‘Luv Ya, Bum!’ takes viewers on nostalgic trip spotlighting legendary Houston Oilers coach

Bum Phillips did not necessarily look like your stereotypical football coach. He wore a ten-gallon cowboy hat over his crewcut hair.

He didn’t act like your stereotypical coach, either. He dared to smile a lot and make friends with his players. Ask most of them, even players from rival teams, and they’ll say there’s no one else they’d rather play for.

That’s just what the team behind the new documentary “Luv Ya, Bum!” did. They spoke to generations of football players and coaches, and dug through archival tape to paint a picture of the man who turned the Houston Oilers from a losing team into Super Bowl contenders from 1975 to 1980.

Sam Wainwright Douglas, co-director of the film, and Executive Producer Vance Howard joined the Standard to share more. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: Sam, it seems like you didn’t have any trouble getting big-name former players and coaches to talk with you. I think I counted like 47 interviewees, including Terry Bradshaw and Earl Campbell and Peyton Manning.

Were people eager to collaborate with you on this?

Sam Wainwright Douglas: I believe so, because Bum’s reputation, almost 50 years later, is still absolutely intact and kind of sewn into the fabric of the NFL. People just thought he was a magical, friendly person.

He’d coached in a way that was not popular and still may not be popular. He got a lot of criticism for the way he coached. People thought he was too soft on folks, but the players really, really loved him and really, really worked hard for him. And you could see the success they had with that.

So I think everybody likes to swap stories and reminisce. So they were psyched about it.

Vance, I guess I want to back up a little and ask you more about why you guys wanted to tell this story in the first place. I guess, for one, because he wasn’t just popular with players, but fans as well.

Vance Howard: Well, he was a very interesting character. He’s a Texas character. You know, he had a big heart and he had a big personality.

He coached in a way that was more encouraging, not discouraging. And he did in such a way that made people want to play for him, want to play hard for him.

I think that the fans liked him too, because he was always very humorous and people enjoyed his humor and enjoyed his personality and enjoyed his positivity.

You mentioned he’s a Texas character and I wanted to ask about that. He’s forever linked with Houston, but he coached all over, primarily in Texas. Besides his look, how much is he just inextricably Texan?

Vance Howard: Well, I would say he’s about 100% Texan, because when he went to New Orleans – he coached for a couple of years – and, I mean, he left early. I think he left because he didn’t enjoy it.

He wanted to be back in Texas. He loved his ranch. He loved being a rancher, and I think that was one of his big passions. And that’s one reason he wanted to come back to Texas. So he wasn’t out of Texas very long.

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I mean, from Amarillo to East Texas, where he was from. He just he was all over the state.

Sam Wainwright Douglas: Yeah, he was all over the map.

He had great success in college. You know, he worked with the great Bear Bryant, who won all those national championships for Alabama. And he taught high schools and he taught colleges and got into the NFL.

And he was highly sought after before even joining the Oilers. He was well known as a Texas high school football coach who really knew what he was doing, and people looked to him for techniques and things.

Well, that’s exactly where I wanted to go next because he never won a Super Bowl – the ultimate prize. But he did change the game forever, beyond this charm that we’ve talked about.

Sam, do you want to talk about his defense, in particular, and the way that it’s still used today?

Sam Wainwright Douglas: Yes. He has defensive techniques that he came up with, most commonly referred to as the “numbers technique,” and it’s still alive and well used in the NFL today.

He created that when he was a high school coach, and everywhere he went, people absorbed him. And it’s just spread all over the country.

Well, we’ve touched on this too, and not everybody was into the idea that you treat your players like family – like they become your friends. But you know, he did provide this blueprint. Many have tossed it aside, but his family seems to have really latched on to that. And that was a really nice part of this film.

I don’t know, Vance, do you want to talk about how his son and his grandson kind of carry on this Bum Phillips legacy?

Vance Howard: Oh, I think that’s incredibly interesting because Wade Phillips, you know, has been the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys and the head coach of the Houston Texans… The list goes on and on and on. And he got a Super Bowl ring with the Denver Broncos.

And then Wes, his son, is also carrying on the tradition. He’s the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings. But he also has a Super Bowl ring with Los Angeles.

So they’ve been very successful in their own right. They’ve been great coaches. And I think they sort of carried over that tradition – the Phillips tradition – of coaching in a way that is encouraging and inspirational without being berating.

Vance, what do you hope that audiences take away from this film?

Vance Howard: Well, I think Sam did a fantastic job in directing this film because he brings you back into the late ’70s, early ’80s in Houston, Texas, which that gets that nostalgia going. It’s just incredibly fun to see.

He brought back the rivalry between the Houston Oilers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. That’s incredibly fun on how he directed that.

Sam Wainwright Douglas: It is fun. It’s a lot of fun. The Steelers and the Oilers have this incredible rivalry throughout the ’70s, and they both played against each other really hard and really aggressive.

But they really respected each other, they didn’t play dirty. And a lot of Steelers are in the film. Terry Bradshaw is in the film. “Mean” Joe Greene’s in the film. So they have a bond.

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Yeah, I mean, I have to say, Terry Bradshaw, really one of the people who spoke most highly of Bum Phillips and never played a game for him. In fact, played against him.

Sam Wainwright Douglas: That’s right, that’s right. He always said he would have loved to have been coached by Bum Phillips. He feels like Bum would have gotten the best out of him, would have treated him the way he wanted to be treated.

Even he even says in the movie, at some point, “Bum Phillips said a lot of nice things about me. Much nicer things than my coach said about me.”

Well, you both have got to be so proud to premiere this film at South by Southwest. I wonder, are you excited to when other Texans, especially people from Houston, will get to see this?

Sam Wainwright Douglas: Oh, absolutely. We’re going to bring back “Luv Ya Blue” when this movie starts playing in Houston. People are going to really enjoy it.

It’s such a trip and it’s going to take people back to when Houston was this boomtown, and it was sort of at the cultural zeitgeist in the country. They all had their eyes on Houston.

Yeah, they’re gonna dig it. I can’t wait to show it in Houston.

Vance. Anything else you’d add?

Vance Howard: Well, I think one of the great inspirational parts of this and what Sam did a wonderful job with, is you look at Bum Phillips, Wade Phillips and Wes Phillips. And a lot of times when you do a documentary, there’s something sort of negative out there. There was nothing negative on this family. They were incredibly wonderful, wonderful people.

You know, Bum Phillips was such an inspiration to a lot of young men, and he really, really encouraged them to be successful, work hard, do the right thing when nobody was looking. You know, that’s sort of a lost habit which we need more of. And I think Sam did a very good job of telling the story of Bum.

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