Tom Coughlin

Thomas Richard Coughlin (born August 31, 1946) is an American former football coach and executive.

Coughlin was born in Waterloo, New York, in 1946, and played football and basketball in high school.

He once played a high school basketball game against Jim Boeheim, who played for Lyons High School at the time.

He idolized Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis and wished to play at Syracuse.

Coughlin attended Syracuse University when he was offered a scholarship by assistant coach Jim Shreve and became a three-year letter-winner on the football team under Hall of Fame coach Ben Schwartzwalder.

He played halfback for the Syracuse Orange football team.

Coughlin was teammates with future Hall of Famers Larry Csonka and Floyd Little.

In 1967, he set the school's single-season pass receiving record.

Jim Boeheim was Coughlin's residence advisor (RA) during Coughlin's senior year at Syracuse.

He stayed at Syracuse after graduation and obtained his master's degree while working as a graduate assistant.

Coughlin was mentored by Bill Parcells while Coughlin was on Parcells' Giants staff as wide receivers coach.

Like his mentor, Coughlin is known as a stern disciplinarian and for his meticulous attention to detail, earning him the nickname "Colonel Coughlin".

He was known for moving the clocks at team facilities anywhere from five to 15 minutes ahead in order to ensure players arrived ahead of time for team meetings.

Early in his Giants tenure, he fined players for being two minutes early to team meetings, saying they should have arrived at least five minutes early per his new rules.

Coughlin's first coaching job was as a graduate assistant for his alma mater Syracuse in 1969.

He then moved on to his first head coaching job at Rochester Institute of Technology from 1970 to 1973.

He then returned to his alma mater as the Quarterback coach, he was eventually promoted to offensive coordinator and stayed in that position from 1976 to 1980.

After the 1980 season Coughlin moved to Boston College where he was the Quarterbacks coach from 1981 to 1983.

While at Boston College he coached Doug Flutie.

After the 1983 season he left the collegiate level to become the wide receiver coach for the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL and later worked as the wide receivers coach for the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants.

In New York he was an assistant to Bill Parcells, and helped the Giants win Super Bowl XXV.

Coughlin and Parcells both made the NFL playoffs five times as Giants head coach, and the two Super Bowl titles they each won with the Giants occurred in their fourth and eighth seasons with the franchise, respectively.

After the 1990 season, Coughlin returned to Boston College to take on his second job as a head coach.

In three seasons at Boston College, he turned the program into a consistent winner.

Prior to his head coaching career in the NFL, he was head coach of the Boston College Eagles football team from 1991 to 1993, and served in a variety of coaching positions in the NFL as well as coaching and administrative positions in college football.

Coughlin's tenure was capped with a 41–39 victory over #1 ranked Notre Dame in 1993, the first time Boston College defeated Notre Dame.

Coughlin's success at Boston College led to his subsequent hiring as the first head coach of the NFL's expansion Jacksonville Jaguars.

He also had near-complete authority over football matters, effectively making him the team's general manager as well.

In eight seasons at Jacksonville, Coughlin helmed the most successful expansion team in league history.

During Coughlin's tenure, the Jaguars made four consecutive playoff appearances and went to the AFC Championship Game twice.

Coughlin was also the inaugural head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, serving from 1995 to 2002 and leading the team to two AFC Championship Game appearances.

The first time, in only the second year of the team's existence (1996), the Jaguars qualified for the playoffs on the last day of the season and upset the heavily favored Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos on the road.

He was named NFL Coach of the Year by United Press International.

However, in both appearances in the championship game, the Jaguars were defeated: in 1996 by the New England Patriots, and in 1999, by the Tennessee Titans.

Coughlin would again take the Jaguars to the AFC Championship Game in 1999 after achieving a league-high 14–2 regular season record; the 14 wins stood as the most won by the current wave of expansion teams (the Jaguars, Carolina Panthers, Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans) until the Panthers surpassed it in 2015.

But the Jaguars' record for the next three years was only 19–29, and after a 6–10 finish in 2002, Coughlin was fired by owner Wayne Weaver.

He was the head coach for the New York Giants from 2004 to 2015.

He led the Giants to victory in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI, both times against the New England Patriots.

Both the losses in the Jaguars' 14-2 1999 regular season were also to the Titans.

Coughlin's Jaguars won 49 regular season games in his first five years as head coach, a remarkable average for an expansion team of nearly ten wins per year.