As the Kansas City Chiefs attempt to claim their third consecutive Super Bowl trophy this weekend, there will be one less red-clad fan cheering for his team. My friend Tommy Brasher, who ended his impressive career as defensive coach for the Chiefs, passed away recently at the age of eighty-four. If anyone was jazzed about the Chiefs’ chance for a Three-Peat in New Orleans, it was Coach Tommy. And given his lengthy tenure with both Philadelphia and Kansas City, Tommy’s interest would have been more keen than most.

When I first met Tommy, he and his wife, LaNelle, had just moved to Covenant Living at the Shores. As the chaplain, I invited Coach Tommy to hear my friend Jim Zorn, former Seahawks quarterback and Washington Commanders head coach, who would be speaking at our monthly community breakfast.

I was thrilled to introduce two NFL coaches who lived on Mercer Island to each other. Tommy was most receptive to my invitation. I captured their personal meeting on my iPhone. To my delight, I discovered Jim was already aware of Tommy.

In the months to come I would have an opportunity to become aware of The Shores’ resident celebrity. Here was a guy who played for and coached with the legendary Arkansas Razorbacks coach Frank Broyles. Always content to be a position coach, Tommy began his career in the NFL with the New England Patriots in 1982 where he coached for two years. It was a storied career that found him coaching with the Philadelphia Eagles three different times (1985, 1999-2005, 2012), with the Atlanta Falcons (1986-89) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1990), the Seattle Seahawks (1992-98 where he would coach Cortez Kennedy) and finally with the Kansas City Chiefs (2013-18).

Tommy, who had dreamed of being a bigtime coach from the time he was in eighth grade, couldn’t get coaching out of his system. Seven years after Tommy hung up his clipboard with Philadelphia in 2005, Eagles coach Andy Reid invited his valued colleague to come out of retirement and join him again in Philadelphia. A year later when Reid became head coach of the Chiefs, he brought his beloved assistant coach along.

In 2015, when Tommy turned 75, he was the oldest position coach in the NFL. His second retirement wouldn’t come for three more years. His last 13 years of coaching under Andy Reid led to 18 postseason games including a 2004 conference championship win and a Super Bowl appearance.

When the Chiefs won the first of their recent Super Bowl championships in 2020, Tommy was awarded a Super Bowl ring in recognition of his role as team consultant. In 2022, the Mercer Island resident was inducted in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. As I visited with Tommy and LaNelle in their apartment, he proudly showed me the crystal trophy as well as his Bible.

Tommy was quick to convey his Christian faith in our ongoing friendship. I learned that he viewed his Bible as his ultimate playbook. I enjoyed his affirming presence on the front row in the chapel on Sundays when I was preaching (when he wasn’t watching his beloved Chiefs play on television in his apartment).

Tommy’s no-nonsense dry sense of humor took some getting used to. But I appreciated his candor. I always knew what he was feeling. When I asked him what he liked most about living at The Shores, he short retort caught me by surprise. “I don’t like it here!” Tommy said straight-faced. “But my wife sure does.”

What I later discovered is that his negative response was really a reflection of how much he was missing their home on Orcas Island rather than how much he didn’t like his new digs.

Gratefully, Tommy came to appreciate his new surroundings and the neighbors who took time to make “the coach” and his wife of sixty-two years feel special. It didn’t seem to matter that they cheered more for the Chiefs than for the Seahawks.

When I learned of Tommy’s death, I immediately communicated the news to Jim Zorn. “Tommy was an excellent D-Line coach and a straight shooter without drama or dysfunction,” Jim emailed me back. “His players were made better by being coached by him.” I couldn’t agree more.

Guest columnist Greg Asimakoupoulos is a former chaplain at Covenant Living at the Shores in Mercer Island.