Bill Parcells Biography

1941-

American football coach

Not everyone liked Bill Parcells, but he won. Parcells, a football turnaround specialist, took two struggling football franchises and coached them to Super Bowls, and nearly did so with a third.

Parcells' New York Giants won the Super Bowl, the National Football League's (NFL) championship game, in 1987 and 1991. He brought the New England Patriots to the title game in 1997. And the New York Jets, under his tenure, fell one victory short of reaching the Super Bowl in 1998.

Parcells, who espoused old-school football, motivated by fear. "Parcells could be difficult, but those players who responded to his barbs earned his loyalty for a lifetime," Mike Puma wrote in ESPN.com. "Numerous players followed him to different coaching stops." "When we were playing real well as a team, [Parcells] was miserable because he needs friction," said Phil Simms, the quarterback most of Parcells' years with the Giants, during an interview on ESPN's Sports Century

Bill Parcells

series. "He lives on that friction. He needs adversity, and he's got to have a spat going with a player. If there's no adversity, he'll create it."