Dan Reeves, former Giants head coach, dies at age 77

On paper, Dan Reeves was a miscast character on the New York sports scene — a guy who grew up in Georgia, played football in South Carolina and Texas, and had the drawl to match.

Then he became famous as a coach in Denver, far off the NFC East radar.

So when Reeves arrived as the Giants’ head coach in 1993 — as general manager George Young’s third choice for the job after Tom Coughlin and Dave Wannstedt — some feared it would be an ill-fated mismatch.

There was some of that, eventually, but for one memorable season, Reeves fashioned a playoff run that might have gone on longer if not for a bitter loss in a regular season-ending showdown against Reeves’ old team.

Tasked with restoring order after the chaotic reign of Ray Handley, Reeves and aging stars Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms — both in their final NFL seasons — went 11-5 and advanced to the divisional round.

Reeves was named NFL Coach of the Year for his work, an award he would win again in 1998 with the Falcons.

Reeves, who died of complications from dementia on Saturday at age 77, according to his family, will be better recalled nationally for coaching teams to Super Bowls with Denver and Atlanta, but his four seasons with the Giants were an important part of his football story.

"Dan Reeves had a legendary NFL career as both a player and a coach," Giants co-owner John Mara said. "He made an indelible mark on the league and all of the people he played with, coached and worked alongside. He was one of the finest men I have ever been around in this business. Our deepest condolences to [wife] Pam and the entire Reeves family."

Dan and Pam Reeves embraced the New York-area lifestyle and culture. He even seemed to enjoy the give-and-take with the area’s sports media, for whom he was known for his accessibility and blunt honesty.

In mid-December of 1998, Reeves underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery. A month later, he coached the Falcons to an upset of the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game.

Two weeks after that, he lost the Super Bowl to the Broncos.

The morning after the game, several New York reporters met with him for an exit interview. One jokingly asked him to show off his heart surgery scar. So he did, unbuttoning his shirt in the middle of the Falcons’ hotel lobby.

That was Reeves, a man’s man from a more brutish era of football who had a sense of humor about himself and the game.

The loss to his old team — and his old sparring partner, John Elway — in Super Bowl XXXIII would be the last of the nine Super Bowls in which Reeves participated as a player, assistant coach or head coach. He won two.

Reeves was born on Jan. 19, 1944, in Rome, Georgia, and starred as a quarterback at Americus (Georgia) High School and later at the University of South Carolina. But he went undrafted by the NFL in 1965.

He made the Cowboys’ roster mostly as a special teams player, but coach Tom Landry began using him as a running back in 1966, and he finished with career yardage highs in rushing (757) and receiving (557).

In 1967, he had 603 rushing yards and 490 receiving in a season that famously ended with a loss to the Packers on Dec. 31 in the "Ice Bowl" NFL Championship Game.

In a football life full of stories, no day led to more stories than that one for Reeves.

Injuries hampered him for the rest of his career, which ended after eight seasons.

He had 1,990 yards and 25 touchdowns rushing, 1,693 yards and 17 TDs receiving and 370 yards and two TDs passing.

After serving as an assistant under Landry, Reeves was hired as the Broncos’ head coach at age 37. He spent 12 seasons there, going 110-73-1 and thrice losing in the Super Bowl behind Elway, the quarterback with whom he sometimes was at odds.

When the Broncos let him go, he landed in New Jersey to revive the Giants.

Reeves joked at the time that he did not mind being the Giants’ third choice because "I was my mother’s third choice [after two older siblings], and I don’t feel like I was any less loved."

The Giants were 11-4 entering the regular-season finale on Jan. 2, 1994, but lost the division title to the Cowboys, 16-13, in overtime at Giants Stadium.

The Giants beat the Vikings in the wild-card round but were crushed by the 49ers, 44-3, in the divisional round.

Reeves and Young decided to move on from Simms after that season, and before long, Reeves was publicly expressing concerns about the GM’s stewardship of the roster and salary cap.

The Giants went 9-7 in 1994, then 5-11 and 6-10, and Reeves was done. In four seasons with the Giants, he went 31-33 in the regular season and 1-1 in the postseason. He was succeeded by Jim Fassel, who died last June.

Reeves enjoyed a final football act with the Falcons, highlighted by the 14-2 team of 1998 and that last shot at a Super Bowl victory as a head coach.

He finished 190-165-2 in the regular season and 11-9 in the playoffs. Those 190 wins ranks him 10th in NFL history.

Reeves always will be remembered for his sharp wit and homey delivery.

He was at his stem-winding best two days after the Giants ended a seven-game losing streak by defeating the Oilers in Houston on a Monday night in 1994, the first of six consecutive victories to end that season.

For nearly 30 minutes, Reeves regaled reporters by recounting the team bus getting stuck in traffic on the way to the airport and Reeves and three assistants deciding to walk a mile to get food at a nearby McDonald’s.

While they were gone, the traffic eased and the bus left Reeves behind, holding 10 hamburgers.

It was a master class in storytelling, and when it was over, Reeves smiled and noted that winning sure beats losing.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.