‘Super Bowl-bound coaches are very similar’

NEW YORK — Super Bowlbound Tom Coughlin of the New York Giants and Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots are competitive coaches that share a penchant for prepartion, according to a former coach who won a title with both on his staff.

Former head coach Bill Parcells, a Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist for the Class of 2012, won a Super Bowl with the Giants in 1991 with Coughlin and Belichick on his staff as assistants.

"They do have an awful lot in common," Parcells said in an interview this week.

"Both of them were straight football guys, intense competitors, very thorough. Quite intense in their preparation. And certainly both of them would get the information to the players very, very well."

Coughlin was a receivers coach under Parcells for three seasons, concluding with the Giants' Super Bowl victory over the Buffalo Bills, coinciding with Belichick's 12-year run as a defensive assistant with the team.

Parcells, who coached the Giants to two Super Bowl titles and also took the Patriots to a Super Bowl, all with Belichick on board as defensive co-ordinator, said both men had been well prepared for football success and were devoted to the game.

"Bill Belichick was the son of a coach," said Parcells, re- ferring to Steve Belichick, a longtime assistant coach at the US Naval Academy.

"He came up in football all his life.’’

Belichick took his first National Football League job as a 23-year-old after majoring in economics at Wesleyan.

"Tom kind of took the same route that I did as a coach starting in a very, very small Division Three school (Rochesball Institute of Technology). He was mowing the grass, lining the fields and doing all the tasks that a coach in that situation has to do. People that do that learn the ropes," said Parcells.

"I think Bill was taught by his dad on what was necessary, and Tom by his experience... I did the same things at Hastings College in Nebraska."

As Coughlin and Belichick put in their game plans before heading to Indianapolis for the February 5 Super Bowl, Parcells was asked if there was anything special about the way he prepared his teams for the big game.

"I tried to always have something a little extra whether it be a fake punt or field goal," said Parcells.

"I wanted the players to get the sense that we were going to try and do every single thing that we could do to win the game and if we needed a momentum boost we would try to be prepared to do it."

— Reuters