Sports Illustrated’s Dave Hyde wrote about the Bill Parcells coaching tree in his “Inside the NFL” article this week (read it here). The story talks about a lot of Parcells’ assistant coaches over the years, including New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin and New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, whose two undefeated teams meet this weekend.

Of course, Virginia’s own Al Groh belongs on the branches too and he’s quoted:

“The desk plate in front of me came from him,” Virginia coach Al Groh says. “I’m looking at it now. ‘You coach the team,’ it says. Shortly after I’d become coach of the New York Jets, Bill came in, sat down and asked, ‘Do you really care what people think?’ I paused and said, ‘Other than in matters of morality and integrity, probably not.’ He said, ‘Good, then you have a chance. Everyone’s going to have an opinion on what you should do. Take all the opinions and information. Ultimately, you coach the team the way you need it to be coached.’ It’s served as good advice. When I’ve had players go on from here to be coaches, I give them a desk plate just like it, one with their new team colors that says just what this one does: ‘You coach the team.’ ”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Al Groh, Football, NFL, Pro Sports, UVa Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.