MEET BABY BEN
Unflappable rookie coach has earned players’ admiration
If you were watching the Giants-Redskins New Year’s Day game, you probably did a double take when the cameras panned over the seats at Washington’s FedEx Stadium.
In the front row sat 12-year-old Peter Costigan — who looked just like a miniature version of Giants coach Ben McAdoo.
The idea came from Peter’s dad, Mike, a longtime Giants fan who wanted to do something very special for his son’s birthday on Dec 22.
So Mike, who grew up in New Jersey and now lives in Wayne, Pa., took his family to a game that night in Philadelphia — which the Giants lost.
But Mike didn’t give up — and decided the family would go to last Sunday’s game in DC.
He wanted it to be a “memorable trip’’ and came up with a brainstorm: “Let’s dress Peter up as Ben McAdoo.”
They already had — so to speak — a head start.
A few months ago, Peter got a haircut — with his part, usually on the side, shifting to the middle. Mike remembered thinking, “He looks exactly like Ben McAdoo.”
A pair of earphones became an NFL headset through creative use of duct tape and some wire.
Dark glasses? Check. Mustache? Check. Hair — already done. Play-calling card? Now some help was needed.
The family purchased a $100 gift certificate at Minella’s Diner in Wayne to acquire a menu. McAdoo’s monstrous play card is often compared to a diner menu.
“Got the gift certificate to secure a menu because it sounds really stupid for what we were looking to do,” said Mike Costigan, a partner at Ernst and Young Financial Services. “We chopped it up in little pieces.”
After adding some Post-it notes to the menu as finishing touches, Mike’s wife, Courtney, said: “You guys are insane.”
The reaction at the stadium was all they could have hoped for.
TV cameras noticed. Social media exploded. Big Mac came over and high-fived Mini Mac.
After the game, Giants players gave Peter and his brothers — Michael, 13,; Tommy 11; and Bobby, 4— towels, hats and gloves. Safety Landon Collins signed the menu/play card.
Soon texts and calls came flooding in.
“My friends were at the diner that I used the menu for and they saw me on TV and said, ‘Is that Peter Costigan?’ ” Peter recalled over the phone Friday after school. “I didn’t have my phone but my brothers’ phones and my mom’s and dad’s phone were all blowing up with texts.” His dad said Mini Mac will retire. “It was a beautiful day,” Mike Costigan said. “Everybody won.”
Peter said the most special moment was “being at the game with my family.”
But Peter has a secret treat coming in the mail — a game ball awarded to him by Big Mac.
GREEN BAY — Vince Lombardi could be growling at him from across the field and Ben McAdoo wouldn’t blink. The Russians could have jammed his walkie talkie and Ben McAdoo wouldn’t have flinched. A sinkhole could materialize beneath him and Ben McAdoo would still be staring at his ginormous playcall sheet.
He is The Iceman, the Big Blue Iceman, and he Cometh for a Super Bowl.
And he is bringing with him a team he has made believe.
And a team that believes in him.
“Coach Mac is cool,” Dwayne Harris said. “He can relate to anything that the players do. He wears Jordans, we wear Jordans, so it’s like he’s cool, we’re cool. Some coaches can’t relate to players and you can’t get on the same level as the players and understand what they’re going through or what’s going on with the players. He talks to us all the time. We always sit down and have conversations. When your coach understands the players, it’s perfect.”
And of course his old boss, Mike McCarthy, and his old quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, are standing in his way.
Only two rookie head coaches (the Colts’ Don McCafferty in Super Bowl V, and the 49ers’ George Seifert in Super Bowl XXIV) have won Super Bowls, and here co mes McAdoo attempting to become the third. He has no fear: Of the elements. Of the circumstances. Of the Packers. “This is a huge game for him,” Justin Pugh said. “He’s part of that McCarthy coaching tree, where he got his start and got his opportunity and was very successful there, and then came here and we did a lot of the same things. Our offense is very similar to theirs.”
You go ahead and try to replace a Hall of Fame coach like Tom Coughlin in a market like ours. Ask Ray Handley about following Bill Parcells, but good luck finding him first.
“[McAdoo’s] a football guy,” Pugh said. “He eats, breathes, sleeps football. And there are coaches that are football coaches and then there’s football guy coaches. He’s a football guy coach. There’s nothing that guy cares about more than football.”
Th a t laser focus helps immeasurably in New York.
“Yeah, I think so, because he’s not the flashy guy that’s gonna give you guys everything you want,” Pugh said. “You probably want to dig and get more answers out of him, but he keeps it all business, all football, and I think that’s great for a market like this. There’s gonna be a lot of times when your patience is tested and you’re put on tough spots because there are so many people around here, so many eyes on us. So it’s good to have that low-key consistency that he’s always gonna give you the same thing no matter what.”
McAdoo was introduced as head coach a year ago wearing an oversized suit that was all the social-media rage, yet it turned out he was tailor-made for one of the most prestigious jobs in professional sports following two seasons as offensive coordinator.
“It wasn’t a culture shock for him. He understood exactly what he was getting himself into, and I think that helped him understand how to talk to us, and how to face this New York atmosphere,” Victor Cruz said.
McAdoo exterminated the injury bug that had infected the dying embers of the Coughlin Era and kept his players rested and engaged with contemporary music medleys at practice and entertaining video clips (“Game of Thrones,” “Step Brothers ,”“Knocked Up ,” “Fight Club”) at meetings. He has instilled confidence in his offense by being a riverboat gambler on fourth down.
“He didn’t change,” Pugh said. “He’s still the same McAdoo that was our offensive coordinator that I was able to go up and talk to whenever I had a question.”
There is no question that McAdoo is the boss, however. He is hard on rookie Sterling Shepard, but won’t hesitate to jump Eli Manning when he sees fit. He gave his team a battletested edge and momentum by playing Manning and healthy starters not named Odell Beckham Jr. the entire way against the Redskins, even though the No. 5 seed was locked up.
“He comes off as a cool friendly player coach, man, but he’s about business,” Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie said. “He will get in you if you mess up. I don’t think he showed favoritism toward nobody.”
McAdoo would rather be coaching his Giants in the Lambeau Field icebox than sipping a piña colada in Honolulu.
“We respect Coach Mac, and Coach Mac respects us back,” Harris said. “We just put that out on the field and show him how much we appreciate him.”
Landon Collins was asked to compare McAdoo to Nick Saban, his coach at Alabama.
“They’re totally different guys,” Collins said, and chuckled. “Saban brings the demeanor of fear, but he’s a players coach at the same time. McAdoo is a person you could really go up to. You respect him, he’s your coach, and he respects you as a man and as a person and in doing so, he’s like basically your friend. At the same time, you know where he stands when it comes to this game as a coach.”
McAdoo the Giants believe? You better believe they do.