Listen here, cowboy. Don’t be fooled by that big, soft belly of irascible NFL coach Bill Parcells. He kicks harder than a steel-toed boot.
Don’t mess with Texas? You’d be crazier to pick a fight with Parcells, who messes with everybody.
He has earned the reputation for treating all players in the Dallas locker room the same – like gum on the bottom of his boot.
“It’s not like the Bataan Death March around here,” said Parcells, although he doesn’t deny riding the Cowboys hard.
For Parcells, the path to football success is more like a trail of tears. Check your feelings at the door.
“If we have a sensitivity level here, whoever you are, it’s not going to be too good around here for you,” admitted the old-school coach, age 64 and growing more ornery every year.
In the football gospel according to Parcells, sensitivity is a banned substance.
And Broncos defensive lineman Ebenezer Ekuban must be a sinner. Because the mind games of Parcells drove him crazy.
“Parcells plays a lot of mind games. He wants to see how far players can be pushed. It works for some players; it didn’t work with me. I’m my own harshest critic. I don’t need someone trying to test my mental capacity to see how tough of a man I am,” said Ekuban, happy to escape from under Parcells’ thumb, after being set free by the Cowboys two years ago. “He tries to tear you down, to see how you respond. If you respond positively, you’re his type of guy. If you don’t respond the way Parcells would like, he gets rid of you.”
This in-your-face aggression, however, is exactly what makes Dallas receiver Keyshawn Johnson love Parcells.
“If you can play, you can play,” Johnson said Tuesday. “That’s the way Parcells is. A lot of guys who have problems with coaches like that, they can’t play the game anyway. They think they can play based on what their junior high coaches told them, but Parcells is a guy who demands a lot.”
Love him or leave him, Parcells is a one tough bird, which figures to make Thanksgiving in Dallas no holiday for the Broncos.
“The tension is only positive,” said Parcells, explaining his management philosophy.
Although the Cowboys own a 7-3 record, they frankly don’t look that good. There are more stars painted on the helmets than wearing the team’s uniforms. But Dallas fears nobody, not even first-place Denver.
Fear beats a team from within. Marty Schottenheimer has won nearly 200 NFL games, but when it’s time to make the tough call, he coaches scared. Maybe that’s why Schottenheimer so often played the victim to John Elway, when the postseason heat was on.
During two decades in pro football, through two Super Bowl victories and more than 100 regular-season defeats, the one thing you have never seen Parcells do on the sideline is lose his nerve.
“It’s easy to sit in that air conditioning in the summertime or sit in that weight room in the wintertime, and talk about what you’re going to do, and what you want to do, and what you want to accomplish, and how you want to improve your team and your career,” Parcells said. “But there gets to a time during every year where the talking comes down to actually doing it. Some players don’t recognize that and some teams don’t recognize that, so as a result it’s just a constant stream of baloney about what you want to do.
“Sometimes it comes down to: OK, face the fact there’s a time when here’s the opportunity to do what you say you want to do. So let’s go. Let’s go do it.”
Sport is a mind game for every Hall of Fame coach I’ve ever met. One personality size does not fit all. Bob Knight loudly enjoys acting like a bully on the basketball floor. With the deft touch of a puppeteer, Scotty Bowman manipulated his hockey bruisers so quietly, you barely saw the strings attached.
Coaching brilliance is seldom defined by raw intelligence. Coaching genius is more a measure of mental toughness. That’s what makes Phil Jackson the zenmaster and Mike Shana- han a mastermind. From the locker room to the press box to sports bars, coaches get second-guessed 24/7. The coaches who win championships correct their mistakes. But they don’t waste a minute second- guessing themselves.
The gruff Parcells is so tough to beat for the same exact reason as John Wooden, who put the gentle in gentleman. Regardless of the exterior, what lies beneath a Hall of Fame coach is a self-reliance that approaches unapologetic arrogance. For a play or timeout to work, the coach must call it without a trace of doubt.
Only athletes can win the game. It’s the great coach who makes them believe losing is not an option.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
