Bill parcells biography book
Verified Purchase. I just finished reading: Parcells A Football Life. The author, Nunyo Demasio, through his meticulous research and vast diction effectively paints a detailed portrait of a football immortal. Parcells is a man with great intestinal fortitude, endurance, and unmatched authentic football credibility. The pendulum of judgment swings back to the positive when learning of his noble leadership traits: honesty, loyalty, intelligence, preparedness, motivator, strategist etc This along with his painstaking hunt for abstract facts that are insignificant on their own, but have great depth of meaning when strung together, left me impressed not only with the subject matter, but also with his top-shelf writing.
The author seamlessly stitched together various bodies of information where they intersected at a common thread. The use of football history mini-lessons gave context to several interrelationships present in the football community. Some of the connections made involving college football, the NFL, and the bill parcells biography book paths of many average and hall of fame players and coaches prove to be quite intriguing.
Whether you like or dislike Parcells personally this is a must read for anyone interested in learning what it takes for players, coaches, executives, and owners to achieve success in the ultra competitive NFL. This is a biography of a recent hall of fame inductee Bill Parcells, whose legendary work at the Giants, the Patriots, the Jets, and the Cowboys keep being discussed, and who has trained many first-rate coaches including Bill Bellichik, Tom Coughlin, and Sean Payton.
The book is very well researched through seemingly countless hours of interviews with the coaches, players, friends, owners, the family, and Parcells himself, and digs deeply into the minds of Parcells. The book is very long and requires some patience on the reader's part. For example, those who have the strongest interest in the Parcells period of the Giants may find the book a bit boring toward the end where his involvement with The Dolphins is extensively described.
Given the number of years he coached for colleges and pros, the number of people that show up in the book is gigantic. It was sometimes difficult for me to recall where I had seen the name before in the book. I trust that the printed version of the book has an index that helps the reader to navigate through the book with the names, but the version I bought was an e-book, and so I found it a bit confusing on my end.
This is a great football biography. It captures Bill Parcells, the person. It really captures modern NFL football as well as any book I have read. The writing is so good - this was a page turner to me from start to end, with one interesting anecdote after another. There is a lot of football detail here, and I would only recommend it if you have an interest in the NFL.
If you do, this might be one of the best sports books you will read. This feels like a very honest look at Parcells, other people in the game, and he NFL. I am a big Patriots fan, yet found this book much more engaging than Halberstam's Bill Belichick biography. See more reviews. Top reviews from other countries. Translate all reviews to English.
Escellent read. A great read of a coach's life before after and during the NFL. Highly recommended. Emotional,hart und ehrlich. Bill beschreibt sein Football leben ohne das sein Privatleben zu kurz kommt. Report Translate review to English. I totally enjoyed this book. Mr Parcells career was truly interesting as was his relationship with both coaches and players.
His loyalty was refreshing in that he had players and coaches follow him from place to place. As is often the case with driven people family does suffer as did his first marriage. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations. Back to top. Get to Know Us. While this biography candidly assesses the career of a consummate coach, it also examines the driving force that took hold of Parcells early and never let him go.
Call it ambition, a dream, bulldog spirit, or perfectionism, it made him one of the winningest coaches in NFL history. Genres Sports Biography. Loading interface About the author. Bill Gutman books 14 followers. Bill Gutman is the author of more than two hundred books for both children and adults in a writing career that has spanned some five decades.
His first book was an adult-level biography of former basketball star Pistol Pete Maravich, and since then he has written children's and young adult biographies and profiles of many prominent sports stars such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Shaquille O'Neal, Ken Griffey, Jr. The Giants Win the Pennant!
Bill parcells biography book: A candid, no-holds-barred portrait
Bill's current passion is The Mike Fargo Mysteries, a series of novels and novellas about a tough detective working in the New York City of the I read it in days and learned a lot from him about life in general, just as i had expected. It was funny to read about things such as how he kept the temperature of the training rooms at 55 degrees in order to discourage players from congregating there and how much the top coaches today: Bill Belichek, Sean Payton, Tom Coughlin employ the things that they've seen Parcells do.
Steven Z. I told him that any words that he would hear that his mother might not approve of were to be forgotten and never repeated, at least not in her presence. The expletives flowed, but what we witnessed was the work of a master motivator who, despite some unorthodox methods, knew how to get the best out of his players. I am avid follower of sports, but I like to look at it from a historical perspective.
Many sports books, particularly, biographies come down to hagiography and statistics, which I find unacceptable. We see a man with all of his foibles apart from his successes, in addition to his large ego, but also a strong sense of contrition as his life evolved. His mother, Ida was a traditional Italian woman who maintained a warm home, and usually contained her forceful personality.
Bill was more of a baseball player than a football player during his youth, but he would grow interested in the sport as it was seen as a ticket into college. While in college he met his wife Judy and by the time he obtained his first job, at Hastings College in Nebraska, they had a daughter and another child on the way. Parcells coaching career would keep him out of the state he loved, New Jersey, for almost twenty years.
Along the way he met and grew close with a number of mentors that included; Bobby Knight, the irascible basketball coach, and Al Davis, a Brooklynite to the core and long time owner and coach of the Oakland Raiders. Throughout his journey before he became a head coach Parcells, who possessed his own rather large ego, was willing to learn from others and adapt if it would contribute to making him a better coach and improve his players.
Finally, he would achieve his goal of being a head coach, being hired by the New York Giants in When Parcells arrived he found the likes of Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson, and a quarterback named Phil Simms who as yet had not found himself on hand. For me the Parcells era with the Giants was wonderful. With visits to training camp I felt I had a special relationship with the team.
Parcells banter at press conferences reflected a moody, sarcastic, but sincere individual. He drove his coaches and players to distraction to the point that Simms came into his office at one point and demanded that he be traded. The book does a superb job describing Parcells coaching methods and philosophy, particularly how he interacted with the players on a number of levels.
For example, he was quite aware that a number of players had drug issues especially Lawrence Taylor. Parcells worked with these players to overcome their problems, set up a team drug policy at a time the NFL did not have one, and a vast majority of players who worked under Parcells state that the most important thing he did for them was make them into men and accomplish things they thought they would never be able to achieve.
In January, the Giants won their first Super Bowl under Parcells, a game that has special meaning for me as I was in Brussels that weekend accompanying twenty high school students on a Model United Nations competition at the Hague. When I arrived the bill parcells biography book thing I asked the attendant at the hotel desk was where I could watch the game.
I was told miles from the city I think he thought I was referring to soccer! Distraught, I called the American Embassy and explained my predicament. A deal was struck; we convoyed to Headquarters and watched the game with American troops until am. I was never prouder to be an American and a Giants fan when they beat Denver Parcells would win another Super Bowl in against Buffalo and the odyssey that is Bill Parcells would continue.
Parcells stay in New England ran into the same control issues with its owner Robert Kraft, whose own sense of self was equal to that of Parcells.
Bill parcells biography book: This was a fantastic book on
An interesting part of the narrative is the description of the Parcells-Kraft relationship, and neither man comes out very positively. The question for the two of them was whose ego was larger; the shrewd owner who wanted total control of his organization to maximize his monetary gain, or a coach who wanted almost total control of the football component of the team.
Despite Parcells football divorce from the Patriots, he did make them relevant and laid the foundation for the most successful football franchise in the 21st century. After leaving New England Parcells wound up back in New Jersey with the New York Jets where he was successful once again in turning around another franchise. With the bombastic Jerry Jones, the owner of the Cowboys we see a mellower Parcells in dealing with ownership, but the same overbearing approach on the field.
Following his stay in Dallas, Parcells concluded his career in the front office of the Miami Dolphins. The book delves a great deal into Parcells private life. His meandering career played havoc with his 40 year marriage which collapsed due to his infidelity. In addition, he was an absentee father to his three children as he became more of a parent to his players.
We witness a man who faces his mortality with intricate heart surgery. Lastly, we are exposed to Parcells inner thoughts as he reviews his life decisions and takes the blame for many of mistakes he has made. However, no matter what we think of Bill Parcells as a person, no one can minimize the impact he had and how integral he was to the history of the NFL during his long tenure.
To his credit he fathered an amazing coaching tree that includes the like of Bill Belichick, Sean Peyton, and Tom Coughlin, between them there are six super bowl rings. Really great biography of Bill Parcells. Parcells is nominally the author, though it is clear that the co-author did the writing with significant collaboration from Parcells.
The stories of his early life, unlike many other biographies, was interesting and well-written. Tracking his coaching life and his aphorisms as he became the Big Tuna were also interesting, and even the game recaps were appropriate. Parcells definitely reveals his opinion and thinking on his professional and personal life in this work.
Bill parcells biography book: Looking for books by
As a Washington fan growing up, Parcells was someone I rooted against, but it was truly insightful to read about this coaching legend. Scott Martin. Just happened upon this book at the library one day and decided to read it. Found it worth the read. Parcells' family and upbringing, like so many others, played a major role in setting the foundation for his future profession and leadership style.
He bounced around many jobs at the college level before getting picked up by the NY Giants and starting down the path of NFL immortality. His style mirrors many other successful coaches, particularly Lombardi. While came to be known as a rough, yelling taskmaster, the key to his success, like Lombardi, was the ability get to know and learn the psychological make up of his players, tailoring his coaching to bring out the best performance in players.
While Parcells often was known for playing a certain style tough, conservative power offense with a fierce defense and good special teamshe was not so inflexible as to alter his style and methods to fit the available talents the emphasis on the passing offense in New England, going with a defense in Dallas when they didn't have the personnel to run his favored defense.
He generally out-performed his predecessors at every stop, even if he didn't always win the championship. Also, his style of coaching inspired loyalty in players, and many who excelled for Parcells on one team followed him to another. Yet, Parcells had his flaws. Much like Walter Payton, Parcells did so much for others, but left his family in the background.
He returned to New York inthis time to rally the Jets. In two seasons the team with a lamentable 1—15 record had won a division title and missed the Super Bowl by only a game. Inbeleaguered by injuries to key players, the Jets nose-dived, losing six of its first seven games, but Parcells still managed to salvage the season with an 8—8 finish.