Tom Coughlin turns 68 Sunday. Marv Levy, the Hall of Fame Bills coach, retired in 1997, when he was 72.
“My advice is do what you feel like doing most,” Levy told The Post by telephone. “I can understand after so many years of coaching sometimes, somebody might say, ‘Golly, I’d like to be free to go on a trip to Europe, I’d like to be free to do things with grandchildren’Â and so on, I can understand that happening. I just think he’s gotta do what appeals, do what appeals.”
What appeals to Coughlin is coaching the Giants.
“I don’t think there’s limitations, it depends on how well you take care of yourself and how fired up you are,” Levy said, and chuckled as he added: “Actually, I left at the age of 72, and honestly, two years later I regretted it, to tell you the truth.”
Levy was AFC Coach of the Year in 1995 at the age of 70.
“My last two years, yeah, Jim Kelly had just retired and that, but I knew that was gonna happen eventually, but I had two or three extremely devastating injuries on our team, one was a crippling injury to a linebacker,” Levy recalled. “I could see that the personnel situation was a little such that it would be a few years’ worth of build back to being a Super Bowl contender type.
“[Owner] Ralph Wilson tried to talk me out of it a couple of times, but I said, ‘No, it’s time.’ But as I say, a couple of years later, I was a little bit regretful that I had.
“I think chronological age is only an approximate indication of your functional age. For some people, it happens sooner than others.”
Levy was never bothered by the age-old criticisms that would crop up from time to time.
“I was with a great organization, and what I know about the Giants, I have high regard for the Mara family, too,” Levy said. “I realize the age factor’s gonna come in every now and then if we happened to lose a game or do something, or if I had to discipline a player, maybe the thing would come up, ‘Oh, he’s lost touch with the modern generation. Maybe it’s time to turn over a new leaf,’ or some other trite statement.
“Just shake it off. When you don’t win, you’re gonna get criticized, that’s all there is to it. You let it go, I guess. Coach for 47 years, when you lost, there was always a reason it was your fault. When you get to be a little older, it’s gonna be age.
“And honestly, I don’t know if the most allowable type of discrimination that still prevails today is age discrimination.”
Levy did radio and television and wrote books when he left the sidelines. He didn’t go to Bills games.
“You miss game day,” Levy said. “Everybody thinks that coaching is game day — 90 percent of your time is in a 10-by-13 film room. Maybe not 90 percent, but a large percent. You miss game day very much, you miss going out there, you miss the competition, you miss the association. But maybe the first year, you think it deeper and say, ‘Oh boy, I can relax a little bit.’ ”
Levy was asked if he is rooting for Coughlin to break the record he shares with Bears legend George Halas, who also retired at 72.
“Whatever fits for him, I’m not rooting for him, I’m not rooting against him,” Levy said.
Coughlin doesn’t think he’s 68 just like Levy didn’t think he was 68 when he was 68.
“We joke about it, when I was interviewed for the Bills job, I lied about my age — I was 62 at the time, I told ’em I was 59,” Levy said. “I thought that 60 number would throw up a warning signal or something.”
Coughlin, like Levy, could adapt to a younger generation.
“I coached for 47 years, and there were tremendous changes over that period of time,” Levy said. “There’s something I used to tell our coaches: ‘If you don’t change with the times, the times are gonna change you.’ Everything evolves. Medicine evolves, technology involves, journalism evolves.
“The culture that every coach experiences is different than what it was back when he was a player. The culture is different, and he better accommodate to it.”
Coughlin, like Levy, has been able to defy the odds by maintaining healthy lifestyle.
“I was fortunate in terms of good health, and I did a lot to maintain it,” Levy said. “I exercised well, I ate right, I wasn’t on drugs, I didn’t smoke. If I used alcohol, it was maybe one drink if I was out for dinner, and maybe it wasn’t every day of the week even. Good lifestyle, tremendous enthusiasm for what I was doing, and I was fortunate enough and I hope I was instrumental in being surrounded by good people. I told Mr. Wilson: ‘It isn’t a great coach that wins, it’s a coaching staff.’ And I was fortunate enough to work with an owner like Ralph, and even Lamar [Hunt], who at one time fired me. I was very fortunate.”
Levy, who turned 89 on Aug. 3, has known Coughlin for a long time, though he doesn’t know him well. Asked if he had a message for Coughlin, Levy said: “Good luck during the season … unless you play the Bills.”