We lost a piece of coaching history on Sunday when Mickey Corcoran died at age 93. Once there were three of them and they formed what was and probably always will be the greatest coaching tree in the history of New Jersey. It began at a now defunct tiny Catholic High School in Englewood with Vince Lombardi, who left giant footprints across every football field at every level across the face of America.
At St. Cecilia's, Lombardi mentored Corcoran as the next link. Mickey, ironically, came under Vince's wing as a basketball player. He set standards as a high school coach in that sport for years and later as an athletic director and referee. And as a retiree his advice and counsel earned him the nickname of ''the mentor'' from New Jersey coaches in a variety of sports.
It was Corcoran, who both coached and mentored Bill Parcells and taught him the discipline and perspective that enabled him to begin his own coaching tree.
Lombardi died in 1970. On Sunday, Mickey Corcoran died at age 93. Now there is only Parcells. But the qualities that forged the chain that bound the three together were so strong they shaped so many of the good ones who came afterward.
The relationship between Lombardi and Corcoran was hardly pre-ordained. He was already coaching football, teaching physics, chemistry, and Latin—all for $3,000. He and Father Tim Moore, his boss, had even spent the summer building a field house. When Father Moore asked him to add basketball to all those duties, Lombardi accepted because Father Moore added a couple hundred dollars to his paycheck.
That brought him and Corcoran together in a marriage made in hoops heaven. Lombardi, the football genius, went to the public library and checked out a how-to basketball book written by Dane Bible the old Texas A&M basketball coach. It was his play book. The rest was all due to Lombardi's intensity.
And Corcoran, his star pupil made it work. Together, they won a state title.
I was standing in the Giants locker years after Corcoran's and Lombardi's state title and a Giants punt returner named Dave Meggett, who had struggled mightily suddenly had a great game. Parcells walked up to his locker, leaned across a reporer and said ''It's about freakin' time'' Then he smiled and so did Meggett.
''Yeah,'' Parcells said the next day,''I learned that from Mickey. He was a master. I was the team's high scorer but once he got me after a basketball game with just one sentence:
''Parcells, you weren't worth the two points that technical gave them. Do it again and you're never gonna play another minute here."
"See I was 15 years old and we're up by 17 points but he took me out. I thought he was going to put me back but he didn't. If he had I would have had him forever. He knew how to get into my head.''
''Discipline ad perspective and caring. That's Mickey, that and a brilliant coaching mind. I took him to Chicago when we got into the playoffs. They were better than us but we were good that day and we could have won but we didn't. We dropped a touchdown pass in the second half that could have given us a chance. I was pissed. Then at the press conference there's this magazine writer who asks 'could you have used more three-step drops and I said you wouldn't know a three-step drop if it grew teeth and bit you in the ass.'
''Then I walked out. I didn't say I didn't say a word to the owners. I didn't say a word to nobody. Then we get on the bus and it's freezing and I still don't say a word. We get on the plane and we're flying and Mickey is next to me and I don't say a word to him We just finished the season. We won 11 games.
"Now we're over Pittsburgh and all of a sudden He taps me on the shoulder. He knew how I felt. He didn't say nice goin', good season. He taps me on the shoulder and he says ''you got to find a way to beat these freakin' guys.''
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That's Mickey. He wasn't trying to cheer me up. He didn't sugar coat it. He was reminding me of the word 'perspective'. We went to the Super Bowl the next season.
He put it in my head that it's a coach's job to find a way to win. I remember a game in high school where there was time for one play and we were losing so during the time out Mickey diagrammed the way we do it and it went perfectly except for one thing—I missed the shot.
''After the game I apologized for missing it and he told me I didn't need to. He told me he had put us in position to win the game and that was all he could do. He said in the end it was his job to put us in that position but he couldn't shoot for us.''
It explained who and what a coach really is.
The word for this trio was ''simplicity.'' It was their ''open sesame.'' Lombardi had football's thinnest playbook. Mickey laid it on the line what he expected from Parcells after that technical foul. Parcells broke it down with elegant simplicity when he told me:
''You find a way to win but you don't lie to yourself. You are what your record says you are.''
Three men. Three Jersey giants. The state never had better mentors.
- 2016 Honda Accord
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1 comment
Ray 17 hours ago
Other then the capitalism that is today's world, the article speaks volumes. Parcells became an egotist and wanted supreme power and money, and probably deserved it , George Young was also part of what Parcells accomplished and told him so, this did not sit well with him and he bolted, and I believe to this day told Belichick not to sign with the Giants. Enter Ray Handley and a few disastrous
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