Marv Levy and Elijah Pitts were walking out of the tunnel for a Bills home game back in the day when Levy asked him the question we've all come to know so well:
"Where else would you rather be than right here, right now?"
Pitts quickly answered: "Back home in bed with a win." And the memory makes Levy laugh to this day.
Today and Thursday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will honor Pitts as one of the recipients of its annual Awards of Excellence. (The awards go to those who have made significant contributions to the game as assistant coaches, like Pitts, or behind the scenes as athletics trainers, equipment managers, video directors and public relations execs.)
"It is so well deserved," Levy says. "Elijah was a great man, great coach, smart and highly principled."
Pitts died in 1998 from stomach cancer, at age 60. Ron Pitts, his older son, says the clan will gather in Canton, Ohio, for today's reception and Thursday's luncheon for the honorees. Among those expected are Elijah's wife, Ruth; their children, Ron, Anthony and Kimberly; and Ron's wife, Babette Perry, and their sons, Lee and Shea.
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The Pitts Family
Ron and Babette with sons Lee, center, and Shea, right. Provided photo
"It'll be like a family reunion for us," says Ron, who remembers his father for his deep humility. "He wasn't one to talk about himself. He could carry on a long conversation with you and never mention anything about himself and then walk away knowing everything about you. He was one of those guys.”
Elijah Pitts did have quite a story to tell: Born the son of a sharecropper in Mayflower, Ark., in 1938. Played football at a segregated high school – and tuba with the band at halftime. Played football at Philander Smith University, a historically Black university in Little Rock. Drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the 13th round in 1961. Ran for two touchdowns in the first Super Bowl.
"He played on all five of Vince Lombardi's championship teams with the Packers," Ron says, "including the first two Super Bowls, before they were even called that."
1967: Green Bay Packers open Super Bowl series by defeating Kansas City Chiefs (copy)
Elijah Pitts (22) charges into the end zone, eluding Bobby Hunt (20), during the first Super Bowl in Los Angeles, Jan. 16, 1967. The Packers beat the Chiefs, 35-10. Associated Press file photo
Today's honor is for Pitts' stellar career as an assistant coach. He began it as a running backs coach under Chuck Knox with the Los Angeles Rams, then came to Buffalo in 1978, when Knox was hired as coach of the Bills.
Pitts left Buffalo after the 1980 season and coached running backs for the NFL's Houston Oilers and CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He came back to Buffalo in 1985 to coach under Kay Stephenson and Hank Bullough, both briefly, and then for a long stretch under Levy, who elevated him to assistant head coach. He served as interim head coach for three games in 1995 when Levy underwent surgery for prostate cancer.
"I remember Elijah with high regard," Levy says. "When I had a serious operation ... our players were jubilant with the idea that while I was gone for a couple of weeks, Elijah would take over."
When Pitts brought his family to Buffalo from California in 1978, Ron enrolled at Orchard Park High School, where he would be the first Western New York football player ever chosen as a Parade All-American. He was highly recruited by colleges and told the Courier-Express at the time, "I'd sort of like to play someplace warm."
Sure enough, he picked UCLA. Then the Bills selected him in the seventh round of the 1985 draft – the draft that brought the Bills Bruce Smith, Frank Reich and Andre Reed. Ron joined the Bills as a defensive back in the same year that his father came back to the Bills for his second tour of duty. Ron returned a punt for a 49-yard TD in 1986 and intercepted three passes in 1987 before moving on to the Packers.
Lee Pitts, the older son of Ron and Babette, played defensive back for Arizona and now works for the NFL front office as a player personnel associate. This year's draft was held in Green Bay, where his father and grandfather had played.
"It was like a homecoming for him, almost like a third-generation Packer," Babette says. "It was very sweet."
Shea, the younger son, played linebacker at UCLA, where he wore his father's No. 47; now he is an assistant coach there. As a player, he had sacks at the Los Angeles Coliseum, as his father had before him. It's also where his grandfather scored twice in that first Super Bowl.
"The Coliseum," Ron likes to say, "has been very good to us."
He spent many years as an analyst for NFL games on Fox Sports. That got him to Buffalo often. And now he is off to Canton to see the Hall of Fame recognize his father's career as a running backs coach for Hall of Fame backs such as Earl Campbell of the Oilers and Thurman Thomas of the Bills.
"It is a great honor," Ron says. "He traveled a long road, being a country boy from Arkansas and growing up through the '50s and '60s – when Blacks weren't getting a lot of opportunities – and taking all of that to what he accomplished as a player and as a coach. This is quite a fitting moment."
That's why the clan will gather for what amounts to a Pitts family reunion in Canton.
Where else would they rather be?
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