Tom Coughlin will be one of five current and former NFL coaches who will travel to Iraq later this month with the inaugural NFL-USO Coaches Tour.
Coughlin is one of three Super Bowl-winning coaches — Bill Cowher and Jon Gruden are the others — in addition to Jeff Fisher of the Titans and John Harbaugh of the Ravens, to make the trip.
The coaches will travel to the Persian Gulf region and spend several days meeting and speaking with servicemen.
The NFL and USO have organized visits from players overseas for more than 40 years, but this is the first time coaches are involved.
“I have always had great respect for those who served,” Coughlin said. “In my time, we had the draft. Today, these people who are in Iraq and Afghanistan are volunteers. To spend time with them is to be able to sense the intelligence and the passion of these people and to stand in admiration and awe of this combination.
“Because, in the business I am in, you try to figure out what makes people tick and what makes someone an extremely successful individual in their chosen line of work or as an athlete. It is the combination of not only ability, but intelligence and determination and dedication and the heart.”
At the invitation of Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Coughlin was already planning a trip to Iraq before the league came calling. Coughlin has developed a friendship with Odierno, a Rockaway, N.J., native and Giants fan who is the commanding general of the multi-national force in Iraq.
Odierno has made several visits to the team both at Giants Stadium and at training camp in Albany.
Coughlin has also forged a relationship with Lt. Colonel Greg Gadson, who lost both of his legs while serving in Iraq and first served as an inspiration to the Giants during their 2007 Super Bowl run.
“In my time, it was the Vietnam War,” Coughlin said. “I was not a service man. I was not in the military. It was all by lottery and things of that nature.”