This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Former Utah coach Ron McBride had an extraordinary relationship with BYU football icon LaVell Edwards. For guys who started as rivals, they ended up famous friends. On Thursday, the day the legendary coach passed, McBride was scheduled to be at LaVell's side, visiting with him. He had set that meeting up Wednesday with LaVell's wife, Patti. And then …

Mac's friend was gone. Gone to the eternities.

"When I got up [Thursday] morning, my wife told me he had passed," McBride said. "I would have liked to have spent some more quality time with him, face to face. … I've lost something. For me, just to see him and talk to him would have helped me get through this day."

McBride first met Edwards in 1976, when LaVell was BYU's head coach and Mac was an assistant at Utah: "I remember thinking, 'What's this guy like?' When I became a head coach, I knew I had to beat him to survive, but I liked him. BYU dominated Utah all those years. They were a cocky group. But LaVell was a great dude. He was unique. You'd have to spend a lot of hours trying to figure out a way to dislike him."

Edwards was always known as a nice, humble man, but he was competitive, too. When his new friend at Utah started beating him, it bothered him. He wanted to beat him back.

"When I beat him the first time down there in Provo, afterward he said to me: 'Thanks a lot. You ruined my blanket ceremony with the seniors.'"

Classic LaVell.

McBride said the two men used to sit next to each other at coaches' meetings. And before long, Edwards would start to doze off: "I'd say to him, 'Hey, wake up! They're talking about you.' We'd go to vote on things, and it would come to his turn, and he'd say, 'Which way should I vote?' I'd say, 'Nay.' And he'd get up and say, 'Nay.'

"He had a great sense of humor. He was great with one-liners."

Edwards used to slice Mac up good when the two verbally sparred at the old Big Five huddle, a weekly joint press conference back in the day. And everyone in attendance laughed with them.

"When those two got together, they used to giggle like school girls," remembered former BYU linebacker Rob Morris.

Two decades later, McBride and Edwards did a weekly radio show on 97.5 FM/1280 AM The Zone during football season, including this last one, and during those shows, as the years rolled on, it became evident that age was taking a bit of a toll on Edwards' powers of concentration. And in those on-air moments, McBride tenderly guided LaVell back to the topic at hand. It turned out being great, sweet radio.

On Thursday, McBride paused during a conversation about LaVell, saddened again to have missed what would have been his last meeting with the man, his buddy. He said, "I remember every rivalry game we played. … I tried to match him as a coach. I couldn't match him as a human being."

Twitter: @GordonMonson