Bill Parcells On The line

A familiar face to American Football Fans of the nineties, Bill Parcells is soon to be inducted in to the Hall of Fame in Canton. The two time Super Bowl winning coach sat down with the media today for a Q&A on then and now in the NFL.

When you look back, what do you feel your best coaching job was even if it wasn’t in a championship season, and what single memory sticks out?

One of my best coaching jobs was with the New York Jets, we started off 1 and maybe 5 or 6 and we were able to eventually get to 8-8. Holding that team together to accomplish that, I think probably was one of the better things. Most coaches will tell you that when you start 1-6 it’s tough to maintain the things you need to make you successful. My favourite moment if you pin me down is the 1990 Championship game in San Francisco. They were going for their three-peat and we’d lost Phil Simmms our quarterback and we had Jeff Hostetler playing who did a great job for us. The referee Jerry Markbreit told me that was the greatest game he ever officiated which has stuck with me too, that an official would feel it that way as well.

When you first heard about getting in to the Hall, did you think back at all to 1964, Hastings College wherever that was and the guy you were then I’m sure wasn’t thinking one day I’m going to be in the Hall of Fame?

Absolutely. The man who hired me is going to be at the induction ceremony. You know you learn an awful lot of things, you had to do things you didn’t consider. We had to wash the players uniforms. He taught me and he preached to me something I carried with me my entire coaching career and that is that the players deserve the chance to win, and you have an obligatory responsibility to try and give it to them. That means that you have a responsibility as a coach to give these players putting themselves at risk a chance to achieve success.

When you fist got to New England, were you shocked at how down it was?

I was a little bit surprised, not so much the attendance as I knew Boston and New England were good sports fans and I felt that if you could do something they would come. But the organisation was in quite a bit of turmoil and flux and change and that continued for a while until the present ownership got in place, and then things settled down there for the better obviously.

It’s been well documented how well you pushed buttons with players. Where did that ability to become an amateur psychologist if you will come from?

The ability to motivate someone is a much overrated thing. I think it’s impossible to motivate someone who is not a self starter. So my job as a coach is to direct them. You have all sorts of personalities, some are reclusive and you have trouble figuring out what they are thinking, and you have to get them to explain. Then you have others who are anxious and waste a lot of energy doing something that’s not important – you have to recognise and appreciate the different characteristics that people have before you can go about teaching them.

In the long run I think pushing buttons, I’m not sure what that means, but maybe your getting people to do something they don’t understand how to do and that’s the hard part.

The NFL is going to mandate knee and thigh pads being used by players this season. Back in your Giants heyday did players like Lawrence Taylor use them or remove them, and if so did it bother you if players removed them?

It was a constant battle for me, I was adamant about wearing pads and I would fine my players if they didn’t use them. Some of them would do it during the game and you’re not thinking about that during the game. I’m glad they are enforcing that and sometimes players don’t know what’s in their own best interests and I saw many injuries that could have been prevented by using the proper equipment. The quarterbacks and the receivers I found were the most flagrant violators, your running backs were pretty careful, but also the people on the perimeter of the defence I always had trouble with.

How do you assess your Dolphins tenure, the things you are proud of and things that you might regret?

I came there and I really had to be talked in to coming there, and I didn’t anticipate the ownership change – not that I didn’t get on with either of the owners because I did. But first time head coach, first time GM and then you throw in a first time owner and that’s a difficult dynamic because everyone naturally so wants to put their own mark on that franchise, and they have every right to do so. When I left the dolphins we had a winning record. I left very early in the third year and we’d just beaten the Packers and the Vikings on the road and the Packers wound up playing the Super Bowl that year if I am not mistaken. I think my leaving created a situation that was not good for the Dolphins retrospectively. I thought I was doing the right thing to let these guys take it on their own, but retrospectively I saw things happen, the political aspect, that I would have made every effort to try and avoid. I think the personnel was definitely better when I left, but I can’t prove it to you.

How do you view Jeff Ireland’s aggressive approach to free agency this off season?

Well I think, you know, they’re trying to definitely improve the team and I am sure that everyone who is involved is in agreement with the course of action. I think the opportunity with that division is that they can be competitive and maybe even win it. I hope that goes well, I do have a high regard for Steve Ross, I talk from him from time to time and I certainly wish him well.

Have you though about your speech at all?

I probably won’t write too much down. I am just going to get up there and try to thank the people that had something to do with me being there, and tell you just one or two things about my experience of being a coach and tell you the important things I got from being a coach, and I think that will be about it.

Parcells is inducted in to the Hall Of Fame on August 3.