24) Bill Parcells

I also received a response from the greatest coach at turning around stumbling franchises in NFL history, Bill Parcells. Mr. Parcells was the only coach to lead four different teams to the playoffs, and three of those teams to conference championship games, all of these teams of whom had horrible records just several years earlier. Parcells’ biggest achievement of those was with the New York Giants, who went from having a winning record in just one season from the ten years of 1973-83 to winning two rings in the 1986 and 1990 seasons with the franchise. What I think might have been a bigger achievement was turning around the New York Jets from a team that, in my first two seasons watching the NFL, went 3-13 in 1995 and 1-15 in 1996 (4-28 in two years) to a 12-4 bye-clinching team in 1998 who went to the AFC Championship.

From what I have found in battling cancer…Bill is not lying when he says a mindset of persistence is a key element. Thank you, Mr. Parcells! And thank you for all you taught to one Sean Payton who brought us a championship as well here in NOLA…