On the eve of the first practice of his 11th Giants training camp in charge, coach Tom Coughlin invoked a new Super Bowl rallying cry when he addressed his team Tuesday morning:
Burn the boats!
“It’s a mentality … the idea of coming into something with no turning back,” Coughlin told The Post. “The whole theme is, there’s no turning back.
“If you’re here for the right reason, all right? And you share with us the goals. And you’ve put the time and the effort into it, there is no turning back. Once this thing starts, it’s a full commitment, and we have to have everybody in that circle to get it done.
“And that story just illustrates the way in which the Grecian warriors were treated when they attacked another nation. As they landed onshore, the commanders told them, ‘Burn the boats.’
“Well burning the boats symbolized what? It symbolized that if you survive, you’re gonna defeat the opponent, take his boats, and you will have a chance to return home. But if you don’t do it, you’re not ever going home.
“So, the idea of that type of commitment, the idea of no turning back, is just an illustration, a story, a parable, which drives home a good message, and that’s what I was after.”
Coughlin is presiding over sweeping roster changes, and molding this 2014 team into a cohesive unit with the right chemistry will be critical. A year ago, Coughlin watched his boats burn across the first six weeks of the season. He revisited the horror of the first half of the 2013 season with his 2014 Giants.So, the idea of that type of commitment, the idea of no turning back, is just an illustration, a story, a parable, which drives home a good message, and that’s what I was after.
- Tom Coughlin
“It’s unacceptable,” one player said. “Point blank.”
Only a fast start is acceptable.
“It’s getting back to that mentality of winning championships — what does it take? What does it look like? How hard are we gonna have to work out here? The sacrifices,” the player said.
Burn the boats!
“Something else I think that was key that he talked about I took to heart the most was about burning the boats.
“The ancient Greeks were going to war — as soon as they got to the shore, they burned the boats.
“There’s no turning back.”
It has been written that when Alexander the Great burned his ships after he arrived in Persia in 334 B.C. (Before Coughlin) with an outnumbered force, one of his commanders asked, “How will we get home?” And Alexander’s answer: “We’ll use their ships.”
Some cite Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, who landed in Mexico with 11 ships and maybe 500 men in the early 1500s.
“With this act,” 919th Special Operations Group Commander Col. Jim Phillips wrote in 2012, Cortes “ensured the whole-hearted commitment of his men to the cause. With their only means of escape destroyed, the small army went on to conquer the Aztecs and to seize the riches they had set out to capture.”
No retreat. No surrender. All-in. Giants again.
Burn the boats!