NEW ORLEANS — Heaven forbid two New York Football Giants champions should go into the Hall of Fame together, but at least they got it right this time when they voted in Bill Parcells on the night Michael Strahan was inexcusably unsacked.
You could hear the joy in Parcells’ voice over the cell phone last night, and when I asked him what he would want to say to the Giants fans who will forever be grateful for the two Super Bowls he delivered for them, Parcells said simply:
“Once a Giant, always a Giant, you know that.”
In his heart, he always has been a Giant, even after walking away following Super Bowl XXV, even after stops on the sidelines in New England and with the Jets and Cowboys.
Parcells also was asked who he was thinking about last night, and he said: “Mickey mostly.” His beloved old basketball coach at River Dell High in Oradell, N.J., Mickey Corcoran. “I’m glad he’s alive to see it. He’s 90 years old.
“Then, you know, all the players. My guys that are already in there.
“I want to be right next to them.
“My predecesors who paved the way for guys like me — the Landrys, the Shulas, the Chuck Nolls … the guys who have been my contemporaries — Joe Gibbs, Mike Ditka, those guys. Hopefully some day, these ones that are there now — Bill [Belichick], Tom [Coughlin], Sean [Payton] — I hope they’re next.”
Parcells didn’t only lead men and resurrect franchises, he helped build coaching careers.
“Remember what John Madden said in his speech when he got inducted?” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said in a statement. “He said when they shut the lights off and lock the door at the Hall of Fame at night, all the busts in the Hall talk to each other. I’m telling you, Parcells will hold his own in every one of those conversations. I guarantee that.”
Parcells also was asked who will be presenting him in Canton, and he said: “I have an idea, but I haven’t asked him yet.”
Parcells did it his way, just like Sinatra.
One tough coach who built one tough team for one tough town. And then another tough team when he took the 1998 Jets to within 30 minutes of a Super Bowl.
Parcells had his finger on the pulse of every player. He knew what made every player tick.
“That truly was one of his gifts, he just could read people well,” his former quarterback, Phil Simms, said. “He knew when to push you and make your life miserable, but also he knew when to do the opposite and pat you on the head. It’s a great quality for fathers. It’s a great quality for businessmen if they have it, and of course it’s an unbelievable quality for a football coach to have, because there’s no business where the man in charge is going in and giving out orders and demanding people to do what players do. There’s no business in the world that does that.”
His best motivational ploy?
“We all got to witness his egging on of Lawrence Taylor,” Simms said. “And the greatest story, which you’ve heard thousands of times — ‘Tayluh, I’m gonna have to name you Whatsthematter with.’ ”
LT’s response?
“Why is that, Bill?”
Then Simms said: “Because that’s all the reporters ask me, ‘What’s the matter with Lawrence?’
His Giants either loved him or hated him, or both. But always respected him.
“Bill had true toughness where he was able to work hard at his craft every day,” Simms said. “He never varied much, and every day was another tough day. That’s not always easy to do. You want to stay in shape, but do you have the toughness to go to the gym and work hard every day? So Bill had that in him. He created an environment where classroom work was tough and being on the field was tough. That’s the way he believed, and to me that style is still the most successful style in the NFL by far.
“There were many times you think, ‘Boy I just can’t take it.’ But you did, because you get accustomed to it over time. But for some reason when he did all that, you didn’t hate him for it, because there was a very human side to him, too. So that always took the edge off of the other stuff he did to us.”
You are what your record says you are. The record finally will say Bill Parcells is a Hall of Famer.