FOOTBALL Wyche on sideline again, but back at high school level

The former Bengals head coach is now an assistant at Pickens High.
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) -- A healthier, happy Sam Wyche is still in the game -- even if his to-do list at Pickens High includes things he never did in the NFL.
Sweep out the locker rooms? You bet. Simplify his vast playbook for the high school game? Easily done. Watch his starting quarterback take a few days away from camp to play baseball? Not a problem.
"Money's tight up here. They're looking for any volunteers they can get," Wyche said by telephone. "I'm glad to do it."
Wyche returned to Pickens, where he worked with the team's quarterbacks four years ago, after coaching with friend Mike Mularkey in Buffalo the last two seasons.
The 61-year-old Wyche could have easily sat on his 28-acre horse farm in South Carolina's Upstate and attended high school games Fridays and college games (he went to nearby Furman) on Saturdays.
Kept in contact
But Wyche kept in contact with Pickens coach Brett Turner, who was the school's defensive coordinator during Wyche's previous prep stint, and decided to come back as an assistant.
"I enjoyed every bit of my experience the last time," Wyche said. "This time, I'm actually more involved in the offense."
Wyche was known as an offensive innovator during his 12 seasons as an NFL head coach.
He led Cincinnati to the Super Bowl after the 1988 season, losing to San Francisco 20-16.
After four seasons at Tampa Bay, Wyche became a CBS analyst in 1998.
Two years later, he underwent a biopsy on some lymph nodes in his chest. His left vocal cord was severed during the procedure, leaving his trademark voice little more than a raspy whisper.
"That operation changed my life, my direction, my income," he said. "Everything."
Gradually, Wyche's condition improved. He sounds clear and crisp on the phone.
"I sometimes have trouble with my volume, or when I get excited at a game," he said.
Still, he's strong enough to broadcast next month's Hall of Fame Game between Oakland and Philadelphia for Westwood One radio.
Has heart problem
Wyche had also been diagnosed with a heart condition, cardiomyopathy.
He's been told by doctors that a third of his heart muscle does not work properly. At each checkup, physicals show he's about two to four years away from needing a new heart, "but they just keep rolling that number over."
There are days Wyche feels winded and weak or his voice strains as he speaks. But "I'm the best I've been in a while," he said.
There have been adjustments from the NFL life. Wyche interrupted some "housecleaning duties" with the other Pickens coaches to take a cell phone call. During the spring, Wyche filled the playbook with exotic schemes before keeping it simple.
"I keep reminding myself that these guys are learning in biology class and English class, dating, I can't put in way too much," he said.
Pickens starting quarterback Andy Fowler will miss a few summer drills because he's playing in the Big League World Series, something Wyche never worried about with Boomer Esiason in Cincinnati or J.P. Losman in Buffalo.
"In the NFL, you're not there, you get fined," he said. "This is different, but it's OK."
Turner saw how easy Wyche was to work with previously and welcomed him back.
"He's such a humble guy, he's never met a stranger," Turner said.
Fowler didn't play his junior season to concentrate on baseball and said one of the clinchers to return this season was having Wyche as his coach.
"It's pretty cool having a coach who coached in the Super Bowl," he said.