DEMAND & DELIVER: Tom Coughlin, who got his start with the Giants as a wide receivers coach under Bill Parcells in 1988, says Parcells was demanding of his assistant coaches, but displayed a kinder side when he sent hand-written notes congratulating Coughlin and the Giants on their Super Bowl titles, even when Parcells was coaching the rival Cowboys. (
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As told to Paul Schwartz
I remember my first year as the wide receiver coach with the Giants in 1988, we were down in Fairleigh Dickinson for training camp and I was an early-morning guy. I would come in, Bill would come in maybe a little bit after I was there or we would tie.
One day I was just sitting there working and he came in and he said “C’mon, I’m going down to the coffee shop on the corner and get a little hard roll and a cup of coffee. C’mon, go with me.’’
I said, “I can’t go, I got stuff to do, I still got a couple of things, I got to draw cards [for practice].’’ He said “C’mon!’’ so I go with him.
As soon as he opens the door of the coffee shop, it’s like old home week. He’s busting everybody’s chops in the deli and he’s busting their chops and it’s back and forth, back and forth. It was an interesting scene, it’s like the way he is when he gets on a roll with people. He’s got one comment right after another and he’s having a good time with it. Well, the guys in the deli were obviously used to seeing him come in. “Hey coach, how’s it going?’’ And they’d be back and forth, he’s make some comment about the roll that day or how things are going in there, the coffee’s not quite as good as it was yesterday. It was fun.
It was just one of those morning deals, but it was just a little bit of an eye-opener for me the way Bill could be away from the office and away from the work part of it and the way he was. As I say, Bill could speak New Jersey-an.
Bill as a coach was a combination of all kinds of things. He knew exactly what he wanted. I never had the privilege of being around Bill until I got hired by him. It was not going to be done any other way. There wasn’t a lot of discussion. He was a dictator, which was fine. That’s the only thing I had ever seen work. I’m talking old school.
Bill was a guy who very much knew his players very well, made it his business to know his players and the players of the rosters we were playing, he was very good at that, very in-depth with that. Knew what he wanted, knew pretty much how to motivate his team, his individual players and his team.
Bill was a guy who on the practice field knew exactly what he wanted and his expectations were very high. When he conducted staff meetings there wasn’t a lot of excess discussion about things, it was expressed, how we practiced, we put our practices together that way, our gameplans that way, our Saturday night meetings, the way in which we played the game. He had his hand in everything obviously that was conducted.
He made a call or sent a very, very nice note both times we won the Super Bowl. Very personal. Bill has a great knack, he says exactly what is on his mind and he says it exactly the way he wants to say it. He left me a very nice message when I got fired in Jacksonville, too. Different times after different games when I was at Boston College, we beat Notre Dame and he left me a message and said some nice things about how the team played and that type of thing.
Bill was very demanding. The thing that I’m still amazed at is we looked at the practice tape as an offensive and defensive staff every day and we did it in about a half an hour. He was amazing. He just flew through it. He knew what he wanted. He was gruff and he was tough and he was hard on the coaches, but he wasn’t hard on the players. He really wasn’t.
I don’t think he ever had a script in his hand. He hated scripts. He’d tell you to throw your script away. He’d be off to the side. That’s how he watched practice. He was all over it, but there was always some kind of comment and if it was your player that screwed up, he was going to go right to you or say something right to you. He didn’t mind. He ripped [Bill] Belichick. He ripped everybody. He was interested in the coaches all doing their job to the best of their ability. It wasn’t about coordinator this or that. In order for us to be as good as we can be, you have to coach your position to the best of their ability and that’s the way he operated. He was very good at it.