Classic example of old school

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - So on these days that begin with a morning frost and finish with an evening chill, it is against a backdrop of leafless trees that you can soak in the smells, the sounds, the sights of a game that is at the heart of our American sports culture.

It is football.

So often brutally tough and punishingly fierce, it never has been for the weak of heart, though as far back as the days of leather helmets and the flying wedge, football has been for those who embrace what feeds its soul: teamwork.

Through the years, some never have understood, while many others have. Then there are those select few who have personified it, men so rare that 40 years later they are revered as much for their humble leadership as for their unforgettable athletic prowess. Ponder the ingredients that go into such a leader - fairness, honesty, determination, dedication, loyalty - then recite them to an artist of Rockwellian proportions as you hand him a canvas in hopes that he will produce a portrait of a role model for generations.

Chances are he would paint you a picture of Dick Jauron.

And if he did, a long line of people would put their hands together and say, "Well done."

They remember it well

Today, the football field will be Gillette Stadium, his team the Buffalo Bills, his job head coach. But if voices tell you that it seems like just yesterday that Jauron was winding down a storybook career by running, blocking, kicking, tackling, and leading in every imaginable way at Swampscott High School, be gentle with them when you break the news that it was 40 autumns ago.

"It's so hard to believe," said 81-year-old Dick Lynch, who makes it clear that he's talking about the passage of time, not the legend of Jauron, because that he can believe.

After all, Lynch lived it for those three glorious years in the late 1960s - Jauron leading Swampscott to a 7-2 record in 1966 then back-to-back 9-0 Class B-winning championships.

In basketball, Jauron tipped in a shot at the buzzer to win the 1968 Class B championship in the old Tech Tourney.

"He made us all look good as coaches," said Lynch, who was the head basketball coach and a football assistant under the late and legendary Stan Bondelevitch.

Lynch had the good fortune to play baseball and basketball alongside perhaps the greatest of Massachusetts athletes, Harry Agganis, and later he witnessed the magic of Doug Flutie, yet with unyielding respect, the man with 38 years of high school coaching experience concedes that the memories of Jauron stir warmest.

People understand why.

"That's because he personified what it means to be a student-athlete," said Bill Adams, the longtime coach and athletic director at Lynnfield High School who played alongside Jauron on two of those Swampscott teams. "Ask anyone who knew him and they'd say the same thing - they've never met anyone nicer, as genuine, as supportive a teammate."

A character out of a Hollywood script? Outsiders might think so when they hear the stories, like the one that revolves around any one of those autumn Saturdays when another Swampscott win was in the books and players rushed to "mingle with the cheerleaders and get the free hot dogs and Cokes," said Channel 5 sportscaster Mike Lynch, Dick's son and a teammate two years behind Jauron.

"But where was Dick? He was in the field house, mopping up the turf, the ankle tape, the towels. We're all outside enjoying ourselves and he's helping a guy named Vinny Estabrook clean up because he had so much respect for people."

He carried the football, gained the yards, scored the touchdowns, kicked when a kick was needed, blocked like no other, and provided defense, but what Bondelevitch fondly recalled to a reporter years later was a simple knock on his door. His captain had walked over one night to ask the coach not to cut a particular kid.

"He was probably the worst player on my team," Bondelevitch told the reporter. "But Dick said, 'Football would do more for him than anyone else on the team.' "

Frank DeFelice knows the story to be true. He also knows why Jauron made the walk that night.

"Because never at any time in his life has it been about him," said the man whose football coaching career began with those Swampscott teams and is still going strong now, with Endicott College.

He has seen a lot, but in Jauron DeFelice witnessed the best.

"Dick Jauron is the ultimate teammate, a born leader."

So when DeFelice hears the latest story, he can only chuckle. A trip to the Buffalo area to visit the Bills had carried hopes of a talk with Jauron about his iconic career at Swampscott and then Yale and how, as hard as it is to believe his senior football season in high school was 40 years ago, just as unfathomable is that this is his 32d NFL season.

With the greatest of respect, Jauron declined. He would talk all day about his team, but not at all about himself.

"That's him. He's the same person he was when we first met him," said DeFelice. "He thinks of everyone else first."

Success in the NFL

That remains true to this day, even with more than a quarter-century of service in the grizzled and competitive world of the NFL.

"You will not meet one person in the NFL, not one, who doesn't like Dick Jauron," said Perry Fewell. "I promise you that."

Thursday's practice at Ralph Wilson Stadium has just ended and Fewell, Buffalo's defensive coordinator, is among the last to leave. The game against the Patriots is a battle for at least a share of the AFC East lead, so that qualifies it as a big game. Yet Fewell certainly has time to speak about Jauron - especially when he hears that Jauron did not want to talk about Jauron.

"He walks the walk," said Fewell. "He doesn't have to talk to show that he is knowledgeable. He respects each and every person. He evaluates you as a person and then he tries to get the best out of you."

Jauron's eight-year career as an NFL safety ended in 1980 and his coaching career began with the Bills five seasons later. There were nine seasons in Green Bay, four as Jacksonville's defensive coordinator, then a five-year run as Chicago's head coach, the middle campaign (2001) the most successful. The Bears were 13-3 that season and Jauron was named Coach of the Year. Released by the Bears after 4-12 and 7-9 seasons, Jauron spent 2004-05 as an assistant in Detroit before getting a second chance as head coach, hired by the Bills in 2006.

Back-to-back 7-9 records were seen as adequate jobs given the personnel, but at 5-3, the Bills are in position to step to the forefront. Fewell nods toward the 58-year-old Jauron as the primary source of motivation.

"Players respect him, and there's nothing we all want more than to give him a chance to be Coach of the Year again," said Fewell, who came to know Jauron while they worked together on Tom Coughlin's staff in Jacksonville.

Fewell says he never saw Jauron play, but he smiles when he recalls that day in practice the head coach was caught off guard.

"He was backpedaling on the field one day, just running down as we were going into another drill and I looked," said the coach. "He looked so good doing it, I said, 'Wow, look at that,' and he kind of caught himself because he doesn't do that very often."

Classy college career

The natural agility is what always captivated Yale coach Carmen Cozza, whose teams in 1970-72 were built around the young man from Swampscott.

"People would ask me about Dick," said Cozza, "and I would always say you could be in a phone booth with him for 20 minutes and never touch him."

Jauron was first-team Ivy League all three falls in New Haven, a player with impeccable instincts and dynamic elusiveness. But at the heart of his legend was the versatility he provided Cozza, who employed the 190-pounder at fullback one season.

Fullback? Folks in Swampscott scratched their heads, and even the great coach conceded they had a right to.

"He's not a fullback and I'm the first to admit it," Cozza told reporters that fall of 1970. "But he's the most advanced sophomore running back I've ever had."

The fact that he chose Yale when he could have gone almost anywhere he wanted said a lot about Jauron. But his two older brothers, Wayne (Princeton) and Bob (Brown), had gone the Ivy route, and friends and coaches knew that Dick Jauron was the real deal - not only as an athlete, but as a person.

He was, in so many ways, the prototype all-American boy.

"He didn't drink, he didn't swear, he got all A's," said Mike Lynch. "As kids back then, we had our heroes. We wanted to emulate Joe Namath, Bart Starr, John Havlicek, Tony Conigliaro, but I wanted to be Dick Jauron. My mother wanted me to be like Dick Jauron - every mother in Swampscott wanted their sons to be like Dick Jauron."

At Yale, Jauron eclipsed Calvin Hill's records, won every award there was to win, and got picked first-team All-American as a senior, joined by some pretty impressive company, names like Bert Jones of LSU, Sam Cunningham of Southern Cal, Greg Pruitt of Oklahoma, Johnny Rodgers of Nebraska, John Hannah of Alabama, Jerry Sizemore of Texas. All of them were headed to the NFL, and that is where Jauron wanted to go, too.

Even his most loyal backers had their doubts, Cozza included, but then again, the coach would steal a glimpse of Jauron from afar and nod his head.

"He would be out there running with two 50-pound sandbags, doing things to get better," said Cozza. "He was ahead of his time."

Heart of a Lion

Two of his former Swampscott teammates - Adams (Holy Cross, Buffalo) and Tom Toner (Idaho State, Green Bay) - had made it into the NFL, and Jauron made it a trio when he was drafted in the fourth round by the Lions in 1973. Just days into camp, Jauron was switched from running back to safety, weeks into that rookie year he intercepted Chicago quarterback Gary Huff three times in a game, and, in his second season, he was an All-Pro.

A polished NFL player had arrived and a distinguished career was in motion, a reality that has been celebrated ever since by a small community that takes great pride in a native son who has never forgotten from where he came.

That's why while it's never been Jauron's style to talk about himself, it's easy for others to do so.

"He stands tall among men. He always has," said DeFelice.

"Coach Bondelevitch took us to the Lions Club one night," said Adams, "but didn't tell us we would have to speak. Here was Dick, just a sophomore, and he gets up and tells a story of a gold watch he got for Christmas and dropping it in a freezing pond and how he had to decide right there what to do."

Adams was amazed at how the sophomore handled the challenge, told the story, and kept his audience captivated. More than 40 years later, Adams himself uses that story to motivate kids.

"Dick told the men that night that he went into the freezing water to get the watch, because if you want something, you have to work hard for it, and then you have to work even harder to keep it and not lose it."

Forty years since he closed out a storied high school career and provided a small town with infinite pride, Dick Jauron maintains an aura built around that simple premise.

Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com