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Parcells-Henning friendship was forged at Florida State in 1970

By DAVE GEORGE
Palm Beach Post Staff Columnist

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

DAVIE â€” A fresh start, and back in Florida, no less. Welcome to the endless summer of new Dolphins offensive coordinator Dan Henning, who at 66 is preparing to steam through yet another superheated training camp.

This is what it means to latch onto a lifetime friendship with Bill Parcells in 1970, when both of them were kid assistant coaches at Florida State, and to be hooked up with the Big Tuna all over again in the 21st century.

Same game, different eon.

"Bill's not for everybody," said Henning, who last partnered with Parcells on a New York Jets makeover in the late 1990s. "He knows that. I know that. Heck, I'm not for everybody, either, but it's worked out fine."

Henning is talking about the relationship mostly, which started as a couple of Big Apple boys stranded in the Panhandle when not even Bobby Bowden had made it to Tallahassee yet.

FSU was Henning's first college job, an assignment from head coach Bill Peterson to get the quarterbacks and receivers up to speed. It was the fourth college job for Parcells, a linebacker specialist, who had done some bonus work as a part-time basketball assistant for Bob Knight at Army.

Henning, who is 10 months younger than Parcells, preceded him by a couple of years at FSU.

"The first time we worked together was spring practice," Henning recalled. "Bill brought his defensive plan down to Florida State and he liked an eight-man front. We were a big passing team at the time, so the first four or five plays we operated against an eight-man front and the first four or five plays we threw the ball.

"He exploded. He screamed, 'Are we gonna play football or are we just gonna throw the ball around and play catch?' "

Sharing some laughs

Gary Huff, who held FSU's career passing yardage record for 27 years until Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke came along, said he learned a lot working with Henning and Parcells during that 7-4 season of 1970. Laughed a lot, too.

"There's some stories I could tell," said Huff, "but a few more people have to die. Bill was a fun guy to be around. He's a lot more serious now. When it came to the football side back then he was dead serious, of course, but he could laugh at a joke whenever that time came, too.

"I wish I had kept a picture of Bill that I had, but I didn't know he was going to be so prosperous. I had a 1970s picture of him with high platform shoes, white tie, white belt, and kind of long hair. Bill was intense, he loved to coach, but he was still young enough that you felt like if you turned your back on him he might just put on a helmet and run out there himself."

As for Henning, Huff remembers a former San Diego Chargers quarterback with an attention for detail that required painstakingly precise routes by a group of FSU receivers that featured Barry Smith, Rhett Dawson, Kent Gaydos and Gary Parris. All four got NFL contracts.

More than a QB coach

In 1971, Henning moved on to Virginia Tech, where he went to work turning Don Strock into a record-setting passer and a future pro, but the work ethic he left behind at FSU set the stage for Huff's own stardom.

"Dan had the quarterback personality that I really kind of latched on to," Huff said. "It's a leadership type of attitude where you try to get the most out of your team, not from yelling but from expecting them to do their job.

"A lot of people think of him as a quarterback coach, but he probably was as good as anyone has ever been at the receiver position. We did things no one else was doing. I could literally drop back and throw hitches and curl routes with my eyes closed."

Henning grew up in Queens back when the New York borough still had more trees than houses. He rode a subway and a bus to star in three sports at St. Francis Prep in Brooklyn and was an all-city quarterback there. Parcells, a Jersey guy with a big-city attitude, didn't rattle him one bit.

The two moved their young families into homes on the same Tallahassee street and soon there were vacation trips combining both broods. Golf and tennis and racquetball grudge matches started up between the two coaches, too, a practice that continued in the off-season for decades, no matter where their careers took them.

"Bill and I were both assigned to South Florida so we'd come down to recruit for Florida State together," Henning said. "We stayed at the Yankee Clipper hotel in Fort Lauderdale. He worked everything north of there and I worked everything south. We talked football and family."

Keeping tabs

And future employment opportunities - although Henning says that he and Parcells never had an agreement to hire each other if ever a head coaching job came their way, the way Henning did with Joe Gibbs, another former FSU assistant.

All the same, Parcells kept talking to Henning through the years about working together again.

Henning went on to become a head coach at Atlanta (1983-86) and San Diego (1989-91) and Boston College and won two Super Bowls with Gibbs in Washington before reuniting with Big Tuna.

When finally it happened in 1998, Parcells was two years into his stay as head coach of the Jets. Henning thought long and hard about what it would mean for their friendship to be under Bill's thumb if he agreed to go. Once more, the story takes us to South Florida, where Henning coached for Don Shula and the Dolphins during the 1979-80 transition from Bob Griese to David Woodley, and where Parcells long has lived, feeding his love for sunshine and spring-training baseball by keeping a home in Jupiter.

"I flew down to talk to Bill in West Palm Beach about the Jets job," said Henning, who had just wrapped up his one season as offensive coordinator of the Buffalo Bills, the ninth of 12 career NFL coaching assignments. "We met at the West Palm airport, as a matter of fact. We talked through all the scenarios. We had the kind of friendship that kind of flourished as opponents, but when you're working for somebody, it's a different relationship."

Staying flexible

Must have been tolerable enough, because Parcells was back on the phone with Henning in January after taking over the Dolphins organization and firing head coach Cam Cameron. Henning originally intended to serve Parcells as a consultant, wanting a little more time away from the game after being fired as the Carolina Panthers' offensive coordinator in 2006. After accumulating 16 hours of face-to-face meetings with new Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, however, Henning "got fired up" about a return to the sidelines.

"You have to be strategically flexible," Henning said of his play-calling philosophy, pointing out that he supervised two very different offenses with the Redskins, a John Riggins bulldozer version and a Doug Williams passing attack, and won Super Bowls with both of them.

Henning also coordinated a balanced and high-scoring Panthers attack that reached the Super Bowl in February 2004, with scrambling quarterback Jake Delhomme, running back Stephen Davis and wide receiver Ricky Proehl. All three were signed in the previous off-season to solidify a team that had been 1-15 just two seasons earlier. Yes, 1-15.

"You don't get anything done unless you start with your offensive line first," Henning said. "That's where Bill has started a lot of good things before. I would like to think it would be the same here, but, as Bill says, they don't sell insurance for this stuff."

In the endless summer of a football lifer, sweat equity is the surest foundation, and success more prized than friendship.

Shows exactly how much Parcells and Henning love winning, that at this late stage in their careers the two old pals are putting their bond on the line in pursuit of it.

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