While I never covered LaVell as a beat writer, I had plenty of interactions with him over the last four decades. Just a year or so ago, I called him at home for a football story I was working on and as usual, he was his usual gracious self.
One thing about LaVell was that he was universally loved and respected. Of course everyone knows about his wonderful relationship with former Utah coach Ron McBride, but all of the U. coaches admired and respected LaVell, even the old curmudgeon himself, Rick Majerus.
He always spoke highly of Edwards, and I recall him talking about one of LaVell’s greatest virtues — his patience. Edwards might be one of the few coaches in history who did a call-in show after his games, for a half an hour or so. You could tell when he would get a little irritated with some fan who was questioning a play he called or whatever, but he always patiently answered every question.
This is what Majerus said about him in a story I wrote in 1998:
"You couldn't pay me enough money to do certain things. Like I told LaVell, they couldn't pay me enough money to do a call-in show. I would quit. `Hey LaVell, this is Willard from Nephi. Your zone coverage wasn't very good today.' … I love listening to those shows after the games. I think he is one of the classiest and nicest guys in the world. But you could pay me $10 million and I wouldn't sit there with Willard from Nephi criticizing me after I spent a whole week looking at film and I've got nine assistants helping me out."
LaVell was also known for his love of golf, and he was a pretty darn good golfer. He never turned down an opportunity to play in a charity event, not just because he wanted to golf, but because he wanted to help a good cause.
One day I was playing golf in a charity tournament with former BYU quarterback Robbie Bosco, who is a very good golfer himself. We got to a place where LaVell was on a nearby tee and he started razzing Bosco about his golf game. Bosco wanted to impress his old coach, but he promptly hit his worst drive of the day, and both he and LaVell had a good laugh about it.