of eggs and coffee. After a refill and when we were alone again, he’d lean in and tell me, ‘You know, that waitress really goes a good job. It can’t be easy. She really gives us good service.’ ” And so on, and so forth.
I’m not surprised to learn that Dick did this kind of thing to the final days of his life.
“The impact he had was incredible,” Steve said. “We had him at a rehab place before he went home the final time, and the people there were so in love with him that when it came time for him to go, they all lined up in the hallways and clapped because they wanted to say goodbye to him.”
Getting to work with Steve (one of his seven children, including five boys) at Lake Oswego brought Dick Coury full circle, back to his still-remembered run (1957-65) at Mater Dei in Santa Ana, Calif.
“Some of his happiest times were at Mater Dei,” said Steve, who was all-state at Lakeridge High back in the day. “He always stressed to me what an influential time those years are for kids.”
Sadly, dementia robbed Dick of many of those memories in his final years.
“It was a slow decline, but thankfully he still knew us in the family,” Steve said. “Those last few years, he didn’t have many memories of going to the Super Bowl (as receivers coach) with the (1980 Philadelphia) Eagles, or many memories of the Breakers.”
Then-Eagles coach Dick Vermeil is among the hundreds who have texted or called Steve since his father’s death.
“Once you work with Dick Coury, you never forget him,” Vermeil told philadelphiaeagles.com’s Chris McPherson. “He had a natural compassion for kids. I don’t think I’ve ever been with a coach that could coach so well with almost never raising his voice.
“He was just so even-tempered … always calm, always very respectful of every player from the first-string guy to the fourth guy he was going to have to cut. … He made a tremendous contribution to my coaching career and to everybody that he coached.”
Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver Harold Carmichael told the Eagles that Coury, a devout Catholic, “didn’t scream. He didn’t holler. I don’t think I remember him even ever cursing, but he commanded respect. He helped us out with doing what we had to do and just making sure that we stayed on the right path. I had so much respect for Coach Coury.”
While football was always in the conversation, faith, family and I’d say especially wife Bonnie were the biggest things in Dick’s life. I’m not sure I can remember one day spent with “Coach” in which he didn’t talk about Bonnie and what she was doing or what she meant to him and the children (and later the 15 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren).
They were married nearly 67 years.
“He loved my mom,” Steve said. “I’m proud to be his son.”
Readers: what are your favorite memories about Dick Coury? Did you attend Portland Storm or Portland Breakers games? Share your comments below.
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