Maybe Bill Parcells always seems a litte grumpy so that no one will ask him for money. Because when his former players do, he gives it to them.
In all, he has given a lot of money to his former players.
Appearing Friday on WFAN, former New York-area sports writer Gary Myers explained that Parcells gave millions to former players, with no expectation the money would be repaid.
“Bill has loaned out $4 million to 20 players that played for him, who come to him in this financial crisis,” Myers said, via Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post. “Bill knows when they come to him it’s a last resort.”
Myers said he asked Parcells why he would do that, given that Parcells also didn’t expect to get his money back. Said Parcells to Myers: “These guys have sacrificed so much for me with their bodies and their commitment.”
It’s one of the stories in Myers’s forthcoming book, Once A Giant: A Story of Victory, Tragedy, and Life After Football. It focuses largely on the 1986 Giants, the team Parcells led to the franchise’s first Super Bowl win.
“People are going to find out how Bill Parcells has made this transition from a guy who had love-hate relationships with his players to the patriarch of that ’86 team, now that Wellington Mara has been gone for awhile and Bill has had his 82nd birthday recently,” Myers said, per Glasspiegel.
Now that the cat is out of the bag regarding the Big Tuna’s generosity, he should probably keep his phone turned off. And not just because people will be contacting him for a quote or two. The quickest way to become a target for requests for money is to become known as someone who has a habit of giving it away.
That said, Parcells apparently is willing to do what he can to help those who played for him, whether with the Giants, the Patriots, the Jets, or the Cowboys.
“He’s put away money he needs for the rest of his life, he’s given money to his kids, and what he has left he’s designated to help those close to him who need it,” Myers said.
Maybe other coaches are already doing the same thing for their former players, and we just don’t know about it. Or maybe other coaches will read this and become inspired to help their former players who have fallen on hard times — especially if those hard times arise from the overall physical toll those players absorbed while answering the coach’s call to run straight into the tangle of bodies that has left their own bodies broken.
