Parcells

by Bill Parcells

  About an hour before the opening kickoff, Countdown’s new producer, Seth Markman, visited Parcells in ESPN’s trailer to review an earlier production meeting. Instead, Markman got a big surprise from his major on-air talent. “Seth, I can’t go on; I’m not going to do it.”

  The ESPN producer replied, “Bill, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think I can do this. I’m not going to be any good.”

  “You’ve coached Super Bowls. You’ve been in the most intense environments in the world. You’re nervous about this?”

  “It’s different, Seth. I don’t want to look like an ass out there.”

  “This is nothing compared to what you’ve been through. This is easy. Just be yourself and answer the questions. Forget the camera. Just talk to the guys.”

  Although Parcells never truly intended to bail because of anxieties, he enjoyed such reassurances. Once the camera lights flashed, the ex-coach gave a sharp performance. Chris Berman hosted Countdown with a panel composed of Parcells, reporter Chris Mortensen, and three former NFL stars: Tom Jackson, Sterling Sharpe, and Steve Young. All possessed healthy egos, and their strong opinions generated spirited debates. But no one spoke with the gravitas of Parcells. While his colleagues occasionally interrupted one another, he became the show’s E. F. Hutton: everyone hushed for his insights.

  Parcells transitioned successfully into his new full-time profession. He showed a strong work ethic, studying film extensively for pertinent analysis. But his circumspection during some segments clashed with the freewheeling culture of ESPN’s talk shows. At production meetings, Parcells occasionally complained about receiving too much airtime, and requested to avoid discussing certain subjects.

  “He was very good. He got really close to being great,” says Markman, who earned the nickname “Weasel” from Parcells. “But I think something held him back. If you have the thought in the back of your mind that you may want to coach again, you don’t throw all your punches.”

  In late November 2002, the University of Kentucky contacted Bill Parcells about its head coaching opening, stirring his dormant longing for the sidelines. NCAA violations involving cash payments to Wildcat recruits had caused the school to forfeit nineteen scholarships during a three-year probation. The SEC program had gone 2-9 the previous season under interim coach Guy Morriss. With Morriss staying for one last year of bowl-ineligibility, Kentucky had targeted pro football’s turnaround-meister as a candidate to replace him.

  The school’s associate athletic director, John Cropp, had a link with Parcells. They had worked together at Vanderbilt under Steve Sloan in 1973 and 1974. Parcells, though, hadn’t been a college coach since 1978, when he left Air Force. Nonetheless, the Wildcats urged him to seriously consider an attractive offer with benefits involving the Kentucky Derby that appealed to the horse-racing aficionado. Despite the team’s albatross of NCAA sanctions, Parcells felt invigorated by the challenge.

  “I really didn’t have much to do,” Parcells explains. “It was like, ‘Well, let me go try and do this.’ That’s really what it was.” But Parcells also wanted his girlfriend comfortable about the move. Mandart had never lived outside of Long Island, so Parcells accentuated the positives.

  “You know, we’d be treated like royalty. You’d be the First Lady.”

  Mandart replied, “Well, are you sure you want to be a college coach? Isn’t that a big difference from the NFL?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to really think this through, and see if I can get a staff together.”

  After Mandart said she was willing to move, Parcells telephoned some college head coaches and athletic directors for recommendations. The name Mike MacIntyre consistently surfaced as an ideal secondary coach and recruiting coordinator. Parcells recalled that a Vanderbilt colleague, George MacIntyre, had a kid named Mike. “That can’t be Coach Mac’s Mike, can it?”

  Mike MacIntyre, thirty-seven, oversaw wideouts and defensive backs at the University of Mississippi. Just as important, George’s son had earned a reputation for being a strong recruiter in the ultracompetitive SEC. With his help, Ole Miss was undergoing a renaissance led by players like quarterback Eli Manning and tailback Deuce McAllister.

  For a possible offensive coordinator, Parcells targeted Arkansas quarterbacks coach David Lee, who had played the position at Vanderbilt during Bill’s tenure there. While climbing the college-coaching ladder during the past twenty-five years, Lee had written or telephoned Parcells annually to convey an interest in pro football. Parcells had responded with encouragement and guidance.

  Now, during a telephone conversation about Kentucky, Parcells told Lee, “David, there’s something in me that says we can win.”

  Lee replied, “Coach, it’s hard. Look at Bobby Bowden. He’s down there in Florida. How many years did it take him to win one at Florida State?” Despite his success after taking over the Seminoles in 1976, Bowden didn’t win his first national championship until 1993.

  But Parcells seemed undeterred. “We’ve got to get a quarterback.”

  On Friday, December 6, 2002, David Lee traveled to Dallas for a high school game featuring a top quarterback targeted by his Razorbacks. There Lee read a story in a local paper quoting Cowboys owner Jerry Jones about his postseason plans to reevaluate his team, which was 5-7 under Dave Campo. Jones described the season as being his most disappointing since purchasing the Cowboys in 1989. Knowing that such remarks were management-speak for an impending staff overhaul, Lee dialed Parcells.

  “Coach, I just want to read something to you here before you take the Kentucky job.”

  After doing so, Lee added, “I don’t know if you know Jerry Jones, or if you would even entertain working for him, but I just thought I’d pass that along to you.”

  Parcells replied, “Hmmm. Jerry Jones.”

  Parcells’s expanded ESPN duties included a weekly column for its website, and on December 11, 2002, his “QuickHits” section included two points related to the Cowboys:

  • Dallas will have a good defense next year.

  • Cowboys safety Roy Williams reminds me of a young Ronnie Lott.

  Later in the week, Parcells was sitting with colleague Chris Mortensen in an ESPN studio, preparing for a telecast, when footage of Jerry Jones appeared on one of several monitors. Parcells turned to Mortensen and said, “You know, I could work for that guy.”

  ESPN’s lead NFL reporter expressed shock. Jones was a more proactive owner than even Robert Kraft, and had come in for special criticism in Parcells’s recent book, The Final Season. Although the Cowboys owner never read it, he had been made aware of the pertinent quotes.

  On December 15, 2002, Big Blue trounced Dallas, 37–7, at Giants Stadium, dropping the Cowboys to 5-9 and firming Jones’s resolve to make a coaching change. The next day he telephoned Parcells’s new agent, Jimmy Sexton, in Memphis, seeking a clandestine meeting with his client. After receiving the message, Parcells asked Jones to travel to New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport and immediately contacted Kentucky, unequivocally declining the school’s offer.

  Parcells told Mandart, “Jerry Jones called. I don’t know why, but he wants to talk to me.”

  Mandart replied, “He wants you to be the coach, Bill. Do you think I was born yesterday?”

  “No, but I’m just going to see what he has to say.”

  24

  The October 2001 issue of Texas Monthly splashed a caricature of Jerry Jones on its cover: with red horns protruding from his forehead, the Cowboys owner held a pitchfork as fire exploded in the background. The headline asked, “Is Jerry Jones the Devil?” Jones’s nine-year-old granddaughter, Jessica, bawled when she saw the magazine, prompting him to console her. Published with the Cowboys at 0-4, the cover article skewered Jones for the outsized ego that had spurred Jimmy Johnson’s departure, despite his having captured a second consecutive Super Bowl title. Echoing the sentiments of many Cowboy fans, the magazine asserted, “The most disheartening aspect of the way Jones runs his team is the way
he treats his coaches. He controls them as if they were puppets.”

  Johnson’s replacement, Barry Switzer, had won the 1996 Super Bowl with a roster containing key Johnson holdovers like future Hall of Famers Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, and Emmitt Smith, but after that high-water mark Dallas had regressed under two obscure head coaches with reduced powers. Although Chan Gailey’s Cowboys made the playoffs in 1998 and 1999, the second appearance came with an 8-8 record. And in Dave Campo’s first season, the start of which had factored in the Texas Monthly skewering, Dallas finished a dismal 5-11.

  As the 2002 season neared its end, Jerry Jones ached to blunt the relentless criticism. “I needed to hire someone,” he says, “who was perceived to be stronger than me.” On the team plane following yet another embarrassing loss, Fox broadcaster Pat Summerall opined that the franchise needed a respected disciplinarian “like Parcells,” who happened to be his friend. Jones was surprisingly open to the idea, prompting Summerall, who was based in Dallas, to telephone Parcells and express confidence that his two domineering pals could coexist. Parcells praised Jones’s reputation for salesmanship, knowing that the compliment would likely get back to the maverick owner.

  On Wednesday afternoon, December 18, Bill Parcells and Jerry Jones met at Teterboro Airport, the retired coach’s home turf since childhood. With two games left in the regular season, Jones and Parcells wanted to avoid being seen together, so they spoke for almost three hours in a private boardroom. Jones asked Parcells, who had never led an NFL team that was based outside the Northeast, why he was open to coaching the Cowboys.

  Parcells replied, “There are lounge acts in Vegas, and then there is the big room where Elvis and Sinatra play. The Cowboys are the big room, which is one of the reasons I’m excited about coaching again.”

  The pair discreetly boarded Jones’s private jet, parked on the runway, and spoke for another two hours. Despite the cloak-and-dagger, reports about the meeting surfaced by Saturday. Forced to respond, Jones and Parcells described the get-together as a discussion about football philosophy and the NFL, similar to meetings Jones had arranged with retired gurus like John Madden and Bill Walsh. Still, speculation regarding the improbable union swirled among NFL colleagues and pundits, most of whom were skeptical that the two alpha males could get along. But in a follow-up conversation over the telephone, the proactive owner, sixty, and the dictatorial coach, sixty-one, shared laughs while acknowledging that they needed each other.

  As stunned as anyone by the prospect, Jimmy Johnson dialed Parcells.

  “Are you really thinking about doing this?”

  Parcells replied, “Yes, I am.”

  Johnson paused, weighing his next words. “Well, I think it will be good. Right now, I think Jerry’s ready for somebody like you.” Then Johnson added a caveat—that the partnership would last “for a short time.” Even that, he said, would require Jones to be circumspect in his public remarks about the Cowboys.

  During the first of his two years as Eagles quarterbacks coach, starting in 1997, Sean Payton had learned the complex, script-laden West Coast offense under coordinator Jon Gruden. In 1999, Payton took the same position with Jim Fassel’s Giants, where after one season he was promoted to offensive coordinator. On off days, Payton frequently slept in Giants Stadium, studying film and immersing himself in the playbook before crashing on his office couch. But seven games into the 2002 season, after the Giants offense had scored only seven touchdowns, Jim Fassel stripped Sean Payton of his play-calling duties. Fassel allowed the thirty-eight-year-old offensive coordinator to keep his title, but feeling professionally emasculated, Payton approached GM Ernie Accorsi. “I want to resign.”

  Accorsi replied, “Sean, you can’t. You don’t want to be known as the assistant who walked out on his head coach. You’re young and you haven’t established a reputation yet. But I promise I’ll let you out of your contract after this season.” Sean Payton heeded Accorsi’s advice, but when Big Blue’s offense turned explosive with Fassel calling the plays, Accorsi permitted his disgruntled staffer to at least communicate with potential employers.

  Around ten o’clock one night in late December, Beth Payton picked up the phone at home in northern New Jersey. When she told her husband that the caller was Big Blue’s legendary ex-coach, he reacted with surprise. The two men had never spoken before. Nonetheless, with almost all of Parcells’s disciples under contract for the 2003 season, he needed talented coaches for a possible Cowboys staff. And Payton had been recommended by someone whose opinion Parcells valued: Chris Mara, the Giants personnel executive and son of the team’s owner, Wellington Mara. During Parcells’s stint as Big Blue’s head coach, Chris had been among his best scouts, showing a strong work ethic and sharp eye that earned respect beyond his bloodlines. The former colleagues had stayed in touch over the years as Chris Mara rose in his organization’s personnel department.

  During the phone conversation with Payton, Parcells said, “There’s a job I might be interested in, and if I take it I’ll be looking for coaches. If things fall into place, you’re someone I’d be interested in visiting with.” The interest seemed incongruous given Parcells’s adherence to offensive simplicity: Payton relied on intricate playbooks heavy on the pass.

  When Ernie Accorsi learned of Parcells’s interest in Payton, the GM told him, “I’ll let you out of your contract because I’m going to live up to my word. I am worried because we have to compete against Dallas, and you’re a good coach. But I’ll tell you this: If Parcells takes that job and hires you, that’s going to be your master’s degree. That education is going to help make you a tremendous head coach. You’ll get lessons in everything from toughness to leadership.”

  The second meeting between Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells occurred on Long Island on December 27, two days before the Cowboys’ season finale. With talks becoming more concrete, the owner’s lieutenant/son, Stephen Jones, participated, along with Parcells’s new agent, Jimmy Sexton, in a session that lasted six hours. Since naming himself GM following Jimmy Johnson’s departure in 1994, Jerry Jones had overseen generally poor drafts. Given Parcells’s deep-seated desire to shop for players, personnel power became a crucial issue. As owner, president, and GM, Jones declined to relinquish final authority, but he agreed to give Parcells more sway than any Cowboys head coach since Jimmy Johnson: the new partners agreed on mutual veto power over what players made the roster. Unlike his predecessors, Parcells required autonomy in choosing a staff, and Jones uncharacteristically acquiesced on the matter.

  As the negotiating pas de deux continued by telephone, Oakland’s Al Davis, longtime friend of both men, acted as an intermediary. The NFL’s elder statesman believed that although his buddies both wanted credit for a championship, reaching the goal would generate enough kudos to satisfy their outsized egos. Jones and Parcells agreed to a formula on publicly dispensing recognition if Dallas captured a Super Bowl, and to confirm it during the final stages of negotiations, the two read each other the protocol. Then Jones offered Parcells a four-year contract worth $17.1 million, which would give the new head coach an annual salary larger than that of his four predecessors combined.

  “I knew I had run out of the benefit of the doubt, and I got scared,” Jones admits, alluding to mounting criticism of his micromanagement. “That motivated me to make a significant change—not just a coaching change, a philosophical change. When you come right down to it, hiring Bill represented a change in philosophy for me.”

  Jones imposed a signing deadline for the offer that would require Parcells to decide by the New Year. Meanwhile, though, Joe O’Donnell came to Parcells with an alternative possibility that intrigued his close friend. The Boston-based concessionaire believed that Parcells would mesh better with an NFL owner O’Donnell had known well since the 1980s: Wayne Huizenga of the Miami Dolphins. O’Donnell, whose company sold concessions at Pro Player Stadium, often visited Huizenga in Florida for business and pleasure.

  Huizenga’s team had also experi
enced a disappointing 2002 season, although to a lesser extent than Jones’s Cowboys. Under Dave Wannstedt the Dolphins finished 9-7, missing the playoffs for the first time in six years. This was a letdown for a talented team that had won eleven regular-season games in both 2000 and 2001, so O’Donnell urged Huizenga to hire Parcells, noting that the former Jets boss spent winters in Jupiter.

  O’Donnell recalls, “I said, ‘Look, this guy’s the greatest.’ Wayne said, ‘Well, he may very well be the greatest coach in the world’—and this is what you’ve got to love about Wayne—‘but I’ve committed to let Wannstedt run this out.’ Basically, that’s when Bill took the Cowboys job. Otherwise, he would have been coaching the Miami Dolphins.”

  The night before Jerry Jones’s deadline, Jimmy Sexton slept over at Parcells’s home in Manhasset with plans to check into the Garden City Hotel the next day. In the morning, just a few hours before Jones’s cutoff, Parcells empowered Sexton to accept the offer, but as the agent started dialing Cowboys officials anxious for a decision, Parcells stopped him. Wanting to be certain, Parcells volunteered to drive Sexton to his hotel, with Mandart coming along, and to decide before reaching their destination. A few minutes into the ride, Parcells gave Sexton the go-ahead and then almost immediately retracted it, invoking Mandart as the reason.

  “Kelly isn’t going to be able to make it with me if I take the job.”

  Parcells explains the seesawing more candidly. “My father used to have an expression: ‘The time to worry is before you place the bet—not after the wheel is spinning. There’s nothing you can do about it then.’ In every decision I make, I worry before.”