A Coach's Man

Bill Parcells wasn't the easiest man for a front office to get along with. The late George Young found that out as the Giants' GM. As did Bob Kraft when Parcells went to coach his team in New England.

But Mara really liked Parcells. He liked the way he ran the team, how he got the most out of his players and how he was able to get truants like Lawrence Taylor to produce at their max. And Parcells, in turn, respected the heck out of Mara. He reminded him of his speak-softly dad. Not once in 10 years as a coach or assistant did Parcells go to practice without seeing Mara there. Everything Parcells had, he once said, he owed to the Mara family.

Theirs was a relationship few people ever saw or knew about. Parcells owned horses and had a love-hate relationship with them, as all horsemen do. One day he told Mara this one particular horse was good, but wait 'til you see the one I've got in the barn. "That's what they all say,'' Mara said. When the Giants moved training camp to Albany a few years ago, a few New York Thruway exits from the Saratoga Race Course, Parcells dropped a note to Mara telling him he knew the real reason the Giants had moved 120 miles north. Mara wrote back: "Don't tell anyone.''

Mara knew Parcells was superstitious and believed if you saw a penny on the ground, heads up, it was good luck; a tails-up penny was to be avoided at all costs. And so sometimes, when he went down to the locker room to get dressed for practice, Parcells would find a penny, heads up, in his locker. Mara's work.

When Parcells took the Dallas job, coaching the rival Cowboys, Mara wrote him a note that said, "Good luck ... to a point." He taped a penny, heads-up, to the note.

A Player's Man

After Tiki Barber had a key fumble against Philadelphia a few years ago, he felt like digging a hole in the locker room and crawling in it. Behind him came Mara. "Forget about it,'' Mara said. "We'd never be where we are without you.''

After an inactive Jeremy Shockey embarrassed the franchise the night before a game in New Orleans a couple of years ago, Mara called Shockey into his office on Monday and told him if he ever did that again, he'd be fired. You could do a lot of things to the organization, but you couldn't embarrass the Mara family. Mara's scolding turned the light bulb on in Shockey's head. Not that he's turned into Cal Ripken or anything, but he's not as careless a kid anymore.

Last Monday, Barber was summoned by trainer Ronnie Barnes, Mara's caretaker, to be at Wellington's bedside as he lay dying. "It was very somber,'' Barber told me. "The family was there. Mr. Mara was sleeping. I had a chance to say a prayer at his bedside. They thanked me for coming. I said, 'Don't thank me. It's an honor to be able to be at such a great man's bedside at a time like this.'''

A Team Man

"You could only get in trouble one way with Mr. Mara,'' said GM Ernie Accorsi. "Don't ever let him read anything in the paper. I'd call him on everything, even this year when he was sick. He read the waiver wire every day and he'd come in sometimes and say something like, 'That kid we liked from Oregon is on waivers, you know.'

"He was all football. He let you do your job. He might say, 'This is not an order. It's just a suggestion.' But he always had a good idea. And even this year, when he was sick, he was on top of that waiver wire. He wanted to know everything about the roster.

"He loved to bring old Giants back. When we brought [guard] Jason Whittle back from the Bucs, he was so happy. And this year, when we got down to the final cuts, we had a debate on the last few spots. We made all the cuts but the last one, and I called him with the cuts. I told him we were down to one last cut, and Jason was in mix. He said, 'I'm not going to say anything about it, but you know I'm not going to be happy [if the Giants cut Whittle].' I knew. I went down to see Tom [Coughlin] and asked him what he was thinking about the spot, and it looked like Jason was going to make it. I said, 'Good. Let me tell you what Mr. Mara said.'"

A Family Man

John Mara's eulogy at St. Patrick's Cathedral will go down as an all-timer. "Best eulogy I've ever heard,'' Accorsi said.

"The entire church clapped,'' Barber said. "That's not supposed to happen. But you couldn't help it. It was the greatest speech I've ever heard.''

This is the part I liked best from Mara's son:

"As painful as it is to say good-bye to someone you love so much, to someone who has been such an important part of your life, I could not help but think, when I sat down to try and prepare this, how fortunate all my brothers and sisters and me are to have Wellington Mara as our father. He was the finest man we have ever known or hope to know, and he was our Dad. Many years ago his good friend Tim Rooney said something to me that I have reflected on many times since. 'You realize, don't you, that your father is the best example of how we should all live our lives. You will never find anyone better to emulate.' Over the years, as I have watched my father live his life, I have come to realize how true those words were and what a role model he really was.''