TOM COUGHLIN-MOTIVATOR

Born on August 31, 1946 in Waterloo NY, he attended Waterloo High School where he gained the school's single season touchdown record-which still stands at 19. In Coughlin's senior year, he passed an entry test for seminary school to become a Catholic priest.

Coughlin attended Syracuse University playing halfback with Larry Csonka and Floyd Little, and setting the school's single-season pass receiving record.

Tom Coughlin was wide receiver coach under Bill Parcells when Parcells was head coach f the NY Giants. He is a stern disciplinarian and a stickler for details, all he learned from his mentor, Bill Parcells. (At the start of 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), earning him the nickname "Colonel Coughlin”.

The Rochester Institute of Technology was Coughlin's first head coaching job from 1970–1973. He also held the position of offensive coordinator both at Syracuse and then at Boston College.

After his stint with Boston College, he joined the NFL as wide receiver coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants. It was with the Giants that he was instrumental in the Giants victory in Super Bowl XXV.

Returning back to college ball in 1990, he took on the head-coaching job at Boston College and made it a perennial winner, capping his tenure 1in 1993 with a 41-39 victory over Notre Dame.

Due to Coughlin's success at Boston College he was hired as the first head coach of the NFL's expansion Jacksonville Jaguars. In his eight seasons at Jacksonville, Coughlin led the most successful expansion team in the history of the NFL, as the Jaguars went to the AFC Championship Game twice, the first time in their second year of the team's existence, 1996, was named NFL Coach of the Year by United Press International. Again in 1999, Coughlin took the Jaguars to the AFC Championship Game after  a league-high 14–2 regular season record. The Jaguars were defeated: in 1996 by the New England Patriots, and in 1999, by the Tennessee Titans.

Although Coughlin's Jaguars won 49 regular season games in his first five years as head coach, the next three years was only 19–29, and after finishing 6–10 in 2002, he was fired. He ended an eight-year career in Jacksonville with a 68–60 regular season record and a 4–4 playoff record.

Coughlin was named the 16th head coach of the New York Giants on January 6, 2004. A team that finished 4–12 in 2003, the Giants surprised the NFL with a 5–2 start in his first season as head coach. losing back-to-back games, and the Giants at 5–4, Coughlin started New York's highly touted rookie quarterback, Eli Manning. Coughlin was criticized from the media who felt he was surrendering or quitting on the 2004 season when the Giants were still in playoff contention, The Giants would go on to lose six of the seven games started by Manning, who struggled in his rookie season.

In 2005, Manning and the Giants went on to an 11–5 record in Coughlin's second season and won the NFC East for the first time since 2000. It was also the Giants first postseason appearance since making it as a Wild Card in 2002. A sub-par performance by Manning, and a defense missing three key starting linebackers, the Giants got shut out 23–0 by the Carolina Panthers at Giants Stadium. Tiki Barber called out Coughlin and his offensive coordinator, partially because a Panthers player said that "We knew what they were going to do before they did it."

Hoes were high heading into the 2006 season: Coughlin transformed the Giants from an underachieving, last place team into a possible Super Bowl contender in two years.

The Giants struggled starting off the 2006 campaign, with a 1–2 record. The Giants rebounded by winning their next five games to go 6–2. However, the Giants suffered a stunning second half collapse, losing 6 of their next 7 games to fall to 7–8 heading into the last game of the season. After a late November loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Coughlin and his coaching staff were once again criticized. The Giants blew a 21-point fourth quarter lead and lost to the Tennessee Titans by a score of 24–21. After the game Coughlin had said to the media "I'm going to be sick about this one forever." Numerous injuries, excessive penalties, and a high number of turnovers—all three being problems that Coughlin promised to fix when hired as Giants head coach in 2004—had been most responsible for the downward spiral of the 2006 Giants. "Fire Coughlin" chant erupted at Giants Stadium, but the Giants rebounded with a key victory in the season's final game at the Washington, all but securing a playoff berth and perhaps saving Coughlin's job in the process. The Giants lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 23–20, in the first round of the playoffs. Coughlin received a one-year extension on his existing contract and remained as the Giants' head coach in 2007.

In the 2007 season, the Giants started poorly with a 0–2 record, but the team rebounded and won 6 straight games. The Giants compiled a 7–1 road record for the season, and they made it to the playoffs for the third year in a row. Coughlin and the Giants had their first playoff win in seven years when his team defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-14. The Giants defeated the Dallas Cowboys in the Divisional Playoffs, winning 21–17, preventing Dallas from beating them for the third time in the season. The upset victory over the Cowboys was followed up by a 23–20 overtime victory against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game. This victory set up Coughlin's first appearance in a Super Bowl as a head coach.

Super Bowl XLII took place in Glendale, Arizona and the game pitted Coughlin's New York Giants (13–6) against the undefeated New England Patriots (18–0) coached by Bill Belichick. The Patriots favored by 12 pointsfell to the Giants 17–14 in what is often considered one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

The Super Bowl win earned Coughlin a four-year contract worth $21 million to coach the Giants through 2011. Fresh off their Super Bowl season, the team started 12-1 through 13 games, but after the Plaxico Burress shooting incident, the team went 1-3 down the stretch and were eliminated in the divisional round of the playoffs by the Philadelphia Eagles. The Giants finished 8-8 in 2009, and they missed the playoffs. In 2010, they began 1-2, and then began a five-game winning streak to finish 6-2 at the bye. Heading into week 15 against the Eagles, with a record of 9-4, during the last minutes of the game, Coughlin called a controversial out-of-bounds punt, when punter Matt Dodge punted the ball right to DeSean Jackson, who promptly took it to the end zone to seal the Eagles win, and eventually cause the Giants to miss the playoffs. This caused some to question whether Coughlin would keep his job as head coach after his contract expired. However, on July 24, 2011, he signed a one-year contract extension to remain with the Giants through the end of the 2012 season

After losing the season opener to the Washington Redskins, the Giants went 6-2 before losing four straight games. At 6-6, the Giants won three of their last four games to finish at 9-7 and the NFC East championship. In their first playoff game since the 2008 NFC Divisional round, they defeated the Atlanta Falcons 24-2, with the Falcon's only points coming on a first quarter safety on Eli Manning. In the 2012 divisional game Coughlin coached the Giants to a 37-20 win over the favored Green Bay Packers. The following week he coached the Giants to a 20-17 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game to set up a Super Bowl rematch with the New England Patriots.