Bill Parcells: On The Couch

alen1 · May 18, 2008

(CBS) Bill Parcells is the NFL's toughest coach since Vince Lombardi. He's turned four teams from losers to winners. And he's won two Super Bowls along the way.

How does he do it? What's his formula? And what does the stress of coaching do to his psyche?

He's thought about all that a lot and Correspondent Mike Wallace put him on the couch to talk about it -- as he never has before.
To begin with, Parcells told 60 Minutes that one big secret of his success has been head-to-head confrontations.

"I think confrontation is healthy, because it clears the air very quickly," says Parcells. "And most of these athletes that you deal with are pretty well used to that kind of thing."

Has an athlete ever taken a swing at him? "Oh, yeah," he says. "We've had a few of those. That's OK."

Parcells spelled out his notion of how to turn a loser into a winner in The Harvard Business Review. He wrote that a new coach, or a new CEO, has to wage a relentless pursuit of perfection by showing he's in charge -- by imposing his leadership.

And of course, confrontations can do that. But in Parcells' case, it resulted in one of his players throwing his jersey in Parcell's face, and being taken off the field by security.

"These things happen," says Parcells, who adds that the player is still on the team. "I don't have to make examples out of players to establish my own place. I don't feel like I have to."

"You mean everybody knows what a prick you are?" asks Wallace. "Yeah," says Parcells, laughing.
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"The first, maybe tyrant, I don't know. Certainly perfectionist," says Parcells. "But misery? I don't think so. No, I don't think, I don't intend to make people miserable. I am demanding."

But he admits that he's miserable. Why, if he loves the game?

"Someone kinda helped me with that recently, and he said that, 'The gift you have is also your curse,'" says Parcells. "'And then, when you get at a certain place, you're looking for something else that challenges you even greater. And as a result, you become miserable until you find that.' It was never called to my attention so specifically."
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/28/60minutes/main570622.shtml

This read is old (2004) but rather interesting. It kinda goes with that article "A Week In Parcells Shoes" I posted a couple months ago.

ChrisKo · May 18, 2008

The player that threw the Jersey was Antonio Bryant, who was no longer on the team that season as I remember him being traded.

djphinfan · May 18, 2008

the guy is freakin genious

alen1 · May 18, 2008

ChrisKo said:

The player that threw the Jersey was Antonio Bryant, who was no longer on the team that season as I remember him being traded.
Click to expand...

Yeah he got traded to Cleveland for Andre Davis.

PhinsRock · May 19, 2008

Good read, thanks for the link.

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