Tom Coughlin’s Measure of a Life Well Lived

DAVID GREENE, HOST: Alright, everybody, we’ve got a Super Bowl all set, it’s gonna be the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. The big game is February 8 in Santa Clara, California. So what do you need to know?

Well, leading up to the game, you’re probably going to hear a lot about coaching. You’ve got Mike Vrabel, the New England Patriots coach, he could become the first person ever to win a Super Bowl as a player and then later as a coach for the same team. You’re going to hear a lot about Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald. He’s a young coach, already known as this defensive mastermind in the NFL, scheming up creative ways to stop an opposing offense. You’re probably going to hear a lot about the fan bases. In Seattle, they are loud, they are raucous, that crowd in Seattle, I mean, it looked like they were just willing their team to a victory over the LA Rams in the NFC championship game. And then you’ve got the New England Patriots fan base, I mean, as loyal and committed as they come. Boston, New England, great sports towns, and yeah, they are also really blessed.

I mean, if the Patriots win, they’re going to become the first franchise to win a seventh Super Bowl. That’s one reason why I’m going to be rooting against them, as a Steelers fan, I do not want the Pats to go ahead of us in Super Bowl titles, period. And to be honest, I think a lot of America is going to be rooting against the Patriots, I mea,n did they really need to get back here so soon? The Tom Brady era didn’t end that long ago, and during that period, they were unstoppable with Brady, the GOAT, they got to nine Super Bowls, the won six of them. Here’s the crazy thing: Two of their losses came to the same coach. That would be Tom Coughlin and his New York Giants; they beat the Pats in the Super Bowl twice. The first time, the Patriots came into the Super Bowl undefeated. So on the show today, we’re gonna spend some time with Coach Coughlin.

[MUSIC]

[CHEERING]

TOM COUGHLIN: I’m standing on the side on the third and seventh call.

DG: It is February 3, 2008. The New York Giants are taking on the 18-0 New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Tom Brady and the Pats are up 14-10, and with a minute left on the clock, Giants quarterback Eli Manning has the ball. He needs a first down to keep the Giants’ hopes alive. Giants head coach at the time, Tom Coughlin, was standing on the sideline as three Patriots were swarming Eli.

TC: You know, I see right away, it’s like a sip. Three guys have got Eli.

ANNOUNCER: Pressure from Thomas off the edge.

TC: It does look like he’s going down. And I’m saying, “Please, don’t blow the play dead. Don’t blow play dead!” And all of a sudden, Eli makes some kind of a whirling action with his shoulders and he kind of ducks up.

ANNOUNCER: Eli Manning stays on his feet.

DG: I remember watching this play, Eli Manning by some miracle escapes the defenders.

TC: And he runs up into the line of scrimmage. And the next thing you know, he’s throwing the ball down the middle of the field.

ANNOUNCER: Airs it out down the field!

TC: And he throws this ball down to David Tyree, who is going to the post, sees the quarterback scrambling around, comes back to the ball, gathers himself.

ANNOUNCER: It is caught byTyree.

TC: He goes up and catches the ball with both hands. Now, Rodney Harrison rips one of his arms away. So all he’s got left to provide support for the ball is one hand and his helmet.

ANNOUNCER: Pressing it against his helmet as he goes to the ground and not dropping.

TC: So he goes through all of this and he’s still never let go of the ball. I mean, even at the end, they’re still swiping away at him. Nope, he hangs onto the ball and he’s got it.

ANNOUNCER: Inside the 25 and a timeout taken.

TC: And now I call time out so we don’t waste any time getting up over the ball.

ANNOUNCER: And now with 59 seconds left, the Giants needing a touchdown.

[THEME MUSIC]

DG: From WHYY and PRX, this is Sports in America. Today we are talking to former New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin. He led the Giants to two Super Bowl victories in four years. And in this conversation, we’re gonna focus on the first one. It was arguably one of the most famous games in NFL history, with Coughin leading the underdog Giants to victory over the undefeated New England Patriots.

But let’s back up a minute because there is so much more to coach Coughlin than those Super Bowl highlights led on. He coached the Giants from 2004 to 2015, and in that time, he led New York to wins in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI, both against the same opponent, the New England Patriots. Coughlin was probably most notable for his stern, disciplinary approach to coaching. It earned him the nickname Colonel Coughlin. Classic Coughlin story, he would move clocks a few minutes ahead at team facilities so players would arrive early for team meetings and he’d even find players who did not arrive early.
Over the years though, Coughlin dialed back that tough love mentality and a lot of that change is tied to his wife, Judy, who sadly passed away in 2022. We’re gonna come back to that beautiful part of the coach’s story in a little bit. But first, let’s return to the sidelines of Super Bowl XLII. The Giants have 59 seconds to score a touchdown.
Coach, I, you know, I talk to a lot of players and I think we’ve gotten a lot of reflections from them about what the experience is like on the field. I don’t talk to lot of coaches. Like we see you on television. You’re, you know, you could be barking in the headset. You could be talking in the head set. You could listening. I know you, you’re one of the coaches who keeps both ears covered with the headset?

TC: Both ears covered.

DG: But like what’s going on? Like what are you saying, you call timeout after that famous helmet catch and then what is the conversation that happens? Who’s saying what into the headset and what role are you playing?

TC: Well, the only thing I’m saying is, okay, I’m going to take it. I’m taking time out here. Obviously I don’t want to waste time to get our team up there. Let’s get them in a huddle, get them organized for the next play. I don’t want to have a problem with the, with that either. So, but now the, the offensive coordinator, Kevin Gilbride, he’s right back into his first down play calling.

DG: So he’s telling you that he’s saying coach I’m calling this?

TC: Yeah, he’s going. He doesn’t even have to say that part of it. He’s making contact with Eli as Eli gets down in the field, because we got time out, so there’s no rush.
DG: So often times you’re listening, and if you’ve got to say something, you’ll say it, but otherwise you’re just letting your quarterback and your coordinator, you trust him.

TC: I’ve been the play caller. I don’t like, I didn’t like to be interrupted, okay? Now I’ll say something when the ball is dead or I’ll say something after a series, but if it’s a live ball in a series most of the time I’m not saying anything. I’m not going to inject anything unless I see something that needs to be done.

DG: What’s an example of something that needs to be done? When might you inject?

TC: Well, I might say “Run,” you know, I might say, “Run” or “Pass” if there seems to be a situation where it looks as though he needs me to clarify. I’ll say, “Okay, run, pass.” Whatever. Or repeat that play, you know, something like that. That’s what you say in those situations.

DG: Can I relive the play with 39 seconds left? You’re at the 13 yard line.

TC: Yeah.

DG: This is the winning play. What’s the play call? Take me through that second by second.

[MUSIC]

TC: In the huddle, okay? As the play is called, and it’s a repeated play.

DG: Repeated play being this is something you’ve run earlier in the game

TC: The play before.

DG: Oh, same play.

TC: The play before, yeah, same play.

DG: You decide we’re gonna run this again.

TC: Yes. Eli looks at Plaxico. He says to Plaxico, “Plax, if you’re single covered out there, the ball’s coming to you.” So Plaxico breaks out of the huddle. Eli comes to the line of scrimmage. He sees the secondary. The secondary is rotated to his right. Plaxico out to his left. The blitz, it’s gonna be the all-out blitz. Blitz zero, okay? And it’s coming from the right. Brandon Jacobs slides over there, picks up the extra rusher, okay? Eli steps back. Plaxico makes a slant fake. Okay. When he makes the slant fake, Hobbs, the very, very good defensive back, he has to honor the fact that it may very well be slant. So he kind of settles with his feet almost parallel. In the meantime, Plaxico has recovered from the slant fake.

[CHEERING]

TC: And he’s now releasing into the end zone and he goes right past Hobbs. Eli sees this, he throws the ball up in the air.

ANNOUNCER: Manning lobs it.

TC: From where I am, I don’t know if the ball’s ever coming down.

DG: (Laughs)

TC: It’s up, up, up, up. Come on, come on ball, come on, ball.

ANNOUNCER: Ball is alone.

TC: And then it’s Plax, catch the ball. You know, you see it every once in a while. The guy’s running wide open and he so open that he drops the pass. Well, you’re saying Plax catch the ball, catch, the ball, catch, ball, And the ball comes down and he braced himself and caught it.

ANNOUNCER: Touchdown New York!

TC: We go ahead, (Laughs) they still got 35 seconds left when Brady gets the ball, but we take the lead and it’s never over, not with that team. It’s never over, but I mean, obviously we’re, the sidelines going nuts.

DG: Can you hear what Eli’s saying in the huddle? Like, is that on your headset?

TC: I can’t hear. No, the coach, the quarterback takes care of that.

DG: Okay, so Eli’s not, you’re not hearing from Eli what’s happening in the huddle, in your headset, but then.

TC: No, no, no. I don’t hear what he said. I know what he said.

DG: It sounds like Plaxico realized when he saw the blitz that the blitz formation, he knew the ball was coming to him.

TC: He knew the ball was coming. He knew it was coming. Yup.

DG: Did you know that’s where it was going when you saw the-

TC: I did, as soon as I saw the rotation and the blitz.

DG: And it’s all a timing thing, right? I mean if Eli Manning releases that ball too quickly or is rushed I mean that balls off

TC: If you got penetration somewhere and he can’t judge it, I mean, in that case, obviously, the Plaxico was wide open behind the corner, but it’s still a delicate throw because you don’t want to overthrow a guy. You know, you don’t want to put him in that position because remember earlier in the game, you remember this? When Eli broke out of the pocket to his left and Plaxico was in the secondary literally all by himself. He would have had one man to beat. Well, with Eli breaking outside, Plax turned back to Eli. Eli thought he was gonna keep running. Eli throws the ball up where it would have been had Plaxico kept running. And Plax, when he reacts to see what’s gonna happen, can’t get there. And we lose a big play. He might’ve scored there. I mean, that was how, it was only one guy left on the field. And those things happen. They happen.

DG: Do you remember what you said either to Eli Manning when he came off the field or to Kevin Gilbride in the headset or after that play?

TC: (Laughs) I was so worried about the next play and then what was coming after that I didn’t say anything Yeah, I probably didn’t even say anything to them. I got more concerned with keeping Brady out of the end zone

DG: Do you remember telling your defense anything?

TC: No, I don’t remember, other than, you know, what to expect, you know, Moss and Brady. I mean, that’s how they beat us in Week 17, if you remember.

DG: Yeah.

TC: On a deep ball. So you knew, you knew that when that happened, there was back to back Moss right down the seam, literally down the seam. And he threw two rockets out there. I mean one of them had to go 60 yards. They rolled them to the right on the second one. And luckily, Gibril Wilson and Corey were in position, but the first one was defended more, I think, by Corey.

DG: So the game ends, you stop Brady and the Pats on that last drive, you win first thoughts as those seconds tick off.

TC: Well, we got to go out on the field and snap the ball and kneel down. That’s my favorite formation.

DG: I bet.

TC: And out we went, you know, it’s called victory.

DG: Victory formation, yeah.

TC: The place is going nuts, the place is going crazy. And I don’t know if you remember this or not. But, before the game was over, Bill Belichick came all the way across the field to almost our sideline, looking for me. And I went out, before it was actually over.

DG: Wow.

TC: He came all of the way over there. And then we went out and embraced on this sideline and exchanged some words. And Bill took some heat for that. But that was a very, very nice gesture, a very sportsmanlike gesture for what. You know, Bill’s a great student of the game and historically knows and here he was that, you know, that they were in a position for an incredible, you know, undefeated season and just a great football game that we were able to win.

DG:The Giants beat the New England Patriots in that Super Bowl XLII. But what a lot of people forget is the game that set them up for that win. The one Coughlin was just mentioning there, the two teams met in the final game of the regular season. And that Week 17 matchup changed the way the NFL viewed this unexpected Giants team.

TC: Week 17 was the first of the many challenges because as you well know, David, as soon as you qualify for the playoffs, the next question the media asks is, are you gonna play your players?

DG: Yeah.

TC: And so it’s kind of like….

DG: Are you going to rest them and get them ready for the playoffs.

TC: Yeah, script 101 you know that’s coming.

DG: Yeah.

TC: And I thought about as the head coach of the New York Giants there’s no way that I was going to have history reflect back on New York Giant team that did not put their best foot forward to play against the team that was striving for an undefeated season. So I told the players that right away they bought into it completely and of course it was a great football game totally different game from the Super Bowl XXXVIII, XXXV, we were ahead in the fourth quarter.

DG: Yeah.

TC: And then Brady to Moss kind of a deal, kind of put it out of reach for us. But we knew coming off the field that we could play with them.

[MUSIC]

TC: And I think that was a big factor going forward because no one ever gave us any credit for winning any of the previous games to the Super Bowl, nor the Super Bowl. As a matter of fact, all the Fox experts always picked the other team, including Tampa, 4-0. And then Dallas, of course Dallas had beaten us twice.

DG: Yep.

TC: So there was no reason to think that we were going to be successful there. And then Green Bay with Brett Favre was minus 24 degrees. And we went up there and Eli and Plaxico played like it was 75 degrees.

DG: That’s when you had a famously red face, I think. It was that cold at Lambo.

TC: It was for sure. It was minus 24. I went out pregame with a hat, no gloves, and I got out there. And I mean, if you’ve got ears like I’ve got, you should cover them up. You know what I mean?

DG: (Laughs)

TC: (Laughs) And I didn’t think I didn’t think there was any way I was going to get back into the locker room. It was so cold. But the first half, we were cold. Second half, I wasn’t cold at all. Now, I said that to Strahan. He said, “Yeah, you were numb, you were frozen. You’re already frozen.”

DG: Fans rightly remember the Super Bowl victory over the undefeated Patriots, but those underdog Giants had a hell of a time making it to the game in the first place. Coming up, we’ll hear about one of the most surprising playoff runs of this century.

Welcome back to Sports in America. Coach Tom Coughlin deserves all the praise for his victory over the Pats in that 2007 Super Bowl. But the games leading up to that historic win
were arguably just as exciting and unlikely.

Well, can I ask you about that NFC championship game at Lambeau. In overtime, I mean, it was a close call whether or not you would go for a field goal and risk it with a long kick. Were you thinking about punting and-

TC: Here’s what happened. Here’s what happened.

DG: Okay.

TC: I mean, we intercept the ball. Corey Webster’s got great hands. He catches the ball, air it, throw by far, runs it back. I don’t think we made an inch. We didn’t move the ball at all, okay? So it comes to fourth down. Now the two previous experiences, legitimately, Lawrence had missed a field goal. I think it was 43 or 46 yards. The second one, we had a bad snap. Jay Alford, a rookie, was our short snapper and Jay just you know the ball is frozen, he’s frozen and he snaps a bad snap, and Lawrence really can’t even, there’s no chance okay. So I’m on the sideline it’s fourth down so I wait. I look at Lawrence Tynes. He drops his cape and he runs out on the field and I yell “Field goal, field goal.”

DG: (Laughs)

TC: The coaches in the box are going “No coach don’t do that! Please look at the field position they’ll have if he doesn’t make it.” He could have made it from 55. But the real drama of that was earlier in the game, in the first half, I go up next to Lawrence and I looked at him and I said, “Lawrence, can you make a 46-yard field goal?” He turns his back on me and walks away, so…(Laughs).

DG: (Laughs) He didn’t answer you?

TC: No, he turned his back on me, and he walked away.

DG: Oh my.

TC: So, you know, in this situation, then we go through the negative, negative, you now. And now… we’re in the same boat we’re in. We gotta finish this thing and we gotta win it. But I wanna see where his mind is before I say what I’m gonna say. Because I don’t wanna, you know, he had not answered me at 46.

DG: Right.

TC: And here we are with a 47 yard field goal. And I, you now, he drops his cape and runs out on the field. That’s it, field goal, he thinks he can make it. I’m not gonna be the one that doesn’t let him do it. So I, okay, field goal, he goes and kick, could have made it from 55…

DG: But it was still your call?

TC: Oh yeah! No, no, he doesn’t make the call, I make the call.

DG: (Laughs) So what is happening at like, are the coordinator or your coordinators yelling at you in, in your headset at that point being like, “Don’t do this coach.” like “It’s too…”

TC: I can hear the talk upstairs. ‘”Coach, no, you know, be careful.” You know, the coordinators are on the field, so these are the guys that are in the headsets upstairs. And I can here what they’re saying, but I’m not paying any attention to them. And I, “Let’s go field goal.” And out he goes.

DG: Which assistants or coordinators are up in the booth in a moment like that?

TC: The coordinators are on the sideline. They’re not upfield, but they’re on the headset. I mean, there’s no doubt about it.

DG: They’re on there too?

TC: Oh yeah.

DG: So you’re listening to chatter from all of them? Like…

TC: I’m listening to whatever comes across, and I can’t identify exactly the voice, but the voice is “Coach, think about the field position that’s going to happen here if he misses,” you know, which was all legitimate.

DG: Yeah.

TC: But we, I mean, how often are you going to get in position? It’s taken five quarters. Okay, in the freezing, freezing cold, minus 24 degrees. So we’ve got a chance here to win the game. I know we can kick it far enough. You know, we’ve just had a bad experience that has to be overcome. And that was the snap. I mean, nobody wants to see that happen. It did happen. And Lawrence runs out there, kicks the field goal, puts us in the Super Bowl. And I mean it was a stroke that was true as soon as it got up in the air. And our sideline, you can see Antonio Pierce, our middle linebacker, his eyes are as big as 50 cent pieces as he sees the ball go up, because he knows we’ve made it. So we’re in the Super Bowl.

DG: Yeah.

TC: Oh, it’s good stuff.

DG: You arrive in Arizona for the Super Bowl, and the NFL had put the Patriots in a downtown Phoenix hotel in the center of the action. They assigned you guys to like a hotel in the middle of the desert.

TC: We’re in the desert, yep.

DG: It sounds like you weren’t unhappy about that.

TC: I wasn’t, I thought it was wonderful. I thought, first of all, it was a beautiful resort It was a beautiful resort and the guys were there and their families would be there within a couple days. So it was it was really a very very nice place for the families to be. Now It was 14 miles from downtown. So the first night I think all of the guys went out got dinner and had you know, so on and so forth. The second night not many of them went out because it was such an inconvenience to go that they decided, they decided no. So most of the nights the guys just stayed there.

DG: Might as well here. Is that the style that you would have asked for? Like a hotel kind of away from the distractions?

TC: I would’ve requested that one 10 out of 10 times. Troy Aikman and Joe Buck who came for the meeting.

DG: We’re calling a game, yeah.

TC: You know, they had the game. Troy Aikman came in and sat down. He said, “This looks like a Tom Coughlin hotel.” (Laughs) And it was!

DG: What is a Tom Coughlin hotel? Why do you think they said that?

TC: It was remote. It was out there. The distractions weren’t many, okay. The idea that the players would stay and visit with each other and, you know, when their families got there, their families would spend time with each other, that was even better. Because I know on Saturday afternoon, when the guys had a few minutes, a lot of them had their families out at the pool and the pool was right down from where the room that I had was. So I could see them out there with the babies kicking in the water and having a good time, but they were there, right? Right with us. So there was really no chance that there was anything gonna happen that I didn’t want to have happen.

DG: Tell me about what you told the team on Saturday night?

TC: Saturday night, we go through a normal routine and that Triggs always made me, we’d talk about a kind of video that I wanted that night to make my presentation even more important. And we always had a series of plays that we discussed and talk about with the opposition.

[MUSIC]

TC: But my message to the team that night was that I wanted them to win and to be world champions, because what was important was, when you are the world champion, your mother, your father, your wife, your children, your coaches along the way, they’re all world champions. And it’s something that you can share with each other. You’re at the top of your profession. You’re at the top the world in your profession and you have all these people who are responsible for the reason that you got there and you can share it with them. And that’s what I wanted for our team. I wanted our team to experience winning so that the mothers, the fathers, the wives, the children could all enjoy and share with us.

DG: It sounds like on Sunday morning, the morning of the game, you were in your hotel room surrounded by your family. I think there’s a story that you tell about one of your granddaughters was like drawing all over your game plan. (Laughs).

TC: Yeah, I get up early on game day and I have peace and quiet in the, I had a little, an office area. So I was there and I had all my stuff in front of me. I had my game plan, my play calling card. You know, I had various things statistically. I had a lot of stuff out there. So I look up, and here comes about four or five of my grandkids through the door, okay, and they come over and I’m sitting in a chair and they start crawling all over me and there’s a bunch of crayons there, different color things that you highlight with. And now they start drawing and my oldest granddaughter, she’s drawing pictures on top of my game plan card and it actually made me smile and laugh because they were having a great time. Just enjoying all the stuff that I had there on my desktop. And that was, to see them doing that and enjoying themselves was really fun.

DG: That help you stay loose?

TC: You know, I had some peace. I don’t know where that came from, other than the fact that I knew we had prepared well. I knew that, okay? And I knew that everything was in order for me going into the game. As a matter of fact, I was gonna go over and jump on a
treadmill probably within a half hour of when the kids left my office.

DG: The work was done.

TC: Well, I never used that phrase. I never use, I’m gonna coach him, we’re gonna talk about it right up until the kickoff. So there was no hay in the barn talk, but I knew, I knew we had prepared well. I knew that the structure of what we had done had been uninterrupted. I knew that our preparation, we used the Arizona Cardinal Facility. I knew it was turned over completely to us. We had all the video equipment, everything was ours to be used properly. We had their weight room. We actually had the afternoon practice session. So we had, we would get up in the morning. Our players had breakfast, then they had the media. Then we traveled over to the Cardinal facility for our meetings and then eventually practice. Practice was over. We would, you know, whoever wanted to do a little extra strength work or whatever. I remember Strahan being in there kind of late going back to the hotel in the second bus. I knew we had done everything the way I wanted it to be done. And I felt good about that, you know, going into the afternoon as we got ready to go
over the stage.

DG: Going into that Super Bowl, what were you thinking about the stakes and what was on the line?

TC: You know, I didn’t let myself go there with you know, what’s this gonna mean to this guy and that guy? What is it gonna mean to me? Everyone knew what was at stake. I had made it very, very clear to everybody, the players, coaches, everybody, exactly what was at stake. I mean, we all know that if you’re in a Super Bowl, you really need to win it because nobody remembers who was even in the game shortly thereafter and it doesn’t become a feather in your cap to be beaten in a Super Bowl. So we knew all that, I knew all of that. But what it came down to, and the way that I wanted it presented to our team was, you’re prepared, you’re ready, okay? We’re gonna do everything in our power as a coaching staff to put you in the best position we can put you. And then you’ve got to make the plays necessary for us to win. And I always believed in that statement about playing above the X’s and O’s. You gotta play above, and I always tempered that statement with a thought about, and a lot of times, the play that makes the difference in a game comes from somebody you didn’t think was going to be that big a factor in the game. And that’s the way it was presented.

DG: Coach, I wanna talk about your reputation as a real stickler for rules, a disciplinarian.

[MUSIC]

DG: Eli Manning tells this story of in his first years, you ordering him to diagram hundreds of blitz packages from other teams and how he would react as quarterback, even to a point of when he didn’t do it to your liking, you started redlining it and gave it back to him. And I’m just amazed because that winning touchdown was so based on a quarterback knowing how to respond to a blitz.

TC: Oh, no doubt.

DG: Did that validate all that work that you and Eli did together and kind of your, your style and…

TC: You got to remember going back, David, is that I started Kurt. Kurt Warner won the job in the summer and deserved the right to start.

DG: In Eli’s first year.

TC: That first year, yep, in ’04. So, by the time we, you know, as that was going on, I was not gonna let Eli just stand there on the sideline and not, you now, develop and be in a position where I thought he was ready to go when we decided to move him in. So one of the things I had him do was he would draw every blitz. Let’s say we’re gonna play the Philadelphia Eagles. He would draw every blitz in their repertoire and he would describe it. He would block it, he would tell the protections, and he would recognize whether it was a hot or a side adjustment or whatever. What would he do to stifle the blitz? How would he adjust the protections? What would you do, et cetera? So I made him draw all of these blitzes out and identify them and tell me what he would do about it. And then he would turn it into me, and I would, you know, I’d look through it. I would agree, disagree. I would mark it with a red pen. I would do all that. One week he tried to slip it by me, thinking, you know, he’ll never, he’s not gonna look at this stuff.

DG: (Laughs) So he can’t possibly expect me to do this all the time.

TC: So I’m looking, looking, and I’m, what is this? This is the poorest edition of his blitz pickup that I’ve seen, you know? So I mark it all up, mark it up and give it back to him. Now he’s gotta give it back to me, correct it. But that, for somebody as bright as he is, you know, this guy was, his wonder lick is off the Richter scale. He was a 4.0 as a freshman in college, I know that. But he’s really a smart young man. And the two qualities that he doesn’t get enough credit for is one is intelligence, meaning you could do whatever you want with him. He’s always gonna retain it. He’s also gonna know what you want. And secondly, he’s gonna line up and play. I mean, he played, you know, one year he had a separated shoulder, he still played. You know, so he was gonna line-up and play, and what a wonderful thing that is for a coaching staff to not be guessing. You know, on Monday, whether or not he’s going to play the following weekend, because it determines what, how sophisticated is your plan going to be. So those were the things about Eli that, you know people kind of overlook the fact he just lined up. You know, he’s gonna line up

DG: But did that play validate kind of your, your focus on all those, all that stuff you were making him do? The fact that the Super Bowl was won on a…

TC: Sure. But by then, you know, he, he started, he won 11 games, you know, the year that he started from completion, from beginning to end. We won 11 games that year, which was his second year, his sophomore year.

DG: But you came in to the coaching job with the Giants with this kind of reputation out there from the time in Jacksonville. And I mean, Michael Strahan in the beginning, I mean he says that as you were coming in, he even used the word “Hated you.”

TC: Yeah, he did.

DG: You know, not wanting to have a disciplinarian in your kind of style. Like how did you overcome that in the locker room?

TC: Well, I can still, in those days, I don’t know if you remember the old Giants stadium. It had the spiral back down to the bottom.

DG: Yeah, of course!

TC: And the bottom was like where the cafeteria was, and it was like aluminum stairs. So I can hear him clunk, clunk coming up to my office. So here he comes, he comes in, he’s got this real sour puss, and he really wants to talk to me about what my plans were, and he’s kind of representing the whole team. He’s the spokesman now for the team. And you know, we banter back and forth and have a conversation. Here’s what I came to learn about Michael Strahan, okay?

[MUSIC]

TC: First of all, he’s a military kid, okay. His dad was stationed in Germany and that’s where Michael kind of grew up as a young man. Michael was heavy as a youngster. So his dad got him to work out with him. You know, taught him some things about proper diet and so on and so forth and, and exercise routine. But his dad was military. So I knew it in the back of my mind. I believed that I could get through to Michael Strahan, because I knew what his value system really was, even though he may not have wanted to share that with me. And it took time. It definitely took time, but it took time and you know spending time together and him seeing us in action He had gone through a year, I don’t know if you remember, he was on IR. Those things all contributed to the terrible year in 06. Wasn’t terrible, it was eight and eight, but we would have been a better football team had we had all the tools available to us.

But so eventually, the one thing that Michael would tell you is that he had all these individual recognition pieces that you could possibly want as a player, but the one he really wanted had escaped him. But you’re not gonna win a world championship without being the best of teams. Team, not the individual, team, okay? And he, of course, had his role with his teammates, but had missed training camp that last year, okay? And I decided to handle it a little bit different way. I called him. I constantly was maybe once a week, I would let him know where we are as a team. You know, “Are you in good shape? Are you still thinking about what you wanna do?” And I had, I think I had convinced him that if you’re gonna come back, you know, and I said it this way, I didn’t beg him to come back. I said, “Michael, we’d love to have you back. But if you’re going to come back make sure that your heart is in the right place. Make sure you come back for the right reason. Because we’re gonna be dependent on you, you know, once you get here to be the best that you can be.” He wasn’t back two days and he was voted captain. So that tells you a little bit of what, what the players thought of him.

DG: Preparing his team for the Super Bowl was a difficult challenge, but staying by his wife’s side when she was diagnosed with a rare brain disorder. That is what Tom Coughlin wants to be remembered for. Coming up, we hear about the coach’s heartbreaking and ultimately beautiful journey as a caretaker.

Welcome back to Sports in America. Tom Coughlin overcame every challenge the NFL threw at him as coach, executive, and Super Bowl champion. But the highest honor of his life was taking care of his wife after she was diagnosed with a fatal brain disorder. When we spoke, she had passed away only a few months prior.

I have to say, I know this has been a very painful time for you. You lost your wife, Judy, about a month ago before this conversation that we’re having, I’m so sorry. I am keeping you in my prayers and your family as well.

TC: I appreciate that, thank you. Thank you so much. And November 2nd, she passed away, 3:31 in the morning. If you know anything about the Jay Fund, you know 31 means quite a bit to us.

DG: That’s your foundation to fight cancer.

TC: My foundation that helps families who have a child with cancer.

DG: And remind us about the 31 connection so everyone knows.

TC: Jay McGillis, the young man whose name is respectfully put on the Jay Fund Foundation, was my starting strong safety at Boston College who died of leukemia. And I watched what his family went through. And I saw them run to the bedside of the sick child. I saw them stop working. I saw then go into debt. And one of my linebackers, a guy by the name of Mike Pannell, he’s a great kid, came to me in the spring and he said, “Coach, we got to do something to help the McGillis family.” And I said, “Oh, sit down, we’ll talk about it.” We came up with this, what we call the Lift-a-Thon. In those days, the players would do a max bench squat, power clean, you know, before they went home for the summer. And so we did that, but they went out and got pledges from people in the community. We raised $50,000 and gave $50,000 to the McGills family at halftime of the spring game. That gave me the idea of what I was going to do when I had the opportunity to give back. It would be in the spirit and the name of Jay McGillis, and we would help families in a practical way that a child with cancer. So we pay for mortgage payments, rent payments, car payments, electric bills, you name it. If it’s of the practical nature, transporting them back and forth to the hospital, funerals, whatever we can do to keep the family unit together while they’re going through the idea of helping a child recover from cancer. For 28 years, we’ve been doing this. We have one section of the Jay Fund in New York, New Jersey, one in Jacksonville, Florida. We’ve helped well over 5,000 families. We’ve assisted them with over $17 million in assisted aid. So we’re trying to make a difference.

DG: It’s amazing work coach.

TC: Thank you.

DG: So you were, you were talking about the, I guess it was early in the morning that, that Judy passed.

TC: 3.30 in the morning, 3.31 in the morning.

DG: And she was diagnosed with a disease called progressive supernuclear palsy, which I will tell you my grandmother died of…

TC: Seriously?

DG: Yeah.

TC: Oh my goodness.

DG: I know how rare it is, yeah.

TC: Very rare.

DG: No, it really is, and it’s…

TC: It’s a terrible disease because it robs you of everything. For the last year and a half, Judy couldn’t walk. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t do anything.

[MUSIC]

TC: Now she’d express herself with her eyes. She could smile and I knew she, she knew what I was saying to her. She knew right up to the very end. Because I always made a big deal about, like in the morning, come in, I’d put the blinds up. I’d, you know, turn the television on. I would get down on her face and tell her I loved her and good morning and all of that stuff. So I knew when she would smile. And when she had a good day, we all had a great day. When she had bad day, we had a bad day.

DG: You’ve been speaking out about those days, the good and the bad and kind of the experience of caregiving and what that was like for you. What do you want all of us to know about that?

TC: You know, I wrote an article in the New York Times about this, caregiving is all consuming. The first thing you do is your day, your schedule is all built around the person that you’re taking care of. You don’t have your own day, you don’t your own time. Every day is basically the same. You start out like for us, start out at six in the morning, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, boom, boom, boom. The schedule goes on to try continuity is important when people are struggling with that. You know, dementia being such a big part of it. Okay, so, but there’s a physical aspect to it. There’s a mental aspect to it. When I said to you that if Judy’s having a bad day, I’m having, I mean, you really wonder whether you have any worth. You know? You fail. You failed at your one job. And that was to take care of this person that you love, okay. And if you’re not able to accomplish that, every day sets out that you want them to want them to have a great day. Okay, they may not have many left or whatever, but you want to have a great day. And when that doesn’t happen, you’re questioning yourself. And it’s not fair to people out there.

And I was the number one caregiver, but I could afford to have other caregivers. I had a person there from eight in the morning till eight at night. And together, I would do all the preparation and all of that, and they would be with Judy. They would read to her, and we would play music. But there are lots of families that you can’t afford that. Now it falls upon just the main caregiver and family members, et cetera, and to say that it’s not an easy job is an understatement. There’s nothing about it that is easy or simple. It’s hard, it’s hard work. And people have to give themselves a break. They have to gives themselves a chance to have somewhat of a life. And without that you’re not any good to the person you’re taking care of. You know, you gotta take care of yourself. So physical activity, I’m ashamed to say it, but I did not read a book in three years. I couldn’t sit there and focus long enough to read. So what happened at night is after you put it to bed, you’re like a vegetable. You know you sit in your chair like this for another couple of hours and then you go to bed and you start the day over again.

DG: So your advice is you’re not being selfish if you’re taking time for yourself.

TC: Got to do it.

DG: You’re actually helping, you’re helping the person you’re caring for.

TC: You have got to do that. You’ve got to eat right. Now luckily for me, we had basically a Mediterranean diet. Judy ate really well all the way up to the last month or month and a half. But diet is important, exercise important.

DG: What about that burden? How do you tell people to deal with that feeling of pressure and that feeling of failure if you look at someone you love who’s very sick and is having a bad day? How do not put that on yourself?

TC: (Laughs) I don’t know, because I did. I put it on myself, but it’s not fair to do that to yourself, really. And you need some help. Sometimes you just need a break, you know? Sometimes you, just go watch a Sunday afternoon football game without having to do this, that, or the other thing. So I had great help. I had two children that live nearby, and they’re my daughter-in-law, my son-in law, they would all chip in and help, but you definitely need to give yourself a break.

DG: Coach, you, you wrote that you thought that the Super Bowl wins while coaching the Giants were the culmination of a life lived in service of certain values, but that actually your time with Judy was the culminate of that. What are those values?

TC: Yeah obviously, the…look…she, Judy…Here’s the way I say it best, okay? We were married for 55 years. For the last five years, I was Judy’s caregiver. For the first 50 years, she was my caregiver. So, I looked at this when I finally came home and I was there just to take care of her. That was my job, and I was gonna do that to the best of my ability because Judy would have done that for me. She is my responsibility, and my love for her is going to permeate everything that I do, knowing full well what she’s going through, and when they say the word progressive, they mean progressive. It’s a fast-moving disease. So my commitment was to make her as comfortable and as best that she could be under the circumstances. And to that end, even with our grandkids around, she loved the chaos. She couldn’t show it, but she loved it. So you’d have Thanksgiving dinner would be you know, there and be kids running all around and doing all kinds of, but she loved that.

DG: And can you reflect a little bit on this feeling that, I don’t know that you, you saw those Super Bowl wins as some sort of end to a journey, but now you see them as, as not that at all, that that, that the really important journey in your life was the one the last few years.

TC: Well, I’m not saying that winning the Super Bowl wasn’t important, but what I am saying is that, as I said, there’s one ring that’s more important than the other ones. And that was someone who I loved was in desperate need. I’m gonna be there, no matter what.

DG: Coach, it’s really a pleasure talking to you. And your wife sounds like she was an extraordinary person.

TC: You would’ve liked her, you would’ve liked her.

DG: Yeah, I can feel that already.

TC: Her smile lit up the room. She loved and she cared, and she had time for everybody, treated everybody the same. Everybody had a spot in her life, and she would always acknowledge it. She never wanted to be up front. She always wanted to be in the background. And that’s why when it came to her celebration of life, we were gonna, my family, my kids and I, we were going to make sure that she would be proud of what transpired. Sure, we’re gonna cry, but we’re also gonna tell stories and laugh and make this something she would’ve been happy to have been a part of.

DG: When his wife died, her absence created a void that initially Coughlin struggled to fill, but he’s upbeat and he’s trying new things, including working on a book about the 2007 Super Bowl.

What’s next for you, Coach Coughlin?

TC: I wish I knew. I wish I knew. I don’t know. You know, I was fortunate enough. Greg Hanlon and I wrote this book and I really enjoyed writing this book. I enjoyed the memories. I enjoyed thinking about the various individuals, the players and going into detail about their personalities and that type of thing. Studying the game again and watching, you know, the different series and the highlights and things that I enjoy talking about. So I did enjoy all of that. And I think the first thing for me is I’m kind of a routine guy. I got to get a new routine. I am not back there yet. You know, I don’t have it yet. I’m not there yet right now for example, I don’t know what to do between six and eight in the evening. Cause that was when, you know, we prepared the meal. We gave her the meal, we cleaned up. We prepared her for evening. We put her to bed. You know those things prevailed our evenings. And of course I’m not doing that right now. So. I do need to come to terms with my physical activity has improved and that’s a good thing, and I’ll continue that, but I do have to work this thing through again. I need to get something good to read and I need stimulate myself that way again, and I love dabbling in the football. I don’t know what’s out there for me, but enjoyment of keeping track of the game and watching the game and all those kinds of things. I enjoy that.

DG: Coach, great talking to you. We really, really appreciate it.

TC: Thank you, David. Enjoy talking with you.

DG: Next time on Sports in America.

[CHEERING]

[THEME MUSIC]

ANNOUNCER: This would be the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.

DG: We’re gonna revisit one of the most electrifying Super Bowls ever. Just a year after Coughlin and the Giants took down the Patriots. This one between my Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals. We talked to surefire Hall of Fame wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald about what it feels like to come so close to winning on that stage only to have it snatched away in the final seconds.

LARRY FITZGERALD: Ugh, man, It’s a lot. It’s a lot. I’ve seen that many grown men crying at the same time.

DG: We’ll also break down this year’s Super Bowl matchup with Madeline Hill and Charlotte Wilder from The Athletic, can’t wait for that conversation. Oh, and one small production note from our end, we’re gonna move our podcast drop day from Tuesday to Thursday. So our Super Bowl episode is gonna hit your feet on Thursday, February 5th. Lastly, we wanna hear about your own Super Bowl letdowns or your hometown heroes, the insane comebacks that made you a ride or die fan. So if you can drop us a line at sportsinamerica@whyy.org. That’s sportsinamerica@whyy.org. All right, see you next week. We’ll have more Sports in America.

[THEME MUSIC]

This is Sports in America. I’m your host, David Greene.

Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa.

Our engineer is Mike Villers. Our talent booker is Brit Kahn. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling.

Sports in American is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia and is distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports, with special thanks to Adam Schlossman.

You can find Sports in America on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeart Radio app, you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Host: David Greene
Executive Producers: Joan Isabella, Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Talent Booker: Britt Kahn
Engineer: Mike Villers
Tile Art: Bea Walling

Sports in America is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.

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