For Nagy, playoff run comes after long rise
Rookie Bears coach has made Sundays fun again in Chicago
LAKE FOREST, ILL. — One more victory to finish the regular season was in the books and that meant the party was on at “Club Dub.”
The Chicago Bears were swaying and jumping and pumping their fists as the strobe lights flashed and “Swag Surfing” by Fast Life Yungstaz blasted through the visitors’ locker room at Minnesota.
The video then cut to coach Matt Nagy leading his players as they raised their right arms and thrust them toward the ground. “Boom!” they yelled.
“One more!” Nagy screamed. “Boom!”
“And another!” he yelled again.
“Boom!”
“Ooh, that feels good!” Nagy said.
How could it not?
The Bears (12-4) have been lowering the boom on just about everyone they have faced in their first season under Nagy, a magical ride where the next stop is Sunday when they host defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia in their first playoff game in eight years.
Chicago comes in with an NFC North title after four straight last-place finishes, nine wins in 10 games and a belief that anything is possible.
Nagy inherited what looked like a major rebuild when he became the Bears’ 16th head coach. Chicago went 14-34 the previous three seasons under John Fox and won 13 games in two years under Marc Trestman.
But Nagy already has more victories than any other rookie coach in franchise history. Beyond that, he has made Sundays fun again in Chicago. He is demanding and creative, running trick plays with names like “Santa’s Sleigh” and turning the locker room into a virtual nightclub after victories.
To the people who have known him the longest, none of this is all that surprising.
They saw the charm and determination as he developed into a star quarterback at Manheim Central in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country and a record-setter at Delaware. He’s in quite a spot at age 40, considering he was just about out of pro football a decade earlier.
With a young family, he was selling new homes after the Arena Football League folded. He got the break he needed from Andy Reid in Philadelphia with an assist from a college teammate.
“I think if you’re given a chance and you’re driven and you’re obsessed and you are consumed with being given an opportunity to make people right or prove yourself right, then the sky is the limit,” Nagy said.
Bill Nagy thinks back to when his son was in about Grade 8 and a clown in a dunk tank on the boardwalk in Seaside Park, N.J., wouldn’t stop taking playful jabs at the boy.
“It was maybe $2 for three throws,” Bill Nagy said. “He was so sure that he was going to hit the bullseye and knock the clown into the water. I’ll tell you what, I must have ponied up probably $20. Matt kept asking me for $2 at a time because this clown was just talking smack and making fun of him . ... He didn’t want to leave until he hit that bullseye and sent him into the water. He finally did it.”
Bill Nagy was a college defensive tackle who has taught and coached at the high school level off and on since the 1970s.
By the time his son dunked that clown, Bill Nagy had already noticed certain skills and leadership as the young quarterback worked his way through Manheim’s youth program.
Gail Stouch saw an innate charisma in Nagy, an only child, even when he was just a few years old. She moved the family about 240 kilometres west to her hometown of Manheim from Piscataway when he was about 3, shortly after divorcing Bill.
“He has that charismatic personality that people gravitate toward,” Stouch said. “It’s interesting. Outgoing.”
Nagy coached youth football with a friend in high school and worked camps at Delaware, where he remains the school’s all-time leader in yards passing.
He thought he was going to the New York Giants coming out of college in 2001, but they drafted Canadian-born Jesse Palmer in the fourth round. There was a tryout with the Packers that didn’t lead to a contract. He spent six years in the Arena League before it folded following the 2008 season.
He got his job selling new construction houses for a company back home around that time and got internships at training camp in back-to-back summers for Philadelphia with an assist from college teammate Brett Veach, who was working for the Eagles.
In 2010, Reid was offering fulltime work as a coaches assistant, but it came with a significant pay cut, a risky move with a young family.
Nagy talked it over with his wife Stacey, and decided to take the plunge. For about the first six months, that meant hitting the road at 3:30 a.m. every day so he could make it to the facility 160 kilometres away by 5. He followed Reid to Kansas City, becoming the Chiefs’ quarterbacks coach, offensive co-ordinator and ultimately their play-caller late last season.
The Bears liked the looks of him and the potential chemistry with their young quarterback, Mitchell Trubisky.
“If you were to say to me, ‘You’re going to get these opportunities, what would you do with it?’ ” Nagy said. “I’d tell you I’d be right here. But I was able to get to this point for one reason, and that’s through all of the support system I have with family, friends, coaches, mentors and players. That’s the reason I’m here.”