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Tom Coughlin isn't entering Pride of the Jaguars alone. He's taking about 200 people with him
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- Tom Coughlin isn't entering Pride of the Jaguars alone. He's taking about 200 people with him
Tom Coughlin's name is going up on the facade of EverBank Stadium as the newest member of the Pride of the Jaguars during halftime ceremonies on Oct. 6 when Jacksonville plays host to the Indianapolis Colts .
There isn't enough room to put all the names that the first coach in team history would love to join him — a figure in the hundreds, by his estimation.
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Those additional names? They're the people from his late wife Judy to his assistant coaches and players to the most obscure member of the team's front office that he said contributed in ways great and small to the success the Jaguars enjoyed when they went 68-60, won two division titles, went 4-4 in the playoffs and twice came one step from the Super Bowl during the first eight years of the franchise.
Former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin (left) makes a point during a news conference on Sept. 27 at the EverBank Stadium Gallagher West Club. Coughlin will enter the Pride of the Jaguars during halftime of the team's game on Oct. 6 against Indianapolis. With Coughlin are Pride members Tony Boselli (center) and Fred Taylor (right).
"When you look up there and you see my name, there's about 200 people that should be a part of that board," he said on Sept. 27 during a news conference at the Gallagher West Club. "They all shared in the winning and the losing, and that meant a lot to me."
First and foremost was his wife, who passed away in 2022.
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"She's my quarterback," Coughlin said. "She's obviously not here ... but what she put up ... we started from scratch, from nothing, and so she was a huge part of it."
One of the members of the Pride who Coughlin will join, Pro Football Hall of Fame tackle Tony Boselli, agreed and disagreed with his coach.
"Tom's right ... Judy Coughlin was a big part of those early Jaguar teams because of what she did for our wives," Boselli said, calling her a "mother" to the players' wives. "And so I would agree with Coach. We should probably have a special place for her."
But Boselli then differed with Coughlin.
Tom Coughlin said his late wife Judy deserves to have her name alongside his in the Pride of the Jaguars.
"I disagree with him 1,000 percent that everyone that he talked about deserves to be up there [in the Pride]," Boselli said. "It's not true. They all had a part of it, but no one would've been able to accomplish what this place did without him. He was the architect. He decided who was here, who wasn't here, who coached. He decided what color the damn paint in the hallway was going to be. Nothing happened in this building when I played here unless Tom said it was okay."
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"You can't tell the story of the Jaguars without Tom Coughlin," Boselli added.
Tom Coughlin won two Super Bowls with Giants
Coughlin was fired from the Jaguars after the 2002 season, after going 7-9, 6-10 and 6-10 following the team's best season, a 14-2 mark in 1999. Two years later he was hired by the New York Giants , and coached there for 12 years, with a 102-90 record and two Super Bowl championships, in 2007 and 2011.
Oddly enough, Coughlin's last three years with the Giants mirrored his last three with the Jaguars, 7-9, 6-10 and 6-10, and he was fired there.
Coughlin had one more turn with the Jaguars, serving as the team's executive vice-president for football operations from 2017-2019. The Jaguars won the AFC South in 2017 and again came one game away from the Super Bowl for the third time in franchise history.
Bob.Mack@jacksonville.com - 11/30/14 - Head coach Tom Coughlin talks to Dallas Reynolds after a TD at 11:31 in the 2nd quarter. The Jacksonville Jaguars (1-10) played the New York Giants (3-8) in a NFL football game on Sunday Nov. 30, 2014 at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, FL. (The Florida Times-Union, Bob Mack)
He was fired again in 2019, caught between his no-nonsense, old-school approach and the modern, unionized NFL player.
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Through it all, Coughlin maintained close ties with the First Coast. And one of his lasting legacies will be the Jay Fund Foundation, which he launched more than 25 years ago to help families of children with cancer. It has raised over $28 million in the New York Metro area and the First Coast.
Tom Coughlin demanded everything from teams
In turning an expansion team into a Super Bowl contender in only two seasons, Coughlin was the unquestioned leader, the face of the franchise, who demanded everything his players had, then demanded more.
His training camps were legendary for the ordeal the players went through. The team practiced in full pads for most of the regular season. Game plans were meticulous. There was no detail too small, from how players should wear their socks to assignments on the field.
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"We had good players ... we had guys like Fred [Taylor] and Jimmy [Smith] and Keenan [McCardell] and Tony Brack[ens] and Mark [Brunell] and all these great players," Boselli said. "But the only reason we were here was Tom. And he kept us all together and he made sure we were all growing in the same direction. There was never once in my career when I played here that we were not prepared to play the game. Not once."
Fred Taylor wanted a challenge
Taylor said his introduction to Coughlin came at his University of Florida pro day in 1998. After Taylor went through a stock list of drills for the visiting NFL coaches, he thought he was done.
Not according to his future coach.
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"He was the only coach that stuck behind and put me through extra drills," Taylor said. "He said he was going to run my tongue out of my mouth to see what type of shape I was in. And I thought he was crazy, but I accepted the challenge."
Tom Coughlin has helped raise millions of dollars on the First Coast for the Jay Fund Foundation.
Coughlin then ordered Taylor through jumping, cutting drills and agility drills. Even though Taylor was not yet a Jaguar, he did everything Coughlin asked.
"I did jump cut and jump cut and jump cut and more and more and more," he said. "But he was challenging me and I didn't want to let him down. Fast forward to the draft, he asked me if I were ready to become a Jaguar ... after I was selected ninth overall, I wanted to prove him right."
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Players rallied under Tom Coughlin's yoke
Boselli's favorite Coughlin story was the coach's rule that for pregame meals, home or away, the team entered the dining room at the stadium or at a visiting hotel together, sat together, prayed together and then ate together. But Boselli and teammate Eugene Chung had a habit of rising early on game day and eating breakfast together.
They would then go into the dining area with their teammates, pray, then leave to get to the stadium early.
"I know there was a purpose. Why? Because you tried to build culture," Boselli said. "Well, I like getting to the stadium early. So we always got up super early and would eat in the hotel, eat a full breakfast, walk in, we're on time, pray, immediately leave."
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Boselli said he and Chung got away with it for about six games. Then he found a letter in his locker one day that said he had been fined.
"I go, 'coach, why did I get fined?'" Boselli said. "He says, 'you left pregame [meal].' I go, 'is that a rule?' He goes, 'it is now.'"
Boselli said no matter how hard Coughlin worked the team, no matter how picky his many rules were, he understood what Coughlin was trying to build.
"Training camp sucked ... it was miserable," Boselli said. "I wanted to quit every night. But I wouldn't trade it for anything because those moments brought us together. We were in the foxhole together. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was his whole plan the whole dang time because he had a belief that these guys will go through hard things, get through it together and persevere and continue to work and do things right. We'll have success and that's all that matters."
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Tom Coughlin's consistency forged an identity
Taylor said one of Coughlin's keys was consistency, which he demanded of his players as well as of himself.
"We had an identity ... that was the one thing that he hammered away at the most, like that we established an identity, who we were each and every week, the consistency, the commitment that he would show us," he said.
Coughlin said he knew only one way to that kind of success, and there were no short cuts.
"I wanted everybody on the same page and we knew we were going to work," he said. It's got to be hard. If it's not hard, it's not worth it. And that's how we practiced and how we prepared."
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Tom Coughlin Era with the Jaguars was forged by consistency, hard work
