Charlie Weis: Parcells knows how to push buttons
Lesson learned: How to push right buttons
The following is an excerpt from the newly released book, NO EXCUSES by Charlie Weis and Vic Carucci. In this passage, Weis discusses what he learned as an assistant coach for Bill Parcells with the New York Giants, New England Patriots and New York Jets.
Bill Parcells is a master psychologist. I just love the way Bill controls the psyche of everybody around him. He controls the psyche of the team. He controls the psyche of the media. He's able to manipulate people -- and I mean this in a positive, not negative way -- to get them to think, or at least react to the way he thinks.
You can talk about Xs and Os with Parcells until you're blue in the face. What separates him from everyone else is how he manages the team.
NO EXCUSES is the newly released book by Charlie Weis and Vic Carucci.
One of the greatest tactics I learned from Bill is what I call "button pushing." He would make it his business to learn all he could about everyone in his locker room, everyone on his coaching staff, and everyone in every part of the organization. He would find out what made you tick, and then he would find the right buttons to push in order to elevate your performance to a level higher than you ever thought that you could reach.
My button was him questioning how hard I worked. I always worked hard, but he would say things like, "So, I see you're trying to get out of here early again, huh?"
It never failed. I felt I had to work even harder every time he said that.
Bill did it with everybody. It didn't make any difference whether it was Bill Belichick, our defensive coordinator at the time, or Ron Erhardt, our offensive coordinator at the time, or the equipment guys. Everybody was fair game. Bill would find the right button to push. He would play all kinds of mind games.
I would like to think that of all of Bill's qualities that I try to emulate -- which are many -- the two that stand out the most are his management style and his personality. That personality goes back to both of us being Jersey guys. It's a little gruff. It's sometimes perceived as holier-than-thou, but it really isn't that way.
It's that you've learned that when you're a head coach, you're on an island. You don't have anywhere to go with the problems that come up, not just from a football standpoint but every social issue that you have within a team. You can't go to another head coach because then you'd be giving away information. You can't go to your assistants because they aren't the ones leading the team. After a tough loss, there's only one guy who can get the team back on course psychologically, and that's the head coach. I mean, the team's all looking at you. The assistants can lead the guys at their respective positions, but they can't lead the team.
Bill's coaching philosophy with the players was to pressure them hard -- stay on them, never relax, never let up. Even when things went well he would still tell his assistant coaches to keep the pressure on. Players never really knew where they stood with Bill and that was exactly the way he wanted it. He wanted them uneasy.
The coaches felt that, too. He just dominated you. You knew he was in control and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it. You never sought approval from him because you weren't going to get it. He would weed out who couldn't handle that. It was his way or the highway.
More players than coaches washed out of his program. Coaches were smart enough to adapt to it, and say, "Okay, that's the way it is." You had no choice if you wanted to work for him, and you wanted to work for him because he was successful.
Bill's football philosophy was pretty simple: Control the ball on offense and play great defense. The only time he would be more elaborate on offense over the years was when he thought his defense wasn't that good. He knew offense, defense and special teams. His forte was defense, but just like Belichick, those guys who are great defensive coordinators also know the best ways to attack defenses because they know what gives them the most problems.
Belichick and Parcells ... you don't get any smarter than those two. They're on a different level than most everybody else in this game.
The following is an excerpt from the newly released book, NO EXCUSES by Charlie Weis and Vic Carucci. In this passage, Weis discusses what he learned as an assistant coach for Bill Parcells with the New York Giants, New England Patriots and New York Jets.
Bill Parcells is a master psychologist. I just love the way Bill controls the psyche of everybody around him. He controls the psyche of the team. He controls the psyche of the media. He's able to manipulate people -- and I mean this in a positive, not negative way -- to get them to think, or at least react to the way he thinks.
You can talk about Xs and Os with Parcells until you're blue in the face. What separates him from everyone else is how he manages the team.
NO EXCUSES is the newly released book by Charlie Weis and Vic Carucci.
One of the greatest tactics I learned from Bill is what I call "button pushing." He would make it his business to learn all he could about everyone in his locker room, everyone on his coaching staff, and everyone in every part of the organization. He would find out what made you tick, and then he would find the right buttons to push in order to elevate your performance to a level higher than you ever thought that you could reach.
My button was him questioning how hard I worked. I always worked hard, but he would say things like, "So, I see you're trying to get out of here early again, huh?"
It never failed. I felt I had to work even harder every time he said that.
Bill did it with everybody. It didn't make any difference whether it was Bill Belichick, our defensive coordinator at the time, or Ron Erhardt, our offensive coordinator at the time, or the equipment guys. Everybody was fair game. Bill would find the right button to push. He would play all kinds of mind games.
I would like to think that of all of Bill's qualities that I try to emulate -- which are many -- the two that stand out the most are his management style and his personality. That personality goes back to both of us being Jersey guys. It's a little gruff. It's sometimes perceived as holier-than-thou, but it really isn't that way.
It's that you've learned that when you're a head coach, you're on an island. You don't have anywhere to go with the problems that come up, not just from a football standpoint but every social issue that you have within a team. You can't go to another head coach because then you'd be giving away information. You can't go to your assistants because they aren't the ones leading the team. After a tough loss, there's only one guy who can get the team back on course psychologically, and that's the head coach. I mean, the team's all looking at you. The assistants can lead the guys at their respective positions, but they can't lead the team.
Bill's coaching philosophy with the players was to pressure them hard -- stay on them, never relax, never let up. Even when things went well he would still tell his assistant coaches to keep the pressure on. Players never really knew where they stood with Bill and that was exactly the way he wanted it. He wanted them uneasy.
The coaches felt that, too. He just dominated you. You knew he was in control and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it. You never sought approval from him because you weren't going to get it. He would weed out who couldn't handle that. It was his way or the highway.
More players than coaches washed out of his program. Coaches were smart enough to adapt to it, and say, "Okay, that's the way it is." You had no choice if you wanted to work for him, and you wanted to work for him because he was successful.
Bill's football philosophy was pretty simple: Control the ball on offense and play great defense. The only time he would be more elaborate on offense over the years was when he thought his defense wasn't that good. He knew offense, defense and special teams. His forte was defense, but just like Belichick, those guys who are great defensive coordinators also know the best ways to attack defenses because they know what gives them the most problems.
Belichick and Parcells ... you don't get any smarter than those two. They're on a different level than most everybody else in this game.
posted by The Gryphon at 7:46 PM
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