A column by JOHN ANDERSON
It’s 10 a.m. on a cold March morning. You’ve been up since 5 a.m. and on the road to a high school with a large gym, an auxiliary gym and a gym that used to be the high school gym but is now an auditorium. However, it has two baskets and is good enough to play a consolation AAU basketball game.
Your game ends and you gather up heavy Owala water bottles and head to the next court. Next to you, another parent with a 5 o’clock shadow is doing the same. He has a styrofoam coffee cup that was delicious warm coffee at 7 a.m. but now, it’s quarter-full with lukewarm coffee that he’s going to drink to stay awake during a long day of games.
That man is Sean McDermott.
Quick, without lying, how many times in the last eight years did you say in frustration, ‘We need to make a coaching change?’
Admit it, you said it, but it was in anger over a moment and maybe you didn’t mean it. After all, come Monday morning you realized ‘this is not the Buffalo Bills of a 17-year playoff drought and things could be worse.’
During the last week, you’ve been in shock over the firing of Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott. Over the last week you’ve made comments on Facebook or social media, you’ve shared posts, you’ve read stories and watched reels. You’ve talked about the mistake while you’re at work, the supermarket and at your dinner table.
Why?
You realized your connection to the Buffalo Bills was somebody who is one of us. Most of the winning coaches are not the type you would have a conversation with. There was nothing warm and fuzzy about Bill Belichick, Bobby Knight, Bill Parcells and Mike Ditka. The list goes on. Sean McDermott was one of those rare coaches who had a personality, who listened to players, who changed the culture.
And not only did he make Buffalo his home, he became part of the community. Sean was the head coach of arguably the most popular NFL team with the best quarterback. Yet he was never too busy to attend travel softball games or travel baseball games, AAU basketball or seven-on-seven youth football tournaments.
He was one of us.
He went to the same concession stand as you. He shopped at your supermarket. He went to all of the incredible suburbs in a two-hours radius that make up one of the greatest professional sports cities in America. He was approachable. He talked to you and listened when you told him where you were from and who your kids were.
He drove a truck like you drove. At these tournaments when most parents are checking their phones during the breaks between games, your kids were coming up to him to say hi, get a fist bump and pose for a photo. The rest of the day, you nodded at him. You didn’t need a fist bump. You were now friends. You could say you knew the coach of the Buffalo Bills.
Micah Hyde has a charity softball game each year and Sean didn’t play, but he showed up to support his players, the cause and catch up with them outside of One BIlls Drive. I’ve never had a sit-down interview with Sean, just asked a handful of questions during press conferences in a cold, concrete-walled room. But at the softball game during a break, I had a chance to talk to him about being America’s Dad on America’s Team (sorry Dallas Cowboys).
He talked about the respect people had for him in the public and while they would say hi, they also respected his privacy. Everyone let him feel like one of them. Sean’s kids were on teams with the same kind of uniforms and equipment. They won some and they lost some. If you don’t think this is a big deal, you haven’t been around tournaments where elite coaches or players have kids playing.
We talked about our kids, their lives, the grind of off-season workouts for the kids. The best part of the conversation for me was to tell him what everyone else felt when they saw him around, “You are one of us and the fan base appreciates it.”
The media is a cynical bunch. It is what it is. Traditional media was raised to work and perform at a higher ethical standard than current influencers, bloggers and of course, the “shock jocks” on television.
Sean knew this, but it didn’t stop him from getting to know everyone who covered the team. After the Bills’ playoff loss to Denver, he called Buffalo News sports reporter Jay Skurski and vented — on the record. He caught a lot of flack by doing this from the national media.
But the Buffalo Bills and living here just hits different. Calling a reporter is something people do. After covering a game, I would have coaches talk to me for quite a while about the game, or the difficulties. I get calls from people moments after a loved one died because they want me to know it happened and there will be an obituary coming. Death hits us in ways we don’t expect and don’t know how to react. It’s “just sports,” but if you are a fan of the Buffalo Bills, there is no way you can say the Denver game did not mess with your emotions like no other game you’ve watched.
And maybe it was because you knew once again, this was the year. When the game ended, it was emotional for the players and coaches.
Is this the best time for Sean and his wife Jamie, to take kids out of a school and make a move? No. But like a military parent or an industry executive, moves happen every few years. It’s time for Sean McDermott to work his magic at another franchise and build up the incredible feeling of having a chance to win a Super Bowl that only a few teams each year feel.
Many of you have flooded Facebook with photos of Sean and your kids, or with you. Businesses from ice cream stands to restaurants are posting photos of him visiting. Again, these are not just businesses in Orchard Park or Erie County, it’s all over.
In a few years, you will see Sean McDermott again. Maybe a summer ball game, maybe a restaurant, the airport or a local market. You will nod, he will nod back. The person you are with will say, ‘How do you know Sean McDermott?’ You will simply answer, ‘He is one of us.”
(John Anderson has covered the Buffalo Bills since 1992 and us a two-time national columnist of the year. You can reach him at john@johnandersonmedia.com)
