Peyton Manning making sure world knows about Buddy Teevens

Media

By Chad Finn, The Boston Globe

January 26, 2025

4 minutes to read

Maybe you knew Buddy Teevens.

After all, during the Pembroke native’s four decades as a college football coach — including two stints at Dartmouth, the second lasting from 2005-22 — he became a beloved and respected figure in New England sports circles not just for his coaching acumen, but his uncommonly caring and inclusive approach.

If you weren’t lucky enough to know him, a new documentary about Teevens — who died in September 2023, six months after suffering severe injuries when a truck crashed into the bicycle he was riding in Florida — is certain to make you wish you had.

The hour-long film, titled “The Buddy Way,’’ directed by Rory Karpf, debuts Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 5 p.m. on ESPN2. A slightly longer version will be available to stream on ESPN+. The film captures the profound influence Teevens had on the people in his orbit, as well as on the sport as a whole.

He was the first in college football to hire a female assistant coach, and invented the remote-controlled Mobile Virtual Player (MVP) tackling aide when he became convinced that tackling in practice was having negative physical effects on players.

Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, in collaboration with members of the Dartmouth College athletic department and alumni, made the documentary happen. Manning, who has an executive producer credit on the project, knew Teevens well. The coach had been in charge of logistics at the Manning Passing Academy since its inception in 1996, and had tried to recruit Manning to Tulane University when he was leading that program.

“I remember when I chose to go to Tennessee, my dad [Archie] made me call all of the coaches that were recruiting me and tell them I’m not going to their school,’’ said Manning during a phone conversation Thursday in advance of the film’s premiere that evening in New York City.

“When you’re 17 years old, man, that’s not easy to do. Some of the other coaches tried to talk me out of it. I think one of them hung up on me. Well, my dad had such respect for Buddy that he made me drive to his office at Tulane and tell him directly. And Buddy, not only does he tell me, ‘Congratulations, great decision,’ he reassures me and tells me why Tennessee is the perfect place for me. That’s the kind of person he was. He wanted the best for everyone.”

Manning, a well-established stickler for details himself, chuckled at the remembrance of Teevens’s ability to navigate any logistical situation, whether it was lightning on the field or a shortage of coaches and counselors (a group of active college quarterbacks) brought on by a warning from Mother Nature.

“One year, I remember there was a potential weather situation in some states, so some people had to leave early and we were short on coaches,’’ said Manning. “Now, Sunday is the last day of camp, when parents come back to pick up their kids, and you want to have a really good showing at practice to make these parents feel good about sending their kids down here.”

Which might not have been the case had parents shown up only to see an ESPN reporter running quarterback drills.

“The late Chris Mortensen came every year to the camp — I think to get the scoop on the Colts and Giants from me and Eli [Manning],’’ said Manning. “But next thing you know, Mort’s just kind of part of the camp.

“Well, here we are, short on coaches. So Eli is going to fill in on this field. I’m filling in here, my dad’s going to fill in here. We got one open spot and we got nobody. So Buddy, master of logistics and problem solving, sends Mort to coach the quarterbacks.

“I’m not sure about this. But Buddy, wouldn’t you know it, trains him up. He gives him three drills, and the next thing you know, Mort’s out there running a great quarterback drill. That’s a credit to Mort, but it’s really Buddy, right? That’s the kind of thing that made him special. He thrived and stayed positive and found solutions in any situation.

“That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to be a part of this project. I felt like more people needed to know about Buddy Teevens, what a special human being he was, and what he was about.”

The documentary captures everything Teevens was about, from his family life, to the impact he had on his players, to his enduring friendships. Tim Murphy, the longtime Harvard coach, was lifelong friends with Teevens.

“He was the best friend anybody could have,” says a somber Murphy.

The documentary is devastatingly sad at times, downright hilarious at others (Teevens’s rapid-fire pregame speeches were something to behold), and inspiring in the way that watching a principled person do the right thing over and over again ought to be.

Dartmouth honored Teevens with two significant events in 2024: a celebration of life held at the Hanover, N.H., campus in May, and naming of its football stadium in his honor in October. The film, said Dartmouth athletic director Mike Harrity, is another way to honor what he calls Teevens’s “ripple effect of positivity.”

“We had ongoing conversations about how you honor a man who in my opinion is one of the best educators that this campus has ever seen — his classroom just happened to be the football field,” said Harrity, who spearheaded the project and discussed the best ways to make it happen with Murry Bowden, a 1971 Dartmouth graduate and college football Hall of Famer who was longtime friends with Teevens.

“We figured that Omaha Productions would be a natural fit to pitch this idea to, given the Mannings’ relationship with Buddy,’’ he said.

Archie Manning was approached first and was enthusiastic about the idea. Karpf, who had worked previously with the family on “The Book of Manning” documentary, was an easy choice as director.

“It’s one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve had the great fortune to work on in my 25 years in college athletics, playing a small role in helping bring this to everyone,” said Harrity. “So now everybody can understand and see Buddy’s life journey.”