Bill Parcells a football man, first and foremost

[DolFan619]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/dolphins/content/sports/epaper/2008/08/28/0828parcells.html

Bill Parcells a football man, first and foremost

By CARLOS FRÍAS
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Suzy Schwille laughed when a friend in the dentist office where she works yelled from another room that Schwille's famous father was coming out of retirement. At least, that's what they were saying on TV.

"That's got to be wrong," Schwille replied while cleaning a patient's teeth.

Deep down, part of her knew it could be true. So Schwille stepped away from the chair to watch the report herself.

Sure enough, Bill Parcells, who had retired from the Dallas Cowboys just 11 months earlier, had accepted the job of resurrecting the Dolphins.

It wasn't until that evening last December that Schwille's phone rang.

"A little late, aren't you?" she asked her father.

"C'mon, Suzy," Parcells replied. "I already got enough of it from your sisters."

If you ask Schwille if she is surprised that her 67-year-old father agreed to tackle the task of turning around the 1-15 Dolphins instead of kicking back for good in his homes in Saratoga, N.Y., and Jupiter, the answer is a definite yes.

If you ask if she's surprised that he didn't talk to a single family member before making the decision, she's just as definitive with a no.

"He never made us part of his inner circle," said Schwille, 45, the oldest of Parcells' three daughters.

To be in Bill Parcells' inner circle, the tight-knit group of friends whom you can "count on the fingers on one hand," as he once said, means to understand and appreciate his competitive drive and absolute need to be immersed in football.

The Dolphins position - executive vice president of football operations, which puts him in control of players, coaches and front-office personnel - is his first NFL job that doesn't involve coaching.

Even those in the inner circle are waiting to see how that turns out.

"I'm curious to see how he's going to do with this," said Bob Green, a 56-year-old retired physical therapist and golf partner of Parcells who has known him for nearly 25 years. "I think it's good for him. It keeps him in the game ... I know if he can't be the best, he's not going to do it."

Parcells delights in his reputation as a tough-talking, blue-collar guy from New Jersey who eats at diners, speaks his mind, motivates players with a mix of inspiration and intimidation, and consistently makes paupers into playoff contenders.

In truth, Bill Parcells is an enigmatic man, a complicated father of three, divorced after 39 years. A bright student who turned down a chance at a law career, a pro baseball contract and all semblance of a normal life to win on the football field.

"God put you on this earth to be a football coach," his high school coach and closest friend, Mickey Corcoran, once told him.

In Bill Parcells' world - for better or for worse - there has never been another option.

Even as a youngster, he liked to 'stir the pot'

Ida Parcells, Bill's mother, liked to bring a bit of the old country to her family, spicing up conversations and lectures with Italian. About the oldest of her four children, the former Ida Naclerio would say: Le piace mescolare la pentola.

He likes to stir the pot.

As a boy, Bill Parcells reveled in making mischief.

There was the time his parents, aunt and uncle were headed to a dinner and show, and Bill convinced his younger brother, Don, that they should load their pea shooters with blueberries for some target practice. Bill set his sights on his aunt's crisp, white skirt, hit her in the caboose and ran off laughing.

He chuckled after shooting an arrow through a window and pouted when he didn't get his way. His mischievous streak made him the center of attention.

"Bill is the one who made mom crazy," said Parcells' youngest brother, Doug, 55.

Bill looked more like his father, Charles, who was 6 feet tall and handsome with a shock of prematurely silver-white hair. But Bill had the demeanor of his mother, who was barely 5-4 with a "short fuse," Doug said. "She enjoyed a good argument.''

Parcells grew up with a deep sentimentality for his parents, whom he often quoted later in life, and his siblings, particularly Don, who was two years younger.

Bill and Don shared a bed in the family's small house in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J. After Doug came along 12 years later, Don and Doug shared an upstairs bedroom, the only one with an air conditioner and radio. Bill had his own room, but he'd drag his mattress upstairs, lay it on the floor, and together the Parcells boys would fall asleep listening to doo-wop and rock 'n' roll.

Young Bill usually got his way, even when it came to unofficially changing his birth name, Duane Charles, which Doug said his brother "always hated.''

Assigned to a new school, River Dell High, in his sophomore year, he found that students confused him with a boy named Bill. So Parcells adopted the name and made it stick.

Charles and Ida were happy when Bill applied his cocksure attitude to sports. Charles, nicknamed "Chubby" despite his slender build, had been a track and football star at Georgetown but never encouraged his sons to play football. He preached education and was living proof of its rewards, graduating from Georgetown Law and working for the FBI before become a lawyer for Uniroyal Tires.

Bill's athletic gifts, leadership skills and desire to be in control made him the quarterback, best pitcher and 6-foot-2 center at River Dell High School.

Before his first year at River Dell, basketball coach Mickey Corcoran asked incoming student-athletes to participate in a summer practice. Corcoran ran them through drills, but noticed that after each one, the center with piercing blue eyes would stand with hands on hips, staring at the coach.

"He stood at the back of the line and looked me over good, like, 'Who is this guy?' " Corcoran said. "He wanted to check me out."

Before the season started, Corcoran, who had a high school coach by the name of Vince Lombardi, got a visit from Charles Parcells.

"Sometimes," the elder Parcells said, "Duane needs a kick in the ass. Don't be afraid to give it to him."

Corcoran started pushing his temperamental player. On more than one occasion, Bill was tossed out of practice for losing his temper, including the time he kicked a ball into the stands. But the next day, he'd be back in Corcoran's office, begging to rejoin the team.

"That's when I knew I had him," recalled Corcoran, 86.

Reshaping Parcells' volatile approach was a challenge. During one game, he was hit with a technical foul for arguing a call. Corcoran sat Parcells on the bench alongside him, and together they watched a 17-point lead turn into a one-point loss.

"If I put him back in and we win, I don't think he learns the lesson," Corcoran said.

Parcells was learning the value of discipline and soaking up Corcoran's knowledge. After practice, Parcells would stick around and talk strategy and theory with his coach. They went to Columbia football games together, another chance for Parcells to pepper Corcoran with questions.

Despite Corcoran's influence through basketball and Parcells' love of football, everyone figured Bill's future was in baseball. At 16, he was playing in a semi-pro league, lining up with players 10 years older.

Charles viewed sports as a healthy diversion, but wanted his son to study law. Bill decided to play football in college. He was a freshman at Colgate when the Philadelphia Phillies offered him a contract. Charles quickly nixed that idea. Parcells then transferred to the University of Wichita (now Wichita State), where he played linebacker in 1958-59 and earned a physical education degree.

Ultimately, no matter the sport, Duane Charles "Bill" Parcells reveled in every ingredient that led to victory - the mental and physical sacrifice, strategy, gamesmanship, camaraderie.

His was a relentless pursuit of competition and conquest, but, as Charles Parcells always told his sons, "The gods have their price."

Coaching, not family, was first priority

On the day the first of Bill Parcells' daughters was born, he was playing college football.

On the day Suzy graduated from high school, he was coaching football.

When she graduated from college, he was across the country coaching again.

During Parcells' first 15 years in coaching, he moved his family to eight cities - from Wichita to West Point, from Tallahassee to Nashville, from Texas to Colorado.

Married at 19 to his college sweetheart, Judy, who was 20 at the time, Parcells worked 14- and 16-hour days. He left before his girls were up in the morning and returned when they were asleep.

When he was home, "the tone of the household was different," Suzy Schwille said. The girls would tiptoe around, careful not to draw their father's ire.

"For most of my life, my dad was there, but not really there,'' she said. "Unless there was some reason to put down some punishment or discipline.

"We were all kind of scared of him, and he wanted it that way."

Although Suzy was a swimmer and cheerleader, Parcells never made it to any of her events. The youngest, Jill, played basketball in high school; Judy Parcells remembers her ex-husband attending "one or two'' games.

"I don't think he knew what to do with girls," Judy Parcells said.

Parcells' middle daughter, Dallas, is married to Scott Pioli, who as vice president of player personnel is credited with helping to build the New England Patriots into a powerhouse.

Because of the football connection, Dallas, 43, chose to limit her conversation about her father.

Told what her older sister and mother said about her father, Dallas paused, then said: "I love my dad, and I don't have anything but good things to say about him, but ... I don't have much to add to that."

After 39 years of marriage, Bill and Judy divorced in 2002. Parcells now lives with his girlfriend, Kelly Mandart.

Looking back, Judy Parcells doesn't blame the erosion of their relationship on Parcells' obsession with the game.

"I don't resent one minute he spent with football," she said. "But there were times when he could have been here when he wasn't working. ... We had to grow up together and eventually we grew apart.

"I love him still - even though he can be a huge pain."

Parcells won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, retired to the broadcast booth, returned to lead New England to the Super Bowl before rebuilding the New York Jets into a championship contender, retired for another two years, then landed in Dallas, where he became the only coach in NFL history to take four different teams to the playoffs.

At every NFL coaching stop, his close friend, Bob Green, saw Parcells "physically depleted" after each season.

"He just can't do it unless he's doing it 110 percent," Green said.

Parcells' drive has not been without physical toll, including several failed angioplasty procedures and, eventually, heart bypass surgery in 1990.

"With Bill, he'd be the first to tell you that he has a problem and, you know, his problem is that he loves football. He's addicted to it," said Tony Sparano, who was hired by Parcells off his Cowboys staff to be the head coach of the Dolphins."He can't get enough of what he does."

Parcells hardly is alone on the list of coaches who have sacrificed part or all of their personal lives.

Despite the occasional national appearance on ESPN or HBO, he has granted few interviews since taking over the Dolphins and declined several requests to be interviewed for this story.

During an outtake from a youth-coaching video he did several years ago, Parcells expressed regret for neglecting his family life during his prolific career.

"When I was young, I was distracted by the challenge of my own ambition to be successful," Parcells says in the video posted on YouTube.com. "It kind of haunts me as a parent that I didn't do, maybe, everything that I could do ... I've been very fortunate. My youngsters are productive citizens of society, a couple of them have families of their own, so I really dodged a bullet in that respect ..."

Parcells does have outside interests, though most are sports-related. Horse racing, particularly the Saratoga season. Golf. Boxing. Spring training in Jupiter.

Mostly, he devotes his time to football.

"My entire life has been spent thinking about this game. That's pretty narrow," Parcells once said. "I don't view myself as a person who's well-versed in very many subjects. I'm not proud of that."

After the Giants won their first Super Bowl in January 1987, Suzy figured her father's unwavering focus would give way to utter joy in the Parcells household.

"You thought, 'Finally, he should be happy, ecstatic.' But he never showed us that," Schwille said.

Worse was his reaction to New England's loss to Green Bay in the 1997 Super Bowl. At a post-game reception at the team hotel in New Orleans, Parcells sat alone, talked to no one, and was the first to leave.

"I don't think any of us will ever forget that day," Schwille said.

The heartbreak of defeat was nothing compared to a span of two months during Parcells' first season as Giants coach when both parents died.

And there is his relationship with his youngest brother, Don.

They were inseparable as children, both athletes and natural leaders. Don ended up at West Point and served in Vietnam, where news of mortar-shell wounds to both of his legs had his brother frantic.

"Bill was going crazy," Judy Parcells said. "He wanted to sign up and go over there. He felt bad that he never served, that it should have been him and not Don who went to war."

When Don died of cancer at 62 in November 2005, Parcells was crushed. He told Don's widow, Elaine, "I just lost the person I'm closest to in the world.''

Parcells attended the funeral in the morning and was on the sideline that night as the Cowboys beat Philadelphia.

Parcells demands much from his assistants and players, but even more from himself.

"He's so much like coach Lombardi,'' Corcoran said. "He wants nothing to interfere with football. You are a football player - that's what you do for a living."

So Bill Parcells is back, a football man returning to the only life that suits him.

"It's the competition. That's why he keeps going back," Doug Parcells said. "He gets to where he can't stand it anymore and he gets out. But the thrill of competition is something he always needed.

"He needs to be part of the action."


The Gatorade bath

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of coaches have been drenched over the years. But Bill Parcells took the first Gatorade bath.

During the 1985 season, after a 3-3 start for his New York Giants, Parcells spent a week leading up to a game against Washington riding his nose tackle, Jim Burt. Burt took the constant ragging, then played like a madman. In the waning moments of the Giants' 17-3 win, Parcells smiled at Burt.

"I really got you ready, didn't I," Parcells said.

When Parcells turned back toward the field, Burt grabbed a bucket of Gatorade and dumped it on his coach.

The Big Tuna laughed and a football tradition was born.


Heads up: Quirks of the master

For all his maniacal preparation and notorious methods of motivation, Bill Parcells can't escape another facet of his game:

He's a superstitious guy.

- Parcells never picks up a penny that is tails up because, he says, you want to move forward, not backward. A pair of tails-up pennies sat untouched in the Giants locker room one season. Wellington Mara, the late owner of the Giants, would leave a heads-up penny on Parcells' desk before a game.

- If he crosses a black cat's path, he will walk backward to the point where their paths crossed to undo the jinx. Once, a dark brown cat (it wasn't even a black cat) crossed in front of his car as he pulled into a golf course. Parcells put the car in reverse, backed up to where the cat had crossed his path, and then proceeded.

- Before the 1997 playoffs with New England, Parcells' friend Bobby Green gave him a Chai, a Jewish symbol for life that many Jews wear for luck. Parcells kept it in his pocket on the sideline, holding it in one direction when his team was on defense and upside down - it looked like a set of goalposts in that position - when the Patriots had the ball.

- On a Friday before a game he was coaching with the Jets, Parcells had his teeth cleaned and the Jets won. The next week, he made an appointment with the same dentist for the same day and asked just to sit in the chair for a while.

- Parcells thinks it's good luck to have an elephant statue with its trunk upturned facing a doorway (he picked up this one from his superstitious Italian mother. Friends and former players still send him elephant statues. Dolphins coach Tony Sparano has one in his office.

[YoFuggedaboutit]

For the first time ever, we have a football guy running the football ops. 

[Sunstroke]

And a damned fine article.

I'm gonna call him Duane when I see him...or better yet, a large sign held up in the stands, proclaiming "Duane will save us!!"

[DolFan619]

  This was a great read.  A lot of great insights into the man that is charged with the task of restoring the greatness of the Miami Dolphins.

[Rick]

  Good stuff!!!  Thanks for the great article!!