NFL

Former Giants push Parcells for Hall of Fame

One by one yesterday morning inside the Hackensack Golf Club grill room, a who’s-who list of former Giants players paid tribute to their Godfather.

Bill Parcells sat having breakfast at a table with George Martin, his former Giants defensive end and current president of NFL Alumni, and needled player after player as they came by to visit with him. It was as if the clock had been turned back to 1986 and the grill room was the locker room in the bowels of Giants Stadium. Parcells’ tongue was as sharp as ever.

Parcells, who donated his time to be a part of the first NFL Alumni Celebrity Golf Classic, was right at home. Literally.

He grew up in Oradell, N.J., the town where Hackensack Golf Club’s 18 holes lie. It’s the place his father was a member for some 40 years, the place where he was introduced to the game he now loves and plays quite well.

With each visit he had with his former players, you could see it in Parcells’ eyes how special these moments are for him. They were his lifeblood when he was coaching and still are to a large degree because the players still are family.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but we’re the only ones that really know,” he said. “Nobody else really knows want went on, so we’re the ones that know and that kind of a precious thing. “I always used to tell the players, ‘Fifteen years from now nobody’s going to know who we were. It’s just the guys here that are going to know.’

“But, that’s the guys that are important.”

You know what’s also important to Parcells? Being voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He is eligible to get in this year, and it would be borderline scandalous if he doesn’t get inducted.

Making his entrance even more special is the fact that he has the chance to enter with one of his favorite players and people of all time, Curtis Martin, who didn’t get in last year, his first year of eligibility.

Parcells is too proud to thump his chest or make his case, and he’s reticent to talk about the topic. But his former players couldn’t stop talking about him.

“Should it even be an issue, him getting in right away?” former Giants tight end Mark Bavaro asked incredulously.

“It would be a sham if he doesn’t get in right away,” former Giants nose tackle Jim Burt said. “No coach has done what he’s done. When I look at the greatest coaches, I look at [Tom] Landry, [Vince] Lombardi, [Bill] Walsh, [Don] Shula. Those are the upper echelon. Is Bill Parcells in that conversation? It’s a no brainer.”

Burt’s argument is the multiple places Parcells was successful building franchise into successes — the Giants, Patriots, Jets and Cowboys.

“Tell me another coach with the credentials he has?” Burt said. “Is there anybody? Bill Walsh did a great job, but he did it in one place. Vince Lombardi, the legend of all legends, did he do more than Bill Parcells?”

Bavaro’s argument for Parcells to get in was his uncanny ability to put the right players together and make them all better.

“I think a lot of us Giants reached greatness and I don’t think any one of us — except maybe Lawrence Taylor — would have reached that level without Bill Parcells,” Bavaro said. “On any other team I think we would have been good players, but with the Giants we were something special, and that was all Bill.”

If Parcells doesn’t get in right away, it only will be because his sometimes surly way with the media over the years turned a lot of writers off, and they may let that affect their votes.

If that happens, it will be pettiness to travesty proportions.

mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com