Parcells

by Bill Parcells

  When you get what you want in your struggle for self,

  And the world makes you king for a day,

  Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,

  And see what that guy has to say.

  For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,

  Whose judgement upon you must pass.

  The feller whose verdict counts most in your life

  Is the guy staring back from the glass.

  He’s the feller to please, never mind all the rest,

  For he’s with you clear up to the end,

  And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test

  If the guy in the glass is your friend.

  With four lines left, Parcells’s booming voice started cracking as his eyes welled up. But he read the poem’s final lines with power.

  You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,

  And get pats on the back as you pass,

  But your final reward will be heartaches and tears

  If you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.

  Parcells released the microphone and stepped away from the stage. In previous emotional addresses Parcells had tried to fight off tears. But this time he cried unabashedly as he headed out of the auditorium. Walking out, Parcells felt a love from his players, many of them teary-eyed, as they remained in their seats. The players glanced at each other, uncertain of what to do or say. And for a few minutes, no one spoke.

  During the afternoon, Parcells announced his resignation to the public, becoming the first head coach in franchise history to step down with a winning record: 30-20. He informed reporters that Bill Belichick was empowered to make all football decisions, while he himself would stay on as a confidant and consultant. Although the contract language lacked preciseness regarding ultimate authority, Parcells, still technically director of football operations at a $2.4 million salary, vowed not to overshadow Belichick. Big Bill insisted that New England’s interest in Little Bill was no factor in the development, although it certainly seemed to accelerate matters.

  Around the same time, Woody Johnson raised his offer for the Jets from roughly $600 million to $625 million, vaulting over the latest exorbitant proposal by Charles Dolan. Johnson’s bid was the highest ever for a New York sports franchise. Having exchanged increasingly breathtaking offers with the Knicks season-ticket holder since early December, Dolan now needed to go up another notch. Meanwhile, Belichick seemed to embrace his new duties, scheduling his first “family meeting” with Mike Tannenbaum and discussing preparations for free agency with Scott Pioli. In the late afternoon, Gutman and Parcells sat in on Belichick’s meeting with the head trainer to discuss injured players.

  A couple of hours later, at roughly 6 p.m., Parcells was in the coaches’ locker room when Belichick walked in and asked to revisit New England’s fax. Startled by the query, Parcells reminded Belichick of his apparent eagerness on Saturday to finally take over. Belichick countered that uncertainty about the Jets ownership was giving him second thoughts. Those remarks angered Parcells, who warned Belichick that the club wouldn’t allow him to interview with the Patriots, or any other team.

  Having spent fourteen of his nineteen NFL seasons under Big Bill, Little Bill believed that, given the circumstances, his mentor owed him the opportunity to look into New England’s attractive opportunity. Belichick was apparently drawn to the possibility of being a GM and head coach under a familiar owner like Kraft, as opposed to working for a neophyte owner like Charles Dolan or Woody Johnson while Parcells hovered with an unclear role. Parcells reminded Belichick about his contract, noting that Hess had paid the heir apparent a king’s ransom during the previous off-season. Parcells ended the conversation by stressing that if Belichick bailed out of his three-year, $4.2 million contract, the organization intended to seek compensation.

  Parcells recalls, “He made a deal, and then tried to get out of it. A deal’s a deal. You want out? You’re going to pay. Simple.”

  Despite the testy exchange, when Belichick departed the coaches’ locker room, Parcells assumed that his former lieutenant had been merely exploring his options. Belichick’s behavior, however, changed dramatically the next morning, several hours ahead of a 2:30 p.m. Q&A to introduce him as Parcells’s replacement. He appeared nervous and agitated while interacting with colleagues, which was odd for an ex–head coach groomed to guide the Jets. In Tuesday’s staff meeting, Belichick couldn’t prevent his hands from shaking. He ended the caucus early, telling his coaches that he would get back to them to reschedule.

  After Parcells taped a weekly TV show with Phil Simms, the erstwhile head coach returned to his office at roughly 2:15 p.m. About five minutes later, Belichick swung by to deliver a bombshell: the new head coach intended to use his introductory press conference to announce his resignation. Parcells was surprised though not quite shocked, given Belichick’s recent behavior. Still, the Jets chief seethed, reiterating that the club would bar Belichick from interviewing elsewhere, putting him in coaching limbo.

  Minutes before his press conference Belichick passed by the offices of several colleagues to give them a heads-up. He spotted Steve Gutman standing by his doorway after the team president had caught wind of the shocker. Belichick handed Gutman a loose-leaf sheet of paper containing three handwritten sentences. The first line read, “Due to the various uncertainties surrounding my position as it relates to the team’s new ownership, I have decided to resign as the HC of the NYJ.” Stunned and angry, Gutman followed Belichick to the auditorium to hear more details of the surreal switcheroo. Parcells, though, remained in his corner office down the hall, working on a short list of candidates to replace Belichick.

  Wearing a dark-gray suit, light-blue shirt, and navy patterned tie, Belichick took the podium. The forty-seven-year-old removed several sheets of paper from his suit’s left inside pocket. Reading a script that included the first line from his resignation letter, Belichick astonished a full house of journalists and TV cameramen. His opening statement ran for twenty-five minutes in a voice that occasionally cracked. He often gestured with his hands as sweat glistened on his brow.

  Belichick said, “The agreement that I made was with Mr. Hess, Bill Parcells, and Mr. Gutman, and that situation has changed dramatically. And it’s going to change even further.” He noted that the franchise had been expected to find a new owner by December 15, 1999. “There are a lot of unanswered questions here,” he told reporters. “I have been concerned about it since Leon Hess died.”

  To Parcells’s chagrin, Belichick revealed a slice of their private conversation from the previous day. “He told me, ‘If you feel that undecided, maybe you shouldn’t take this job.’ I took Bill’s words to heart—thought about it last night.” Belichick evaded questions about his coaching future while expressing contentment about the opportunity to spend more time with his wife, Debby, and their three children. Nonetheless, he conceded that he had hired a noted sports-labor attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, to extricate him from his contract.

  After Belichick departed the auditorium, Steve Gutman took the podium. The team president tried to make sense of the organization’s losing two head coaches within twenty-four hours, a period that included perhaps the strangest resignation in sports history. Referring to Belichick, Gutman said, “We should have some feelings of sorrow and regret for him and his family. He’s obviously in some inner turmoil.”

  The partnership between Belichick and Parcells had held together well during their sole season under Kraft, but the relationship had regressed during three seasons with the Jets. Despite Belichick’s substantial growth in the NFL under Parcells, and a guaranteed position as head coach, he ached to prove himself without his primary mentor and occasional tormentor. As Gang Green overcame a disastrous start in 1999, Parcells’s words had been as harsh as ever.

  Further complicating their partnership, the Jets organization contained a so-called Cleveland mafia, employees who had worked under Belichick with the Browns. The group, wh
ich even included Parcells’s son-in-law, Scott Pioli, seemed more loyal to the heir apparent than to the incumbent football chief. After Hess’s death, members of the coterie quietly realigned themselves with Belichick, while offensive coordinator Charlie Weis also started getting closer to his future boss. The dynamic created tension between the ex–Browns contingent and most of the coaches with deep ties to Parcells, like Dan Henning. So Belichick’s resignation upended the organization well beyond the head-coaching position.

  A few hours after the shocker, Belichick contested his inability to interview with other NFL teams by filing a grievance with the league office. Gang Green countered by sending the NFL copies of his contract. The next day Commissioner Paul Tagliabue faxed every club that until a final ruling, Belichick remained unavailable for employment consideration without Gang Green’s consent. The back-page headline of the New York Post mocked, “Belichicken: Jets Better Off Without Quitter.” Another headline punned, “Belichick Arnold.” Belichick recalls, “I knew I did the right thing, and I didn’t know where my career was going.”

  The Jets couldn’t postpone the Senior Bowl or free agency because of their internal dysfunction, so Parcells conducted an emergency staff meeting, outlining steps the organization would be taking in the upcoming weeks. While showing zero desire to reclaim head-coaching duties, Parcells withheld his thoughts about a replacement. When the meeting ended, Charlie Weis lingered to seize a private moment. Making sure no colleagues lurked within earshot, Weis implored Parcells to pick him as the new head coach.

  “I can do this job. I’m your guy.”

  Parcells, though, was already targeting a colleague he had valued since the late 1960s, with whom he had worked at two colleges and three NFL teams. By lobbying zealously Weis was jeopardizing a spot on any new coach’s future staff, so Parcells firmly rebuffed the offensive coordinator he had elevated from wideouts coach in 1997, cutting the conversation short.

  One week later, on January 11, Robert Wood Johnson IV won the right to purchase the Jets for $635 million, the third-highest price ever paid for a professional sports team. Based on Leon Hess’s will, the transaction meant $5.1 million for Steve Gutman beyond his salary. Known for donating money to autoimmune-disease research and Republican campaigns, Johnson ran a private investment firm on Fifth Avenue named after him. Much of the fifty-two-year-old’s wealth, though, came from Johnson & Johnson stock.

  His football jones stretched back several decades. While attending the University of Arizona, Johnson co-published Touchdown, a guide for Monday Night Football, which dissolved after three issues. But he was known more for his carousing, once reportedly falling eighteen feet off a darkened bridge in Tempe and breaking his back after pulling his car over to urinate. During his late twenties, Johnson had coveted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an expansion team. Now he had landed the Jets after Dolan declined to raise his latest bid of $612 million. Only hours after the cable TV magnate ceded, Johnson telephoned Parcells to introduce himself.

  Taking the call with Mike Tannenbaum in the room, Parcells remarked, “Congratulations. Being in pro football is not for the well-adjusted.”

  Johnson replied, “That’s good, because I’m not well-adjusted.”

  Parcells shared Johnson’s riposte with Tannenbaum. At the least their new owner had a good sense of humor. Or was he being serious?

  Johnson and his football chief soon met for a brief discussion focusing on Belichick. The owner agreed with Parcells that Gang Green shouldn’t free Belichick without obtaining at least a first-round pick. Their follow-up meeting was wide-ranging, with Johnson sharing his vision for the franchise. He implored Parcells to return to the sidelines, but the director of football operations declined. Johnson expressed an inclination to conduct a league-wide search for a top candidate, but Parcells insisted on continuity for a team only one season removed from an AFC Championship appearance. Parcells suggested promoting a talented disciplinarian with deep ties to him: linebacker coach Al Groh. The tough-nosed assistant’s only experience as a head coach had come at Wake Forest from 1981 to 1986, and based on his 26–40 record at the ACC school, Groh seemed like an improbable choice for head coach. Nonetheless, Johnson deferred to the franchise’s mastermind.

  Belichick’s grievance hearing came Thursday, January 13, at the Times Square headquarters of Skadden, Arps, the NFL’s counsel. Charlie Weis and Bill Parcells were required to appear at a thirty-eighth-floor office after Jeffrey Kessler, Belichick’s attorney, named them as witnesses along with his client. The Jets, represented by Steve Gutman and the club’s counsel, didn’t designate any witnesses. With Paul Tagliabue present for the 9:45 a.m. start, the opposing groups sat across from each other at a conference table. Each side made fifteen-minute opening statements. Then Kessler called Parcells as the first witness for a Q&A that lasted forty-five minutes.

  Charlie Weis started testifying next, and his statements jolted Parcells even more than Belichick’s resignation. During four minutes of testimony Weis supported Kessler’s main argument that Parcells had no intention of ceding true authority to Belichick. The offensive coordinator claimed he had overheard Parcells telling Gutman that Belichick wouldn’t quite gain the power he was contractually due. Parcells had known that Weis would testify, but never imagined him speaking so forcefully on Belichick’s behalf. Dan Henning recalls the situation: “Bill [Parcells] decides to go with Al; Belichick can’t coach for a year. Charlie [Weis] realizes that he has nothing. So that’s when he goes and thinks that he can get Belichick out of trouble by putting Bill [Parcells] in trouble.”

  Weis’s NFL coaching career had started in 1990 when Parcells hired the Jersey high school coach to an entry-level position. Impressed by Weis’s offensive acuity over the years, Parcells had promoted him multiple times with the Patriots and Jets. Parcells could only conclude that now Weis was ingratiating himself with Belichick, hoping for a position in New England.

  Kessler called his client as the third and final witness before a Jets lawyer cross-examined Belichick. The grievance hearing ended after roughly seven hours, and a ruling was expected within a week. Weis returned to his office the next day, but that move proved foolhardy when Parcells spotted him in the hallway. Incensed, the Jets chief immediately banned his offensive coordinator from the premises. “Charlie, you need to get your shit and leave the building.” Watched closely by Jets employees, Weis took only a few minutes to gather some items before scuttling out of the building. Moments after he exited, the team packed up the rest of his belongings and shipped them to his home.

  Parcells says, “I’ve told many coaches that friendship and loyalty is going to be more important than ambition. Some guys don’t realize that until after they’re done. I don’t bear any animosity toward Charlie. I can say that with a straight face because I know what he is. When somebody shows me what he is, I usually believe it. His actions back then don’t bother me anymore.”

  On January 21, Tagliabue ruled for the Jets, reasoning that Belichick had breached his contract by quitting. The league prohibited him from coaching in 2000 without the Jets’ consent or compensation. Tagliabue’s explanation echoed the one in 1997 that had prevented Parcells from joining Gang Green without New England’s permission.

  Three days after Belichick’s setback, the Jets named Al Groh as their new head coach with a four-year contract averaging $800,000. The fifty-five-year-old promoted Dan Henning to offensive coordinator, and hired Mike Nolan as defensive coordinator. Other notable additions included tight-ends coach Ken Whisenhunt and secondary coach Todd Bowles. Groh picked his son, Mike, as a quality-control assistant on offense. On the day of Groh’s official elevation, Belichick made a last-gasp attempt to overcome Tagliabue’s ruling by filing an antitrust lawsuit in federal court against the Jets and the NFL.

  By gaining 1,464 rushing yards to help his injury-ravaged team avoid a losing season, Curtis Martin had been voted Jets MVP. He planned to give the trophy to the person who most shaped him as a football pl
ayer and person: Bill Parcells. On January 24, Boy Wonder found out exactly when the Jets chief was meeting with the new coaching staff. That afternoon, Martin slipped into Parcells’s corner office while carrying his trophy and a one-paragraph letter with neat penmanship: seven sentences in blue felt-tip ink summed up his feelings about Parcells. Boy Wonder placed the items on Parcells’s desk before slipping out undetected.

  After the meeting Parcells walked into his office and immediately noticed the tall, gleaming trophy. “What the hell is this?” Parcells said aloud. He walked closer to inspect it, and spotted a white sheet of paper next to the trophy. As Parcells sat down to read it he received a phone call from his youngest daughter. Picking up the receiver to greet Jill, Parcells remained mesmerized by Martin’s note, quickly reading it through to the end. A few moments later, Jill heard her father quietly sobbing.

  “Dad? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  The letter, dated January 24, 2000, in the bottom left corner, read:

  Coach,

  This award is the best and most gratifying I’ve ever received. It means more than the pro bowls, the rushing title and the team records. You’ve given me and football some of your best years—and as a little token of my appreciation I give to you my best. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you are and all that you have done for me! You’re like a father to me.

  Love ya!

  Boy Wonder

  Late that night, Parcells headed home with the trophy and letter. He would laminate the note, and keep both in a glass case among his most prized possessions. The gift provided a much-needed salve amid the upheaval of Bill Belichick’s departure.

  On Tuesday, January 25, a federal judge denied Belichick’s request for a temporary restraining order, ruling that his Jets contract was valid. Accepting the futility of his situation, Belichick withdrew his antitrust lawsuit against Gang Green and the NFL. The development enhanced the team’s leverage, prompting Parcells to consult Woody Johnson about brokering a deal with Kraft on compensation for Belichick’s services.