Just the other day, I walked into the restaurant area of Riverside Country Club in Provo and there she was — 93-year-old Patti Edwards holding court over lunch with her friends crowded around a table.
“How is your mother doing?” she asked without hesitation.
“She’s good,” I answered.
“Please tell her hello for me,” she said.
Like she had done for so many others, Patti befriended our mom, Andrea, during the years her husband LaVell and our dad, Dale, worked together building a football program at BYU. LaVell coached the team while our dad raised the money at the Cougar Club.
During another lunch several years ago, Patti stopped by our table with her longtime friends Andy and Tammy Reid.
“Do you guys want to see something neat?” she asked Blaine Fowler and me. Then she prodded Tammy to show us the three Super Bowl rings in her purse that the Reids had won with the Kansas City Chiefs. “Go ahead, try them on!”
That’s how she was. Nothing was too big or too important that sharing it with others didn’t make it even better. The testimonials of her goodness from former players, the wives of coaches and administrators, and their Provo neighbors are endless.
Patti Louise Covey Edwards lived a life of independent adventure from March 18, 1932, right up to her last breath on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. LaVell preceded her in death on Dec. 29, 2016.
The two lovebirds, who met on a blind date a lifetime ago in Logan, are reunited in time for Valentine’s Day.
“There is not a day or night I don’t think about LaVell,” Patti told Doug Robinson during an interview with the Deseret News in 2022. No one knows more about that bond than the surviving Edwards children — John, Jim and Ann and their posterity.
LaVell’s legacy of success and Patti’s legacy of kindness made them as unbeatable as BYU’s 1984 national championship team — the crown jewel of his 29 seasons as head coach.
Together, they grabbed each other and gasped when President Gordon B. Hinckley announced Cougar Stadium was being renamed LaVell Edwards Stadium following their last home game on Nov. 18, 2000.
The signage remains a visual reminder of what they accomplished, but the way they treated people fuels their lasting power.
American poet Maya Angelou wrote it best, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Patti Edwards made people feel good — and she will be missed.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.