Latest / The Jacksonville Jaguars Official Podcast Network / Perspectives - Tom Coughlin
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: The following presentation of the Jaguars podcast Network is presented
- 0:06Speaker 1: by a bi star credit. A football coach would be
- 0:18Speaker 1: the first to tell you it's never about one guy
- 0:20Speaker 1: win or lose. The game rarely rests on a single
- 0:23Speaker 1: play or single player. But some men do stand above
- 0:27Speaker 1: their contemporaries. Some are just better at what they do,
- 0:30Speaker 1: Some work harder than those around them, and some leave
- 0:33Speaker 1: a more lasting impact, a mark that bears witness to
- 0:37Speaker 1: little legacy. This is Perspectives, a look back at the
- 0:41Speaker 1: first twenty five years of the Jacksonville Jaguars through the
- 0:44Speaker 1: eyes of the people who built the NFL's thirty franchise
- 0:48Speaker 1: from the ground up. This is Tom Coughlin. Coach Conflin
- 0:53Speaker 1: checks all of those boxes, which is exactly why he
- 0:56Speaker 1: was Blaine Weaver's choice to build the Jaguars. He is
- 0:59Speaker 1: excellent football coach. No one in football works with as
- 1:02Speaker 1: much energy for as many hours as he does, and
- 1:04Speaker 1: no one, no one cares as deeply as Tom about
- 1:08Speaker 1: doing things the right way. You know, whenever you're a
- 1:12Speaker 1: head coach, it's you. You know, it's your you, and
- 1:16Speaker 1: it's probably to a fault from me, all right, because
- 1:19Speaker 1: I've always felt, and I felt here longly so, but
- 1:24Speaker 1: I felt this was my teeth, this was my team
- 1:27Speaker 1: because I was given that responsibility by Mr Weaver. This
- 1:31Speaker 1: was new ground for a man who had coached at
- 1:33Speaker 1: the highest level of college and professional football for story
- 1:36Speaker 1: programs like the Giants, the Packers, and the Eagles. Putting
- 1:40Speaker 1: together an NFL franchise wasn't in Coughlin's background, but he
- 1:44Speaker 1: wasn't completely unprepared for the task. Nothing anywhere that I
- 1:48Speaker 1: could read about how people did things, because obviously those
- 1:52Speaker 1: are some of the oldest in the history of the
- 1:54Speaker 1: National Football League. So what really helped me, which is
- 1:59Speaker 1: an interesting thing. When I I graduated from college, okay,
- 2:04Speaker 1: at Syracuse University, I came back, uh in the master's program,
- 2:11Speaker 1: and I was what they called a graduate assistant coach,
- 2:14Speaker 1: and I helped coach a freshman team. At Syracuse there
- 2:16Speaker 1: were still freshman teams and varsity teams. I got my degree.
- 2:21Speaker 1: I took like fifteen credit hours in the spring, uh,
- 2:25Speaker 1: you know, which was heavy for graduate school. But I
- 2:28Speaker 1: wanted to be done. I interviewed for a job at
- 2:32Speaker 1: Rochester Institute of Technology. Rochester Institute of Technology had been
- 2:38Speaker 1: playing club football for like two years. Okay, they wanted
- 2:43Speaker 1: someone to come in. They wanted, uh someone to be
- 2:48Speaker 1: an assistant coach for a year, take over the second year,
- 2:52Speaker 1: and then build the program into a varsity program and
- 2:58Speaker 1: it would compete in what they called the Dependent Collegiate
- 3:01Speaker 1: Athletic Conference, which was quite frankly for Division three was
- 3:05Speaker 1: loaded Alfred Hobart St. Lawrence Ithaca College. You know, really
- 3:12Speaker 1: really good, good small college football teams. So when I
- 3:17Speaker 1: came in, I was a secondary coach. I coached the
- 3:20Speaker 1: defense on the secondary side of the ball for one year.
- 3:24Speaker 1: Then I became the head football coach. And little did
- 3:28Speaker 1: I know that what came with that was everything under
- 3:32Speaker 1: the sun. In other words, I was the person who
- 3:36Speaker 1: was supposed to collect the football team. I was supposed
- 3:39Speaker 1: to coach the football team. I was supposed to figure
- 3:42Speaker 1: out how to run a training camp and house the
- 3:45Speaker 1: football team. I was supposed to make a schedule. I
- 3:49Speaker 1: was to establish all the traveling needs, the hotels, the buses,
- 3:55Speaker 1: all of those things. I had to hire assistant coaches
- 3:59Speaker 1: who were not going to be full time, they were
- 4:01Speaker 1: going to be part time. I had to uh have
- 4:06Speaker 1: something to say about how the football field was lined,
- 4:11Speaker 1: how the grass was cut, how we wanted to do that.
- 4:15Speaker 1: A couple of years later, we moved over to a
- 4:17Speaker 1: prime field in the middle of campus, which was a
- 4:20Speaker 1: soccer field that we had become a head, an opportunity
- 4:25Speaker 1: then to play in front of bigger crowds and that
- 4:27Speaker 1: type of thing. Uh, And I would still I can
- 4:30Speaker 1: remember pounding post in the ground while the opponent drove
- 4:32Speaker 1: up in his bus, you know, and then what are
- 4:34Speaker 1: you doing out there doing? What's it looked like I'm doing.
- 4:36Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm I'm getting ropes together so we
- 4:40Speaker 1: can have a game and not have everybody feel. What
- 4:43Speaker 1: I was trying to say, is uh the organizational part,
- 4:46Speaker 1: the putting things together part, how things came into play.
- 4:50Speaker 1: What was the strategy? Certainly, Brian, it was not as
- 4:54Speaker 1: sophisticated as would be the case when I came to
- 4:58Speaker 1: Jacksonville the first time in the spring of ninety four,
- 5:03Speaker 1: but it gave me an advantage because I had seen
- 5:06Speaker 1: it from Rochester to Boston College. Coughlin built his career
- 5:10Speaker 1: as an assistant coach, an offensive coordinator, and finally the
- 5:14Speaker 1: head coach. His signature win a stunning defeat a number
- 5:17Speaker 1: one Notre Dame in South Bend with the ball of
- 5:21Speaker 1: caught the attention of many in pro football, including an
- 5:24Speaker 1: upstar group in North Florida when David Selden and Wayne
- 5:30Speaker 1: Weaver came came calling. First of all, um, we met
- 5:36Speaker 1: when we met in the Providence, and I was I
- 5:40Speaker 1: lived in Walpole, mass which was maybe a half hour away.
- 5:44Speaker 1: So I drove down and I told Judy when I left,
- 5:47Speaker 1: I said, I'll be back in an hour. This isn't
- 5:49Speaker 1: there's nothing going to be to this. This is But
- 5:52Speaker 1: the interview got real serious, real fast, because my the
- 5:57Speaker 1: original phone call that was made to me, Uh, my
- 6:01Speaker 1: exact comment was, well, how many people do you have
- 6:03Speaker 1: involved in the job, and they Selden said five. I said,
- 6:06Speaker 1: I'm not interested. He said what do you mean. I said,
- 6:09Speaker 1: I'm not interested? There was five. You know, you got
- 6:11Speaker 1: plenty of people, and you don't. I mean, I just
- 6:13Speaker 1: finished a bowl game. We recruited in the top twenty
- 6:17Speaker 1: in the country, and you know, I was pretty happy
- 6:19Speaker 1: where I was. So he said, can I call you back?
- 6:22Speaker 1: And I said, call me back anytime, but I'm I'm
- 6:24Speaker 1: not gonna be interested. And he said, okay, So he
- 6:27Speaker 1: called me back two weeks later, and he said, would
- 6:29Speaker 1: you be interested if I told you there were two
- 6:31Speaker 1: and you were one of them. I said, well, that's
- 6:33Speaker 1: a little different story. So I thought, well, you know,
- 6:37Speaker 1: I mean I can listen to anybody and so on.
- 6:39Speaker 1: So I told Judy I'll be gone an hour. Meeting
- 6:42Speaker 1: started at eight. I was home at eleven. I supposedly
- 6:45Speaker 1: she turned to Brian's son, Brian, when I left and
- 6:48Speaker 1: she said, okay, Brian, get the map out, where's Jacksonville.
- 6:51Speaker 1: One of those deals, you know. So but when the
- 6:55Speaker 1: opportunity came to come here to Jacksonville, I was hired.
- 7:01Speaker 1: I think I was the seventh employee. I say, I am.
- 7:04Speaker 1: There might have been more, but I think that was
- 7:06Speaker 1: what it was. And I had a chance to listen
- 7:09Speaker 1: to what, um Mr Weaver I had in mind, and
- 7:15Speaker 1: I could set up my own calendar for when people
- 7:18Speaker 1: would come on board, and so I put a lot
- 7:20Speaker 1: of thought into that. Obviously I needed a personnel staff
- 7:24Speaker 1: right away, you know, so I put my mind to
- 7:27Speaker 1: work on that. So I literally had a I hired
- 7:30Speaker 1: everybody who touched football, so I you know, the trainers, um,
- 7:37Speaker 1: the as I said, UM, the personnel side of the ball.
- 7:42Speaker 1: UM certainly the coaching staff. UM. I hired them all okay,
- 7:48Speaker 1: and I had a timely way in which I would
- 7:51Speaker 1: go about that. And the very first season for us UM,
- 7:57Speaker 1: when we didn't have a team, we acted like we
- 8:00Speaker 1: had a team. We had game plans on Monday and Tuesday,
- 8:04Speaker 1: we traveled the country, went to a college game on Saturday,
- 8:07Speaker 1: went to a pro game on Sunday. I had a
- 8:09Speaker 1: personnel staff in place. We had a mock draft for
- 8:12Speaker 1: the expansion draft. We had a mock draft that went
- 8:16Speaker 1: along with the NFL draft in the spring. We did
- 8:19Speaker 1: it all. We did it all so that we had
- 8:21Speaker 1: gone through this prior to being under the gun and
- 8:26Speaker 1: having to make those decisions that counted. So we did
- 8:30Speaker 1: it all. I brought some of my coaches from Boston College,
- 8:32Speaker 1: not all. I put them right to work immediately UM
- 8:37Speaker 1: and they would do the same thing I did beyond
- 8:38Speaker 1: the road on weekends, etcetera, etcetera. And then hired the
- 8:42Speaker 1: rest of the staff immediately following the season. I was
- 8:46Speaker 1: really fortunate that a number of my friends who were
- 8:51Speaker 1: outstanding NFL coaches invited me to go to their camp,
- 8:54Speaker 1: so I would travel around the League in the summer,
- 8:56Speaker 1: just like I, you know, studying and watching how people
- 8:59Speaker 1: did things, keeping tracking things and so on and so forth.
- 9:02Speaker 1: That's where the Mark Burnell tip came in. And uh So,
- 9:07Speaker 1: all of these things, all everything that I always say this, Brian,
- 9:11Speaker 1: you know, you live you you you learn as if
- 9:15Speaker 1: you're gonna live forever, okay, and you live as if
- 9:18Speaker 1: you're gonna die tomorrow. So I've always thought, I don't
- 9:21Speaker 1: care how old you are. What you better be learning
- 9:24Speaker 1: all the time. You better be studying, You better be
- 9:26Speaker 1: understanding the changes. You better be adjusting, you better be
- 9:29Speaker 1: doing all those things. So everybody, everybody that I was
- 9:32Speaker 1: with along the way, all the coaches, Frank Maloney, who
- 9:34Speaker 1: gave me a chance to come back to the Division
- 9:37Speaker 1: one football, which was a great opportunity. Frank had been
- 9:40Speaker 1: with Boschen Beckler. I had everything bo had been with
- 9:43Speaker 1: Woody Hayes. I had all that. I had, all their
- 9:46Speaker 1: organizational stuff, everything, how they went about coaching, the toughness
- 9:50Speaker 1: that they brought to the job. Um so, and then
- 9:53Speaker 1: all the coaches that I had the pleasure and the
- 9:56Speaker 1: good fortune to be with, I learned from Okay, and
- 10:00Speaker 1: even back as far as when I was my own
- 10:02Speaker 1: head coach a Division three. So these things all were
- 10:05Speaker 1: in place when I came to Jacksonville in February of
- 10:10Speaker 1: ninety four to be the head coach of the expansion
- 10:14Speaker 1: Jacksonville Jaguars. Whenever that happens, you roll up your sleeves
- 10:18Speaker 1: and you know, you're a myth to your wife and
- 10:21Speaker 1: your kids. You're just once in a while around but
- 10:24Speaker 1: not often, you know. And uh, And that's why I
- 10:27Speaker 1: have so much respect and admiration for for Duty, because
- 10:31Speaker 1: she did it all. I mean, she raised the kids,
- 10:33Speaker 1: she did. But you're right, I mean, this thing became
- 10:36Speaker 1: something that you pour your heart and soul into it
- 10:39Speaker 1: because it had your name on it. And that's what
- 10:42Speaker 1: I've always believed, and that's what I still try to
- 10:45Speaker 1: tell players. That your name's on the back of that jersey,
- 10:49Speaker 1: that's your teeth. You better show ownership. More perspectives following
- 10:53Speaker 1: this from Bistar Credit Union advised art we believe in
- 10:59Speaker 1: better better convenience so members can bank anyway they want,
- 11:04Speaker 1: whether it's at a branch, on a mobile device, or
- 11:07Speaker 1: at one of more than twenty thousand feet free a
- 11:09Speaker 1: t M s across North America. We believe that people
- 11:13Speaker 1: have better things to do with their time. If you
- 11:16Speaker 1: believe that convenience is better, join VI Star. We never
- 11:20Speaker 1: forget that it's your money. All loan subject to approval,
- 11:24Speaker 1: insured by n c u A. Having bought into Division,
- 11:28Speaker 1: Coughlin had a lot to accomplish if the Jaguars were
- 11:30Speaker 1: going to be ready for opening day. No task was
- 11:34Speaker 1: more important or higher on the priority list. And finding
- 11:37Speaker 1: a quarterback. If you can remember and think about an
- 11:40Speaker 1: expansion team with the three quarterbacks we had who Steve Burlin,
- 11:47Speaker 1: Mark Burnell, and Rob Johnson, who was Selly's teammate at USC.
- 11:54Speaker 1: You know who is a big time arm and a
- 11:59Speaker 1: wacky kid, but oh he was a beauty. He used
- 12:02Speaker 1: to give Brunel Hut all kinds of heat and it
- 12:04Speaker 1: was great. It was funny sometimes, but uh well, I
- 12:09Speaker 1: went traveling around the league, and I knew a lot
- 12:12Speaker 1: about Mark because of his success in Washington and the
- 12:17Speaker 1: style of quarterback. So remember, in the back of my mind,
- 12:21Speaker 1: it's going to be an expansion offensive line, and I
- 12:24Speaker 1: just felt like if you can't move, if you can't
- 12:27Speaker 1: if you're not mobile, you're gonna have a tough time
- 12:30Speaker 1: in this situation, and so that was a big part
- 12:34Speaker 1: of it. I watched him practice, not long, just a
- 12:37Speaker 1: mike ho Homebram had many you know, even what he
- 12:39Speaker 1: called a tuidache. His afternoon practice was quick, short, boom boom,
- 12:43Speaker 1: boom boom, and uh. But I saw him live and
- 12:48Speaker 1: then I began to look and look and study and
- 12:51Speaker 1: so on and so forth. But the the the unique thing,
- 12:54Speaker 1: the unique thing was the way we acquired and that
- 12:58Speaker 1: was really interesting. I mean, it's litter really the night
- 13:00Speaker 1: before the first draft in the history of this franchise,
- 13:04Speaker 1: and I pick up on the fact that he was
- 13:06Speaker 1: headed for Philadelphia and the deal was well well down
- 13:11Speaker 1: the road. But something happened. There was a snag in
- 13:15Speaker 1: the deal. Okay. I picked up the phone and I
- 13:19Speaker 1: called Ron Wolf on the phone, and I said, Ron,
- 13:23Speaker 1: I understand what's going on. And I know you're well
- 13:26Speaker 1: down the road on this, but I want to tell
- 13:28Speaker 1: you up front, okay, that here's what I'd be willing
- 13:32Speaker 1: to do for Mark Brunel. Okay, And there is no
- 13:37Speaker 1: I have to wait till tomorrow. I'll do it right now,
- 13:40Speaker 1: right on the spot. You won't have there's not you'll
- 13:43Speaker 1: have these these picks in place for the for the draft.
- 13:47Speaker 1: There's not gonna be any dancing around. Okay, I would
- 13:50Speaker 1: like this quarterback and I would you know, I forget
- 13:53Speaker 1: what how it went. It went the third round and
- 13:55Speaker 1: then he said, well, can you give me something else
- 13:57Speaker 1: so I can really make this look like I'm not
- 13:59Speaker 1: a that's just sure. So I gave him a fifth,
- 14:02Speaker 1: a game, a third, and a game of five. But
- 14:04Speaker 1: I remember I had two in each round, so it
- 14:06Speaker 1: was a good thing. So um, we pulled that one off.
- 14:10Speaker 1: And it was like a couple of years later when
- 14:14Speaker 1: Brunell's running up down the field and Wolf was looking
- 14:16Speaker 1: at me like I've got two heads, and I like,
- 14:18Speaker 1: you sign up a gun. You so forgot, but you know,
- 14:23Speaker 1: it just was and then Steve started and he should have,
- 14:26Speaker 1: you know, and and uh, we missed that one up
- 14:29Speaker 1: in the corner of the end zone and that opener.
- 14:31Speaker 1: We might have won the first game in the history
- 14:33Speaker 1: of the franchise because it was a battle, but it
- 14:37Speaker 1: was but getting Mark and being able to have some
- 14:40Speaker 1: mobility and at that time and Jimmy come along, and
- 14:44Speaker 1: Mark and Jimmy hook hook up and keenan and you know,
- 14:47Speaker 1: that was that was some some fun. The next pressing
- 14:52Speaker 1: issue was the NFL Draft, which presented the Jaguars with
- 14:56Speaker 1: a chance to add a cornerstone type of player. It
- 14:59Speaker 1: caught wasn't about to swing in miss on that. I
- 15:02Speaker 1: can tell you this in all honesty. So I go
- 15:05Speaker 1: out to Mike Maser and I and there's five other
- 15:08Speaker 1: NFL line coaches there to work Tony out. The day
- 15:10Speaker 1: we were there, I still remember six seven three, uh,
- 15:16Speaker 1: but I've never seen anybody moving around like that. I mean,
- 15:18Speaker 1: the feet were unreal, you know. And he had a
- 15:21Speaker 1: buddy of his who was an offensive guard who actually
- 15:24Speaker 1: started and played, who worked out with him, and I
- 15:27Speaker 1: felt bad for the kid because Tony was bouncing around
- 15:31Speaker 1: like a premier, the premier athlete that he is, and
- 15:34Speaker 1: the other kid was just hanging on. You know. It
- 15:36Speaker 1: was one of those deals. But so we knew, we
- 15:39Speaker 1: knew what, you know. I remember Jim Haneffin saying to me, so,
- 15:42Speaker 1: what do you think, coach, what are you gonna do?
- 15:43Speaker 1: And I said I'd probably take a receiver. He looked
- 15:45Speaker 1: to me, yeah, You're gonna take a receiver. So, I mean,
- 15:48Speaker 1: all we did and Tony gave me a little grief
- 15:51Speaker 1: when he came into what's your way? So long for coach? Well,
- 15:53Speaker 1: you know, I'm sitting there saying I got this. You
- 15:55Speaker 1: know we're on the clock. But come on, somebody come
- 15:59Speaker 1: up and tell me you want this spot so I
- 16:02Speaker 1: can find out if you want my player, if you
- 16:04Speaker 1: don't want my player, and maybe I can pick up
- 16:06Speaker 1: another draft pick. But so read at the you know
- 16:10Speaker 1: what we knew all along what we're gonna do. So
- 16:11Speaker 1: when we took Tony and we finally got he and
- 16:14Speaker 1: Anty in here, he said, coach, what the heck were
- 16:17Speaker 1: you doing? What took so long? You know he's sitting
- 16:19Speaker 1: there aunty about because you know we called him and
- 16:22Speaker 1: find out how he he was healthy and all the
- 16:24Speaker 1: things you go through. So yeah, that was that was critical,
- 16:29Speaker 1: critical for us. Coughlin didn't account for good fortune as
- 16:32Speaker 1: he made his plan for the Jaguars, but he got
- 16:35Speaker 1: some early when personnel boss Ron Hill found former second
- 16:38Speaker 1: round draft choice Jimmy Smith sitting at home in Mississippi,
- 16:42Speaker 1: pondering life and wondering if there was another chance for
- 16:45Speaker 1: him in professional football. When Jimmy first came in here,
- 16:49Speaker 1: it wasn't all that impressive okay, and Pete kept saying,
- 16:57Speaker 1: give him a little time, give him a little time,
- 17:00Speaker 1: give him a little time. Okay, we're giving him a
- 17:02Speaker 1: little time. We're giving him a little time. And then
- 17:05Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, the story of the
- 17:08Speaker 1: way the thing went. He's he's leading our team in
- 17:12Speaker 1: completion and receptions. He didn't even start. He's he's he's
- 17:16Speaker 1: the third guy on the field. But with Jimmy's development, okay,
- 17:21Speaker 1: and the the communication between he and Mark okay, and
- 17:26Speaker 1: then the the arrogance with which played, you know, and
- 17:32Speaker 1: these things started to come together and people started to
- 17:34Speaker 1: feel better about who they were. And we would I mean,
- 17:38Speaker 1: we just praised press Jimmy, please please press them. You know,
- 17:42Speaker 1: we're playing teams like you know, Denver, who is up
- 17:46Speaker 1: there the whole ballgame, and I mean, it's like, Hallelujah,
- 17:51Speaker 1: here we go. The coach kept planning his work and
- 17:54Speaker 1: working his plan through training camp and Stevens Point Wisconsin
- 17:57Speaker 1: a rigorous five game exhibition season, and right up to
- 18:00Speaker 1: the start of the inaugural season. Patience was required, but
- 18:05Speaker 1: Conflin is famously impatient, and it figured to be a
- 18:08Speaker 1: tough ride. It's keeping your nose to the grindstone and
- 18:11Speaker 1: trying to judge improvement rather than wins, you know what
- 18:16Speaker 1: I mean, personnel improvement going in the right direction. I
- 18:21Speaker 1: mean I was hard on him. I was very hard
- 18:23Speaker 1: on him. And we were a unified team. And I
- 18:26Speaker 1: say it, it's it sounds funny. It may not be,
- 18:29Speaker 1: but they were. They were all unified because they hated me,
- 18:33Speaker 1: but they played and even that first team might have
- 18:36Speaker 1: been one of the toughest teams that I've ever been around.
- 18:38Speaker 1: They were tough outfit. Now and you know, we played
- 18:43Speaker 1: people really tough and hard, and you know, so on
- 18:47Speaker 1: and so forth. Although we only won four in that
- 18:49Speaker 1: first year. But um, it was the constant, constant ability
- 18:56Speaker 1: to you know, keep your thumb on where you're going,
- 18:59Speaker 1: you know, keep your eye on your on your team,
- 19:01Speaker 1: keep your coaches pushing, pushing, pushing, don't be overcome with
- 19:05Speaker 1: the the negativity, you know, don't don't let it get
- 19:08Speaker 1: to you. Fight it off, you know, continue to teach
- 19:12Speaker 1: and continue to to build more than just the football
- 19:16Speaker 1: part of it. Talk about being good people, good human beings.
- 19:19Speaker 1: You know, how things should be done. Uh, you know
- 19:22Speaker 1: the type of character that has to be in place
- 19:25Speaker 1: in order for you to win. The type of work
- 19:27Speaker 1: ethic outwork people you know continuously sell that and that's
- 19:32Speaker 1: basically what what it was. And you know, even in
- 19:36Speaker 1: year two, you know when when we we are better,
- 19:39Speaker 1: But how much better are we? We're still collecting players.
- 19:43Speaker 1: You know, We've still got some things going on that
- 19:46Speaker 1: that need to be fixed. But we're making We're getting that.
- 19:51Speaker 1: The Wolves were beginning to howl the door. In November
- 19:54Speaker 1: of more than halfway through the second season, the Jaguars
- 19:58Speaker 1: were modest four and seven and seemed far far behind
- 20:01Speaker 1: expansion rival Carolina. Dave Thomas suffered a gruesome leg injury
- 20:05Speaker 1: in Cincinnati, a five interception game from Mark Brunette in St.
- 20:09Speaker 1: Louis doomed them to a loss, and the decision to
- 20:11Speaker 1: part ways with Andre Risen after a shaky game in
- 20:14Speaker 1: Pittsburgh left the Jaguars at the very edge of a
- 20:17Speaker 1: steep cliff. The guy that most teams don't recover from it.
- 20:21Speaker 1: But something turned in the most important month of an
- 20:24Speaker 1: NFL season, and it turned at the most critical time
- 20:27Speaker 1: for the head coach. I think it was the long road,
- 20:30Speaker 1: the tough road, the tough season, and then being nine
- 20:34Speaker 1: and seven and getting in you know, all of a sudden,
- 20:38Speaker 1: everybody's healthy, all of a sudden, everybody's excited, all of
- 20:41Speaker 1: a sudden everybody. And then the opportunity thing, it's sitting
- 20:44Speaker 1: right in front of us. It's it's the chance of
- 20:46Speaker 1: a lifetime. And uh, you know, it probably is where
- 20:50Speaker 1: that road warrior thing started, because we were tough on
- 20:53Speaker 1: the road. I mean we didn't I mean we could
- 20:56Speaker 1: go into the most difficult of environments and and play
- 20:59Speaker 1: tough and uh and we did, and and it was
- 21:04Speaker 1: you know, it was yeah, it was the little subtle things,
- 21:07Speaker 1: but it was also there come from behind and things
- 21:10Speaker 1: of that nature, you know, And and and the confidence
- 21:13Speaker 1: that was starting to be built thinking that we we
- 21:15Speaker 1: could score, you know, we could do some things. And
- 21:17Speaker 1: we were, you know, we had pretty good leadership on
- 21:20Speaker 1: both sides of the ball, to be honest with the Jaguars.
- 21:23Speaker 1: Dramatic run to nine and seven, followed by improbable playoff
- 21:26Speaker 1: winds in Buffalo and in Denver, ignited the collective imagination
- 21:30Speaker 1: of North Florida and set winning as the expectation in Jacksonville.
- 21:35Speaker 1: So we beat Buffalo in the playoffs in and we're
- 21:39Speaker 1: headed for Denver, and this is John Elway. All right,
- 21:42Speaker 1: they've they are Super Bowl champions. Okay, they have a
- 21:45Speaker 1: heck of a football team, a great team. Mike Shanahan's
- 21:48Speaker 1: the head coach. We go out there, nobody gives us
- 21:53Speaker 1: a chance to win. Okay, anytime I've ever won anything,
- 21:56Speaker 1: nobody gave us a chance to win. Okay. We go
- 21:58Speaker 1: out there and uh, it's one of those games. And
- 22:02Speaker 1: I remember, you know, ball up in the end zone,
- 22:05Speaker 1: Burnell making it gazelle like runs, people flying around, and
- 22:10Speaker 1: you know, defense banging away and just you know, back
- 22:14Speaker 1: and forth enough to keep us where we are in
- 22:16Speaker 1: the game. And we're ahead at the end of the game,
- 22:20Speaker 1: and uh, it's about to be Uh, they don't have
- 22:22Speaker 1: any time outs. And I tell Dick Geron, who was
- 22:26Speaker 1: a defensive coordinator. I said, Dick, just make sure that
- 22:31Speaker 1: when they do score, it's under two minutes. Just they're
- 22:34Speaker 1: gonna score. They're gonna score. We're up with ten, they're
- 22:38Speaker 1: gonna score. But when they do, make sure it's under
- 22:42Speaker 1: two minutes because they don't have any time outs. Sure enough,
- 22:46Speaker 1: he goes down bang bing bing bing bing. Any scores
- 22:50Speaker 1: it's under two. They line up with the onside kick,
- 22:53Speaker 1: and quite frankly, you can tell they've they've been winning
- 22:56Speaker 1: by so much they don't they don't even know how
- 22:58Speaker 1: to line up for the onside kick, you know, don't they.
- 23:00Speaker 1: They bonded the ball back to La Maston was our
- 23:04Speaker 1: fullback who was in the middle of the of the
- 23:08Speaker 1: hands team, and La recovers the ball really uncontested. It's
- 23:12Speaker 1: not much of a kick and just and everybody's going
- 23:17Speaker 1: the league is incomplete shock, okay, because if we don't
- 23:22Speaker 1: beat him, then they're gonna win three in a row, okay.
- 23:26Speaker 1: And it's just exactly what it was. And and and
- 23:31Speaker 1: when we win that game, there's no way you could
- 23:34Speaker 1: not smile. The locker room was fabulous, you know, Wayne
- 23:38Speaker 1: was in there, and it was players were just pay
- 23:42Speaker 1: players were beside themselves because of what you know, fellas
- 23:47Speaker 1: you sacrifice your work, you're ever loving off, you pay
- 23:50Speaker 1: a great price. You can't quite see the end of
- 23:53Speaker 1: the road, but you know, if you're doing it the
- 23:54Speaker 1: right way, it's gonna happen. Things are gonna happen good
- 23:57Speaker 1: for you. You know. Sometimes it takes longer than others,
- 24:00Speaker 1: but it's gonna happen. And there there they go out
- 24:04Speaker 1: against the great team in the National Football League at
- 24:06Speaker 1: the time, with a great running back and the greatest quarterback,
- 24:09Speaker 1: all that, all this stuff, defense and all all of
- 24:14Speaker 1: all of these things when players are going crazy. We're
- 24:18Speaker 1: getting the plane. We come back and we're you know,
- 24:21Speaker 1: getting towards and wait, wait a minute, the airport's over there.
- 24:24Speaker 1: What's he doing? He starts to bank the plane and
- 24:28Speaker 1: then they announced that. You look down and there's thirty
- 24:31Speaker 1: six thousand people in the state waiting for us at
- 24:35Speaker 1: one o'clock in the morning to get back from the airport.
- 24:39Speaker 1: It's it's unreal, as u there was an unbelievable feeling
- 24:43Speaker 1: to know that, man, man, we got the whole town
- 24:47Speaker 1: is behind this team, and we're having fun doing it.
- 24:51Speaker 1: You know, we're having a lot of fun doing Mark
- 24:54Speaker 1: and Tony, Jimmy and keenan party in brackets. The foundations
- 24:58Speaker 1: were in place in the spring of night. Then a
- 25:01Speaker 1: trade with Buffalo and an incredible Pro day performance in
- 25:04Speaker 1: Florida brought the missing element to a championship team. First
- 25:09Speaker 1: of all, um Fred was a product of the development
- 25:13Speaker 1: of Rob Johnson. In the trade. Okay, we wouldn't have
- 25:16Speaker 1: been up there if it wasn't for that. But that's
- 25:19Speaker 1: the critical thing about being able to keep those young
- 25:21Speaker 1: quarterbacks around, because you remember what Rob did. We go
- 25:25Speaker 1: up to Baltimore and he plays an incredible game. On
- 25:30Speaker 1: one leg, he gets the high ankle sprain. I got it,
- 25:34Speaker 1: you know. I pulled him out. He comes over the sideline.
- 25:37Speaker 1: He can't go back in. He can't. He's in my ear. Coach,
- 25:42Speaker 1: let me go, I can go. I can do it.
- 25:43Speaker 1: I can do it. By god, he did do it.
- 25:46Speaker 1: He did do it. But that, you know, the whole
- 25:49Speaker 1: world looked at that and said, my goodness. You know.
- 25:52Speaker 1: So Fred became that spot in the draft, Buffalo spot.
- 25:58Speaker 1: So it's a dynamic that we quite frankly don't have.
- 26:02Speaker 1: So I'm looking to see now Fred's career at Florida.
- 26:08Speaker 1: It's at the end of the of his career that
- 26:10Speaker 1: they finally play him and use him. And he has
- 26:13Speaker 1: some incredible games, but there's not a lot of them.
- 26:17Speaker 1: So I go over to work We go over to
- 26:18Speaker 1: work him out, and I love their stadium. It might
- 26:22Speaker 1: be the fastest track in the history of tracks. Okay,
- 26:25Speaker 1: everybody wants to run a forty on that grass. I
- 26:28Speaker 1: couldn't do it, so we had to for whatever reason,
- 26:32Speaker 1: something was going on, and we conducted the workouts down
- 26:35Speaker 1: on their practice field, which is just like any practice field,
- 26:38Speaker 1: to be honest. He's he's two pounds six ft whatever.
- 26:46Speaker 1: You know. He runs four four on my clock. Some
- 26:51Speaker 1: had him under four four. You know. It's like when
- 26:54Speaker 1: I talked to him about the I call it an
- 26:56Speaker 1: eighty nine yard. He calls it a ninety you know.
- 26:59Speaker 1: So but he comes over. He's a young kid, he's
- 27:03Speaker 1: got a long way to go, and he uh, you know.
- 27:09Speaker 1: First of all, he on the day that the rookies
- 27:13Speaker 1: come in and we we warn them all. I mean,
- 27:16Speaker 1: this is gonna be a conditioning test, and it's a
- 27:19Speaker 1: tough test. He doesn't do quite well. Yeah, he doesn't
- 27:23Speaker 1: do as well as he should. He's the number one
- 27:25Speaker 1: draft choice, but yet he's not the top conditioned athlete.
- 27:30Speaker 1: So that's how he starts on. He's he's embarrassed. He
- 27:33Speaker 1: feels bad about it, but it's a done deal, you know.
- 27:38Speaker 1: So we get to camp and we're gonna work against
- 27:40Speaker 1: New Orleans. The first drill is nine on seven. The
- 27:47Speaker 1: the bodies are flying, you know, it's it's it's haslet
- 27:51Speaker 1: you know, who's got them all gunned up. And we're
- 27:55Speaker 1: so Fred and so this is I'm jump away. But
- 28:00Speaker 1: I go to the Combine a couple of years ago
- 28:03Speaker 1: and Fred's brought in by the league to speak to
- 28:06Speaker 1: the rookies, you know, to speak to them. And I
- 28:09Speaker 1: walk in and I see crowd of people around this
- 28:11Speaker 1: guy and they're interviewing him. But I see it's Fred.
- 28:14Speaker 1: So I go over and I see Fred. He comes over.
- 28:17Speaker 1: He gives me a hug. Remember he finished he was
- 28:19Speaker 1: in New England for the end of his career. So
- 28:23Speaker 1: we stood there and talked for a minute. He kind
- 28:25Speaker 1: of hugs me and he says, Coach, I get it.
- 28:27Speaker 1: I get it now. He said, I was with you
- 28:30Speaker 1: and then I was with New England and I get it.
- 28:31Speaker 1: I get it now. So I said great. He so eloquent,
- 28:36Speaker 1: so smart. You know, I had it all together. So
- 28:39Speaker 1: we walked around the corner, were by the elevators, and
- 28:41Speaker 1: he goes, Coach, you know you were trying to kill
- 28:43Speaker 1: me And I said, no, now, I wasn't trying to
- 28:46Speaker 1: kill you, but I was trying to get you ready
- 28:48Speaker 1: for what what was coming real quick. And we laughed
- 28:51Speaker 1: and stuff, and he goes, oh, he's a coach. I
- 28:54Speaker 1: gotta run because I had my next appointment. Elevator opens,
- 28:58Speaker 1: He steps into the elevator. The elevator doors are starting
- 29:01Speaker 1: to close. He said, coach, I love you, but you
- 29:04Speaker 1: were trying to kill him. The door shuts like that.
- 29:08Speaker 1: But uh, I mean we've never I mean, you can remember,
- 29:11Speaker 1: remember Tampa. He goes seventy with a draw out here
- 29:14Speaker 1: with Miami. The things that he did, you know, I mean,
- 29:18Speaker 1: if he doesn't get hurt, we're gonna we're gonna have
- 29:22Speaker 1: what we keep saying we are. We're a balanced team.
- 29:24Speaker 1: You know, We're gonna be able to do this. We're
- 29:25Speaker 1: gonna do that because when he gets out there, he's gone.
- 29:28Speaker 1: I mean, there's nobody gonna catch him. And uh and
- 29:32Speaker 1: but I think the proudest part of it is the
- 29:35Speaker 1: way that he developed as a man, you know, the
- 29:38Speaker 1: way that he kind of put it all together, and
- 29:41Speaker 1: the and the and the the person that he is today.
- 29:45Speaker 1: The rookie from Florida exploded all over the National Football
- 29:49Speaker 1: League and in his second season, the Jaguards went from
- 29:51Speaker 1: a contender to the favorite. Fourteen wins in the regular season,
- 29:55Speaker 1: and a historic sixty two to seven win over Miami
- 29:58Speaker 1: in the divisional round set up the off C Championship
- 30:00Speaker 1: game against the Titans, the only team to beat the
- 30:03Speaker 1: Jaguars in I'm telling you, I've been Super Bowls. I've been,
- 30:09Speaker 1: but that stadium was electric that day. I mean an electric.
- 30:14Speaker 1: They were going crazy. Pregame was as incredible as I've
- 30:19Speaker 1: ever been around home field. I mean you could feel,
- 30:22Speaker 1: you felt it. You know, it was the real deal.
- 30:25Speaker 1: You know, we we jump out with a nice, nice lead.
- 30:29Speaker 1: They come back. You know, we have the fumble punt,
- 30:33Speaker 1: they kicked the field goal. But at halftime, our guys
- 30:36Speaker 1: are rattled. What the heck is wrong with you guys?
- 30:39Speaker 1: You know we're up fourteen to ten. Settled down, settled down, Well,
- 30:43Speaker 1: there was nothing to the second half. We don't do
- 30:45Speaker 1: a thing that they but we should have been the
- 30:49Speaker 1: team in Atlanta that game. It hovered over the franchise
- 30:53Speaker 1: like a dark cloud, and the injuries and salary cap
- 30:56Speaker 1: issues would begin to hover as well. What looked like
- 30:59Speaker 1: a dynasty now looked ready to dissipate, and in two
- 31:02Speaker 1: thousand three, after three consecutive losing seasons, Tom Coughlin was
- 31:07Speaker 1: asked to leave. It was tough. It was, it was
- 31:11Speaker 1: It was really really difficult, really difficult. And you know,
- 31:17Speaker 1: I mean this is coach talk, but even in the
- 31:20Speaker 1: last year, we lost five games by twelve points, I think,
- 31:28Speaker 1: and stupid losses. The Cleveland loss was ridiculous, I mean ridiculous. Uh.
- 31:34Speaker 1: And the ball was dropped and they still wouldn't they
- 31:37Speaker 1: still wouldn't change the call, you know. But it was
- 31:42Speaker 1: hard to believe me. It was hard. It was, you
- 31:44Speaker 1: know what. And it was really hard because when when
- 31:48Speaker 1: you're told that your services are no no longer wanted,
- 31:52Speaker 1: I mean, it's a crushing blow to who you are,
- 31:56Speaker 1: you know. And I can remember my car had been
- 32:02Speaker 1: moved around to the dock. I wasn't gonna talk to anybody.
- 32:05Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna do that. So then I went home
- 32:08Speaker 1: and I had to tell my kids, you know. And uh,
- 32:13Speaker 1: I'm sitting on this ernie and read it came over,
- 32:15Speaker 1: you know, and I was sitting on the stairs steps,
- 32:19Speaker 1: you know, they go up to the second floor. I
- 32:21Speaker 1: just sat there and we had a table right there.
- 32:24Speaker 1: But I'm sitting on that and they're trying to make
- 32:27Speaker 1: it feel better, and it's it doesn't work. You know,
- 32:29Speaker 1: it's not gonna work. You don't want to see anybody,
- 32:32Speaker 1: you don't want to talk to anybody, you want to
- 32:34Speaker 1: go out here, you know. So but the thing that happened,
- 32:39Speaker 1: which was incredible for me, was so I I did,
- 32:45Speaker 1: you know, I mean, obviously there's things you have to do.
- 32:47Speaker 1: So I'm I did go out in the community, basically
- 32:50Speaker 1: out you know, out of the beach, you know, kind
- 32:52Speaker 1: of bed and around there. People were great, they were amazing.
- 32:57Speaker 1: Thank you, coach, Thank you coach. So my daughter came
- 33:02Speaker 1: up a little bit, you know, and uh, you know,
- 33:09Speaker 1: but it hurt. It definitely hurt. And I wasn't I
- 33:13Speaker 1: wasn't ashamed to admit it, you know. And uh so
- 33:19Speaker 1: you know, life marches on and there's things that that
- 33:25Speaker 1: happened in life that are are incredible. Really, Uh, the
- 33:30Speaker 1: way the Good Lord deals with you, you know, I
- 33:33Speaker 1: don't get such a big head, buddy, because you're in
- 33:35Speaker 1: for one or two. You know, you're you're gonna get yours.
- 33:39Speaker 1: But but the idea of you know, what you go through.
- 33:45Speaker 1: And then I stayed here, which is people don't do that,
- 33:49Speaker 1: they go somewhere. I stayed in that same house and uh,
- 33:53Speaker 1: Harbor Island because quite frankly, I wasn't going to move
- 33:57Speaker 1: and move again. I mean, I thought that was stupid it,
- 34:00Speaker 1: you know. And uh, I did have to go through
- 34:03Speaker 1: a season, but I got myself back to football, you know,
- 34:07Speaker 1: and Mike Perkins kept me stocked with tape, and I
- 34:11Speaker 1: had the upstairs room. We had a kind of a
- 34:14Speaker 1: game room upstairs, and I would take over and I
- 34:17Speaker 1: would I'd go to Mass Sunday morning and I say
- 34:21Speaker 1: to the family, I'll see you guys probably Monday night,
- 34:24Speaker 1: and up I would go for the one o'clock and
- 34:27Speaker 1: then the four thirty and then the night game, you know,
- 34:31Speaker 1: and I would watch everything, take notes and the Monday
- 34:35Speaker 1: night game would be the same way. And I would
- 34:38Speaker 1: get tape on Monday from from Mike, and I would
- 34:41Speaker 1: pick the games I wanted to look at and I
- 34:43Speaker 1: would be able to look at those games and study.
- 34:47Speaker 1: And in the meantime, you know, life goes on. And
- 34:52Speaker 1: I remember the first phone call from John Mara, and uh,
- 34:57Speaker 1: I remember um Kate was home the whole fall and
- 35:05Speaker 1: she was going back for second semester of of her
- 35:07Speaker 1: senior year at Boston College. So she and Dylan and
- 35:12Speaker 1: Chris snee flew in from the Bowl game, which was
- 35:14Speaker 1: in Hawaii, and we had I think it was Dylan's baptism.
- 35:23Speaker 1: Then in the car they went. They left January five.
- 35:28Speaker 1: I left either next day and I went to New
- 35:33Speaker 1: York and I never never come back. More perspectives following
- 35:38Speaker 1: this from Vice Star Credit Union Advice Star. We believe
- 35:43Speaker 1: in better, especially in helping build a better financial future
- 35:47Speaker 1: for our members, so we reviewed our offerings from the
- 35:50Speaker 1: ground up. We've lowered or eliminated over half our fees
- 35:53Speaker 1: and enhanced our already competitive rates, saving members more than
- 35:57Speaker 1: a million dollars this year. In addition to the Lillians,
- 36:00Speaker 1: we saved them every year. If you believe that saving
- 36:03Speaker 1: money is better Joined by Star, We never forget that
- 36:07Speaker 1: it's your money, all loan subject to approval, insured by
- 36:10Speaker 1: n c u A. What happened with the Giants is
- 36:14Speaker 1: well chronicled. Coughlin took a different team to the Promised
- 36:17Speaker 1: Land and won two Super Bowl championships. He was working
- 36:21Speaker 1: in New York in the fall of tea and thinking
- 36:23Speaker 1: about his next steps in football when the owner of
- 36:26Speaker 1: the Jaguars called the new owner. I was at the
- 36:30Speaker 1: League office, okay, and it was I had done a
- 36:34Speaker 1: lot of stuff during the course of the year with
- 36:36Speaker 1: surveys and all kinds of stuff, trying to feed Roger information.
- 36:40Speaker 1: At the head coaches, we're saying about what had to
- 36:43Speaker 1: be done with the game, um, and it got to
- 36:46Speaker 1: be that I don't know what was it. It was
- 36:49Speaker 1: early January, I guess early January, and it was the
- 36:56Speaker 1: Jaguars had fired their coach. My first thing is I
- 36:59Speaker 1: came down and talk to Shot on the boat down here, um,
- 37:04Speaker 1: and then went back to the league no problem, and
- 37:08Speaker 1: we talked about a lot of things, not just a
- 37:10Speaker 1: head job here. But so when that other opportunity came up,
- 37:14Speaker 1: and it was really interesting because I had basically told Shot,
- 37:20Speaker 1: you know, I can help and a lot of capacities
- 37:23Speaker 1: I can. I can help the head coach, I can
- 37:25Speaker 1: help the general manager, I can help the owner. I
- 37:28Speaker 1: can help in a lot of capacities because I've done
- 37:31Speaker 1: lots of different things in the course of my career
- 37:34Speaker 1: and I have, you know, a little bit of knowledge
- 37:36Speaker 1: about a lot of a lot of things, so I
- 37:38Speaker 1: can help. And so Shot called back and it was
- 37:44Speaker 1: really just a manner of minutes and it was a
- 37:47Speaker 1: done deal. And I remember when I went upstairs to
- 37:50Speaker 1: tell Roger okay, and he already knew it, and uh
- 37:54Speaker 1: so he you know, and I was kind of basing
- 37:57Speaker 1: everything on. Well, you know, uh, I'll I'll come back
- 38:00Speaker 1: tomorrow and clean my desk up and I'll So he
- 38:03Speaker 1: comes down a minute later, Roger does, and he starts
- 38:05Speaker 1: talking about, well, you got your hands full, but it's
- 38:07Speaker 1: gonna be good for the league because you're gonna be
- 38:09Speaker 1: there and they'll be better. And he said, so what
- 38:13Speaker 1: are you doing? And I said, well, I gotta get her.
- 38:16Speaker 1: You better get at it. So I left. So I left.
- 38:21Speaker 1: I just got my stuff together and left. So I
- 38:23Speaker 1: hadn't been through that front door in that and any
- 38:25Speaker 1: kind of capacity. And all the time that I've been
- 38:28Speaker 1: I've been here, I think, but not through that door.
- 38:30Speaker 1: So that was interesting. And then there's a few people
- 38:33Speaker 1: that I have a chance to say hello to again.
- 38:36Speaker 1: But uh, it was different, much different, you know, much different.
- 38:41Speaker 1: And then uh, trying to talk Dug into taking the
- 38:43Speaker 1: office that I'm in, he didn't want it. I'm basically
- 38:47Speaker 1: in the office I was in when I was here,
- 38:49Speaker 1: which I don't know how fair that is for everybody.
- 38:52Speaker 1: But that's where I am. It felt like deja vu
- 38:55Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, but Jaguars were in the a f
- 38:58Speaker 1: C Championship Game New England, no less. Tom Coplin was
- 39:02Speaker 1: back in teal and Black, now twenty five years since
- 39:06Speaker 1: he first arrived in Jacksonville. He smiles and shakes his
- 39:09Speaker 1: head himself somewhat surprised and certainly thrilled to be back
- 39:12Speaker 1: with the Jaguars. And for a man who's always focused
- 39:15Speaker 1: on the future, he's happy to share some fond stories
- 39:18Speaker 1: from the past. Don't tell you a story of the
- 39:19Speaker 1: true story, Okay. I come here to accept the job,
- 39:23Speaker 1: and the job is the press conferences at a bank.
- 39:28Speaker 1: You remember this, well, it's at a bank, Okay. I
- 39:33Speaker 1: don't see anything. Press conference is over. I'm back in
- 39:36Speaker 1: a car out to the airport. Wayne's plane takes me
- 39:40Speaker 1: back to Boston. I haven't even seen my team yet.
- 39:42Speaker 1: A Boston college. That was that hurt, that was not
- 39:46Speaker 1: well done by me. But I didn't I didn't have
- 39:49Speaker 1: a whole lot of choice, So so I come back
- 39:53Speaker 1: a week later. I got everything in order, and I
- 39:56Speaker 1: come back porn rain, you know, pull up in a
- 39:59Speaker 1: car and MUDs this deep, it's all dirt. Okay, there's
- 40:04Speaker 1: one concrete stanching, that's it. Okay, there's one trailer. I
- 40:10Speaker 1: walked through the mud. I go up the steps, I
- 40:12Speaker 1: walk in the front door. There's someone's over here at
- 40:16Speaker 1: a desk. Okay, I walk in. They don't even have
- 40:19Speaker 1: a desk for me. Yeah, they say, uh, Mr Weaver,
- 40:25Speaker 1: when he's here, he sits at that desk. He's not
- 40:28Speaker 1: here a lot. Why don't you take that desk? And
- 40:32Speaker 1: those are you know, non no cell phone days. Those
- 40:34Speaker 1: are you know, land land falls. So I look around
- 40:39Speaker 1: and I'm saying to myself, what in hell have you
- 40:43Speaker 1: gotten yourself into this time? Because that's what it looked
- 40:45Speaker 1: like at first, because the wheels weren't in motion, you know,
- 40:49Speaker 1: until we made it get in motion, until we got
- 40:51Speaker 1: more people here, and then they would put another trailer around.
- 40:53Speaker 1: Remember how that went. It would be trailer. Okay, we
- 40:56Speaker 1: need room, trailer. But the wheels weren't in motion right away.
- 41:00Speaker 1: I mean, I'm trying to drum up, you know, what
- 41:03Speaker 1: we're going, and putting put putting a plan together and
- 41:07Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Another one of those deals
- 41:09Speaker 1: where I I'm never going back home. They all got
- 41:11Speaker 1: to come to me, so uh, but that was the first,
- 41:15Speaker 1: my first introduction. Two, there was no stadium, there was
- 41:20Speaker 1: no nothing. Okay, we weren't gonna play until but a
- 41:25Speaker 1: lot of things had to happen quick. Twenty five years later,
- 41:29Speaker 1: he has desired to bring a Lombardi Trophy to Jacksonville.
- 41:32Speaker 1: He's still burning as bright as it did back then.
- 41:35Speaker 1: People usually when they leave there, either even when they're booted,
- 41:39Speaker 1: they don't want anything to do with it. They don't
- 41:41Speaker 1: come back. But different situations, both both with Boston College
- 41:47Speaker 1: and with the Giants, and hopefully with this, I hope
- 41:51Speaker 1: it turns out the same way.