Fish story

(continued)

by Jason Gay

At this point, a lot of would-be books would have died in editing. Especially after the Jets slogged out to a 1-6 record, it would have been understandable if Parcells and McDonough had thought hell, let's pull the plug on this one. It's a tribute to Parcells's optimism (and, most likely, his lucrative book contract) that he continued to assemble this season-long diary.

Or is it? More than anything else, The Final Season is a testament to the wily coach's tremendous ego. Really -- what other professional coach could get away with writing a 235-page tome about an 8-8 season? And expect people to read it? Essential to understanding the Parcells legend is the fact that no one buys the legend more than Parcells himself. From the way he bullied his players, condescended to the media, and prohibited his assistants from speaking with the press, it's clear that Parcells is in love with his own opinions and personal aura. Sure, you could buy his aw-shucks, lucky-stiff, I'm-only-as-good-as-my-players shtick, but it's as disingenuous as Pedro Martinez calling himself just another pitcher.

We fans, of course, are guilty of encouraging this remarkable self-aggrandizement. In Boston, as in New York, people hung on the Tuna's every word. His post-game press conferences were covered live, with the zeal of wartime State Department briefings. We allowed Parcells to inhabit a fictional world of his own creation, in which he truly believed that the game of football was a matter to be treated with the utmost seriousness, and head coaches, like generals in the heat of battle, were to be respected, never questioned. (For this reason, it should come as no surprise that Parcells's book is vastly outselling Parcells, a new biography from Bill Gutman published by Carroll & Graf. As of October 23, A Final Season was ranked 624 on the Amazon.com sales list. Parcells: A Biography was ranked 17,870.)

All the hero worship allows Parcells to believe that even his most mundane decisions and musings are fascinating insights, to be analyzed and dissected as if they were delicate maneuvers on the Western front. This conceit makes for some amusing moments in A Final Season. Parcells, for example, provides readers with a transcript of his remarks to Jets rookies on the first day of training camp. Not a piece of the remarks, not a summary. The entire speech. Here is an excerpt:

Clay Hampton is our head equipment man. Any equipment problems that you have or anything that you need, you go to Clay. Don't pick up anything in the locker room that does not belong to you. That is a good way to get out of here fast. If you need to have it, Clay knows where to get it. He's been doing this for quite a while and will help you with what you need: type of shoes, the fitting of your helmet, shoulder pads, all of all that.

Indeed, A Final Season contains a lot of revisionist history, a/k/a the World According to Parcells. We get to hear the coach's account of his defection from New England, which, four years after the controversial maneuver, he makes sound as seamless as a move from sous-chef to head chef in a fancy restaurant. We get to hear Parcells's self-absorbed version of last winter's "Belichicken" fiasco, in which his loyal assistant coach Bill Belicheck got cold feet when Parcells stepped down, and ended up fleeing the Jets for New England. Once again, we get to hear Parcells's impassioned plea on behalf of his favorite player, linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a defense that largely ignores the troubled player's history with drugs. The way Parcells glosses over opinions that are contrary to his own (and, sometimes, over the facts) brings to mind the image of a grandfather reciting war stories in front of grandchildren who are too respectful to point out the occasional inconsistencies.

What ultimately redeems A Final Season is that, in a crisis season, the cocky coach finally shows a little vulnerability. The Jets manage to right their season by going 6-2 in their final eight games, but the coach cannot work enough magic to conjure up a playoff berth. Despite his insistence that the hard-fought .500 season was one of his most satisfying, it's obvious that not going out on top pained him incredibly. In its frankest moments, A Final Season is a portrait of a man who came up short. What should have been a glorious moment was instead a muted defeat. Instead of riding off into the sunset, Parcells, the once-great conqueror, limped off stage to quiet applause.

But somehow, he managed to do it with great gusto and style, making a mediocre season seem larger than life. And that, more than anything else, is the heart of the Parcells fascination. In the modern sports era, very few people or events live up to their hype. Star players burn brightly and generally fade quickly. Rookie phenoms often remain exactly that. Super Bowls are usually far from super. But Parcells not only delivered on the promise of success; he did it with the kind of personal energy and charisma that couldn't be duplicated if you raided the gene pool of Vince Lombardi, Red Auerbach, or any other sports-coaching legend. Parcells brought that energy and charisma to New England, New York, and wherever else he traveled in his cantankerous football odyssey. That's why we embrace a vain, otherwise silly exercise like A Final Season. When it comes to Bill Parcells, history gets to be written not only by the winners, but also, it turns out, by those who go 8-8.