It is 15 years and two days since that historic night in Tampa Stadium, which began with Saddam Hussein and Whitney Houston and ended with “Wide Right” and a soaked Bill Parcells, his right fist in the air, getting carried off on the shoulders of champions.
But there was much more to the Giants’ second Super Bowl championship season. Here are some behind-the-scenes reminiscences from the people who made it happen:
THE DEBUT
Rodney Hampton, the 24th pick in the first round out of Georgia of the 1990 draft, created some skeptics with his weight-room deficiencies during his first training camp. But it took only one carry for him to win over the doubters, an 89-yard burst for a touchdown in the preseason opener in Buffalo.
“I knew a lot of guys were watching me when I first came in,” Hampton remembered. “Then my first carry is for 89 yards and all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘This guy’s OK.’ ”
THE HOLDOUTS
Both Lawrence Taylor and Leonard Marshall held out in training camp. But while Taylor walked right onto the field and sacked Randall Cunningham three times in the Giants’ opening-night win, Marshall was banished to the bench by Parcells for 10 games.
“LT always had a different deal with Bill,” Marshall said. “Bill was punishing me for my holdout. I was trying to get my money like Richard Dent and I’ll never forget that. He told me, ‘I’m gonna make your [butt] ride the bench.’ He started John Washington, and we know what kind of player he was [one sack in 100 Giant games], and broke my consecutive-starts streak [at 71 games].”
THE TRYOUT
The Giants were 3-0 when kicker Raul Allegre injured his groin. During the ensuing week, Parcells invited Matt Bahr and several other unemployed kickers to a tryout.
With Steve DeOssie snapping and Jeff Hostetler holding, Bahr, with 182 field goals and one Super Bowl ring on his resume, hit about a dozen balls from different locations. How many kicks did he make?
“Enough, apparently,” Bahr deadpanned.
It likely was Parcells’ most important decision of the season, as Bahr made 17 of 23 field-goal attempts in the final 13 games and 8 of 9 in the postseason.
THE STAFF
What today is known as the Bill Parcells coaching tree was then still firmly rooted in an East Rutherford parking lot. The staff included former NFL head coach Ron Erhardt, five future NFL head men in Bill Belichick, Tom Coughlin, Al Groh, Romeo Crennel and Ray Handley, and the future head coach of Notre Dame, Charlie Weis.
“All of us were the same,” said Groh, now the head coach at University of Virginia. “When you looked around, you just saw a lot of guys doing a good job; a lot of guys driven to think about what had to be done to help us win. There were no egos; nobody was planning on what he was going to do when he was a head coach.”
THE HIT
Marshall had seen former teammate Jim Burt temporarily injure Hostetler during the NFC title game, and it spurred him to make one of the most devastating hits in football history.
“Jim dove at {Hostetler’s] knees and tried to take out his patella because he knew we didn’t have Simms,” Marshall said. “I told the guys on the sidelines that if I had a chance to get their guy, I was gonna get him but get him clean.”
Midway through the fourth quarter, with the Giants down 13-9, Marshall slammed into Montana’s back, forcing a fumble that Mark Collins recovered and leaving the Niners QB with a bruised sternum, fractured rib and broken bone in his hand. Montana later would call it the hardest hit he ever took.
THE TIMEOUT
There were four seconds remaining when DeOssie squatted over the ball, ready to snap it for Bahr’s 42-yard field-goal attempt that would send the Giants to the Super Bowl.
Then, DeOssie heard a whistle.
“I went back to [Bahr] and said, ‘What are [the 49ers] doing trying to freeze you out? You’re one of the coolest kickers in the league,’ ” DeOssie said. “He said to me, ‘They’re not trying to freeze me out, they know you have to snap the ball.’ Well, my knuckles got white.”
THE WRONGGUESTS
Bahr’s kick re-routed the Giants’ charter plane to Tampa, and when they got there, they found the NFC hotel had been fully prepared for the arrival of the 49ers.
When offensive tackle Doug Riesenberg called room service, he was greeted with, “Good day, Mr. Barton.”
“I got to eat off [49ers tackle] Harris Barton’s tab for a couple of days,” Riesenberg said.
Superior planning by Parcells and the front office gave the Giants a running start over the Bills on Super Bowl week.
“It was like in training camp. [Parcells] ran us hard on Monday and we had a full-contact practice,” Riesenberg said. “The Bills were having a parade that day.”
THE STOMP& DRAG
Down 12-3 to the Bills late in the second quarter, Hostetler hit Stephen Baker for a touchdown on a post-corner, the Giants’ most successful pass route that season.
“When he called it, I knew it was a TD,” said Baker, who beat Nate Odomes on a play so close to the chalk it had to be reviewed by the booth. “I thought they were going to rob me when they looked at it.”
Baker credited Coughlin, his receivers coach, for teaching him the technique he used on the play. “I used to try to use twinkle toes [to try to get both feet in bounds], but Coughlin taught us to stomp the first foot down and drag the other,” Baker said. “That would leave a skid mark on a grass surface and make it an easy call.”
THEWAITING
As the Bills were driving from their own 10 to the spot where Scott Norwood attempted his infamous kick, center Bart Oates was on the sidelines wondering, “Where am I going to play next year?”
Oates had missed a block on an Anderson run on the previous drive, and the Giants had to settle for a field goal that put them up just 19-17. In his mind, he was picturing The Post for the next few days. “By Tuesday, they’d start to figure out [who messed up] and on Wednesday morning I’d put my house on the market.”
THEVIDEOTAPE
In today’s Super Bowls, many players can be seen toting video cameras during Media Day and after the game. At Super Bowl XXV, there was just one camera on the field other than ABC’s and NFL Films’.
“Security was tight. No cameras were allowed,” DeOssie said. “On the walkthrough the day before, I had brought my video camera, and I decided to keep it there. So at halftime, I wrapped it in a towel and told one of the equipment guys to put it under the bench.
When it was time for the field goal, I broke out the camera and positioned myself in a spot where I couldn’t get caught in Parcells’ peripheral vision. I shot the kick, the celebration, in the locker room. Now, everybody’s doing it.”