Bill Parcells
Football is a sport of
myths, and there is none more powerful than this one: They don't make 'em like
they used to. Remember when they played both ways? When they didn't complain
about a pulled hamstring? When coaches were men like Lombardi, not headset
geeks? Even the sourest old-timer, however, will admit that at least one man in
the NFL is made like they used to be: New York Jets coach Bill Parcells.
Parcells
is performing his usual miracles during his first season with the Jets. The
Jets went 1-15 last year and 3-13 the year before. So far this fall, Parcells
has coached them to an 8-4 record and first place in their conference, the AFC
East. Unless something goes horribly awry during December, the 1997 Jets will
set a record for the biggest single-season improvement in NFL history.
Parcells is football's turnaround artist, the "Chainsaw Al"
Dunlap of the gridiron. In the '80s, "" took over the hopeless New York Giants
and led them to two Super Bowl victories. Between 1993 and 1997, Parcells
transformed the New England Patriots from bottom-feeders to AFC champions. In
the entire history of the NFL, only Parcells and Don Shula have coached two
different teams to the Super Bowl. You can bet that by the time Parcells leaves
the Jets, he will have coached three teams there.
Parcells
confuses football fans. They can't figure out why he's a great coach. Some
coaching legends are chalkboard whizes. The San Francisco 49ers' Bill Walsh
designed an offense that took the rest of the NFL a decade to figure out. The
Chicago Bears' terrifying "46 defense" cemented Mike Ditka's and Buddy Ryan's
reputations. Other coaches piggybacked to the top on star players: Any
idiot--and coach Barry Switzer is that idiot--could have won a Super Bowl with
the Dallas Cowboys' talent. Parcells is an excellent X's-and-O's coach.
(He spent 20 years as an assistant coach, much of it in the Great Plains, where
they really know football.) But Parcells is the architect of no grand
strategy and mentor to no great stars. Some of his teams have been strong
offensively, others defensively. Some have passed a lot, others have run.
There's no single guiding principle to his teams. Sportswriters throw up their
hands and conclude with banalities: Parcells is a "great motivator" or a
"players' coach."
He is. But not in a touchy-feely way. Parcells
is a great coach for a reason that is now unfashionable in professional sports:
He's a dictator. If modern pro athletes subscribe to a political philosophy, it
is Ayn Randism: What's in it for me? Free agency and celebrity endorsements
have exaggerated the influence of individual stars. Once players played at the
whim of coaches. Today coaches coach at the whim of players. Even the NFL,
traditionally the most team-oriented of pro sports, has fallen under the thrall
of individualism. On the Dallas Cowboys, for example, hot-dogging players like
Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders, not the coach, guide the team.
Not so on
Parcells' teams. A key fact: During the '60s and '70s, Parcells spent five
years coaching at West Point and the Air Force Academy. He conceives of
football as a military operation. His teams are total institutions. Other
coaches give their players vast freedom. Parcells owns his: They submit
their will to the team and to him. Parcells, 6' 3", nearly 250 pounds, and
aggressively confident, has the rare ability of command.
Parcells takes over bad teams because he can mold them in
his image. Winning players won't accept the kind of bullying Parcells dishes
out. Losing players have no choice. With the Patriots and the Jets, for
example, Parcells demanded that players spend most of their off-season in
training: Those who resisted--and some always did--got cut or traded.
Parcells
runs his training camps and practices with a drill sergeant's discipline: He
abuses and needles players to inspire them. Last season, for example, he
infuriated one malingering rookie by calling him "she." ("She," wide receiver
Terry Glenn, recovered and went on to break the rookie record for catches in a
season.) After a lackadaisical Giants team went 3-12-1, Parcells cut or traded
half the team. Parcells was one of the first coaches in the league to impose
mandatory drug tests. He forbids his assistant coaches from talking to , and
discourages his players from doing so.
Parcells discourages stardom: Everyone's
ego--except Parcells'-- is sublimated for the good of the whole. His teams are
teams . (In Parcells' coaching career, he has had only one player who can
legitimately be called a superstar: Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Usually
he collects role players.)
The
result: Parcells has had the most disciplined teams in the NFL. Parcells' teams
commit fewer penalties than almost any team in the league. (In last week's win
against Minnesota, the Jets committed only one.) They have fewer disciplinary
problems, because Parcells weeds out the bad apples. They have fewer injuries,
because Parcells so emphasizes conditioning. And, while this sounds like a
cliché, it's undoubtedly true: Parcells makes his players believe they can win,
so they do. Last year the Jets went 0-6 in games decided by less than six
points; this year they are 5-1.
Those players who stick with Parcells adore his tough love.
(It's significant that the "Gatorade Dump," where the victorious team dumps a
bucket of Gatorade on its coach, was invented by Parcells' Giants.) In a league
where head coaches delegate everything to assistants, Parcells makes a policy
of trying to talk to every player every day. When some of his Giants players
had drug problems, Parcells spent a week at a rehab center, scouting if it was
good enough for his men. Parcells' players and assistant coaches follow him
loyally from city to city. In New England, nine of his assistant coaches were
former Giants assistants; at the Jets, he has enlisted former Giants players to
coach his running backs, kickers, and tight ends.
Like all
control freaks, Parcells hates to be controlled himself. He has repeatedly
feuded with owners and general managers about running the team. He quit the
Giants partly because the owner and general manager cramped him. His battle
with Patriots owner Bob Kraft was .
Parcells has an addict's relationship with
football. He likes to say, "There are only two emotions in football--euphoria
and death." When he graduated from college in 1964, he turned down a chance to
play for the Detroit Lions so that he could start his coaching career. Since
then, he has never managed to do anything but coach. Once he took a year off to
sell real estate: He hated it. After he quit the Giants in 1991, he spent two
years as a broadcaster: It bored him. Parcells vacations little during the
off-season: He can't relax, worrying that his rivals are working harder. His
only outside interests are golf and his family. Both get ignored during the
football season.
Parcells once said he
"couldn't live without football." Even so, he keeps hinting that his career is
winding down. He's 56. When he signed his 6-year, $14.4-million contract with
the Jets, he said the job would be his last. Let's hope not. Mike Ditka is on
his way out the door. John Madden has long since ascended to the press box.
Football coaches are an increasingly sterile breed. Parcells calls them
"computer guys." In an age where computer guys are winning everywhere else,
it's nice that Bill Parcells is still around to pound them on the gridiron.
