Welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And as we like to do, we are covering some of the greatest coaches, players, executives, and just plain people in the game of football that we can.
And this next one is big: a great coach who will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in the year 2022. Yeah, he was born on October 30, 1936, and one of the trendsetters and modern professional football coaching, Dick Vermeil, was born that day. Now, Coach Vermeil was the head coach in the NFL for a total of 15 seasons with three different franchises, but his love and involvement with the game has lasted long beyond that.
Vermeule may be best known for his innovative coaching techniques that turned a downtrodden Philadelphia Eagles team of the 1970s into a Super Bowl contender. Now you get to see some little glimpses of Dick Vermeil, and you’re not sure how accurately they are portrayed dramatically in the movie. Invincible, the Vince Papali story that came out in 2006, and the very recent 2021 film American Underdog, the Kurt Warner story, both had some little pieces, or at least someone characterizing him or acting as him in the movies.
We got a glimpse of him with that, too. Two great movies, and the same guy, Dick Vermeil, is portrayed in both. Now, Coach began his football coaching career starting at the bottom and working his way up.
His first job was as an assistant coach for Del Mar High School in San Jose, California, in 1959. Then from 1960 to 1962, he was the head coach at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo. Now, his advancement continued when he made the jump into the junior college level as a defensive backfields coach at the College of San Mateo in 1963.
Next, Dick Vermeil took advantage of an opportunity and was assigned his first head coaching position, at least at the collegiate level. When he returned to Napa Junior College in 1964, he led the team to a school-record 7-2 football season. He even had the chance to coach his younger brother, Al, while at that school.
Now, Dick advanced to the next level of college football, from 1965 to 1968, when he served as an assistant coach at Stanford under John Roustan. Now, the young and up-and-coming coach was getting noticed, and as he got a break to try his hand at the pro levels, he was hired as one of the NFL’s first special teams coaches, along with Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy. Vermeil was hired by George Allen’s Los Angeles Rams in 1969, the same year that Jerry Williams hired Levy, then the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Except for 1970, when Vermeil was an assistant coach with the UCLA Bruins, he remained with the professional LA Rams until 1974, when he was named the head coach of the UCLA Bruins. Now, he got that first big break in the coaching ranks as a field boss of the UCLA Bruins during the 74 and 75 seasons, and while with the Bruins, the team compiled a record of 15-5-3, including a big win in the 1976 Rose Bowl game over the top-ranked team in the nation. At that point, one beaten Ohio State Buckeye.
Accolades at the collegiate level included Vermeil being named the 1975 Pac-8 coach of the year. Yes, he truly received some national attention, so much so that the NFL came calling again —this time for a head coaching stint just before the 1976 season. It was the Philadelphia Eagles that had floundered for the past nine seasons up to that point, with their best effort being a 7-7 record in 1974, and he was going to have a long road to re-establish the Eagles as a good team.
But Vermeule had a plan, and the Philadelphia front office brass had the patience to let him orchestrate it. Coach Vermeil established a culture early in his tenure in Philly, and the results may not have shown progress, as the Eagles managed a measly 4-10 record in 1976. In 1977, a marginal improvement, only a record of 5-9 was shown, but he was persistent and patient, like we said, and in those early years, he laid the groundwork for success because in the third season as the Eagles coach, they reached the postseason in 1978, and they finished with a 9-7 record.
Finally, a winning season after 12 years for the Eagles fans. It got better, though. Coach Vermeil worked hard and put in many long hours, studying players and understanding their strengths and weaknesses. He tried to learn as much about each of those on the team, not just from a coaching perspective and what their talents were, but from a place of caring, wanting to know about them, their families, their backgrounds, and everything else.
And that really resonated with the players and the coaching staff, who responded on game days and worked hard in practice, as coach Vermeil led by example. That’s very important for any great leader. Now, Vermeil boosted the team’s confidence, which had been complacent about losing, and instilled the expectation of victory over any opponent.
Soon, most of the franchise had bought into the Kool-Aid the coach was handing out, and their belief in the winning spirit translated onto the field. In 1978, a 14-13 playoff loss to the Atlanta Falcons was the spark, even in defeat, that really ignited Eagles Nation. Now, the very next season, the Eagles went 11-5 and reached the NFC Divisional Round, losing 24-17 in Tampa Bay, but they learned a little more and figured out a few more things.
One barometer of improvement was a victory over the Dallas Cowboys, a divisional rival that had dominated the Eagles, winning 21 of the past 23 meetings. The Eagles’ win that broke the streak was somewhat unexpected. Starting Philly quarterback Ron Jaworski was injured and could not play in the game, so he was replaced by John Walton, who came in and made a spot start and played a strong game, while kicker Tony Franklin booted a 59-yarder during that game.
Now, the whole team played well, and the Eagles won the game 31-21, a sign to all that the Philadelphia franchise had arrived and was ready to play some football in the National Football League. The transformation continued. The following season, the Eagles went 12-4, won the NFC East, ran through the playoffs, and earned the right to represent the NFC in Super Bowl 15.
Their opponent in the NFC Championship game was the rival Dallas Cowboys, and once again, the Eagles dispatched their foes 20-7 to play for the league title game. Now, Philadelphia ran into a buzzsaw in the Oakland Raiders, though, in the big game, losing this time also by the score of 20-7, and it may have been a post-Super Bowl depression as the Eagles sunk into standings, posting a 10-6 record the following season after the Super Bowl appearance, and then slipped to 3-6 in the strike-shortened season of 1982. Dick Vermeil had admittedly spent and retired from coaching, citing burnout as the cause. When you work that hard, you’re that involved, and your mind is that focused, yeah, you can suffer some burnout —and he definitely did.
But Vermeil didn’t get far from the football field; he recharged his batteries and pursued a broadcasting career as an NFL and college football analyst. After more than a decade away from the sidelines in the NFL, he left the confines of CBS and ABC, where he had worked as an analyst, and climbed back into the coaching arena, taking over the St. Louis Rams in 1997. After posting a 5-11 and 4-12 record in his first two seasons with the Rams, the Vermeil Magic once again started to take hold in year three of his coaching prowess with the franchise, much like it did with the Eagles a few decades earlier. The 1999 season started almost as poorly as the first two seasons, then seemed to get worse when starting quarterback Trent Green went down with a severe injury. All seemed lost.
It looked like it was going to be a terrible season for the Rams. Still, Vermeil’s eye for talent then paid off as rookie Kurt Warner, a late bloomer who had come out of actually working at the grocery store —you know the story —played a lot in the arena football leagues and a little bit in NFL Europe, I believe. He guided the Rams to a 13-3 record, and the offense was clicking on all cylinders. They will forever be remembered as the “Greatest Show on Turf,” and what a bunch of talent they had on that team for sure. Now Vermeule led the Rams to their first Super Bowl victory in Super Bowl 34 with a 23-16 win over the Tennessee Titans, and it was perhaps one of the most suspenseful endings to an NFL championship game when the Titans had the ball on the half-yard line when time expired. Now Vermeule was also named NFL Coach of the Year for the second time in his brilliant coaching career, this time for the 1999 season, and Coach V once again walked away from coaching after the Rams’ Super Bowl victory.
Now, the Kansas City Chiefs somewhat shocked the football world when they announced that Dick Vermeil was going to be their new head coach before the start of the 2001 season, and true to form, the rebuild started slowly as the Chiefs went 6-10 that season before he tweaked their roster to get them to 8-8 in 2002. In 2003, year three, the Chiefs started the season 9-0, finished 13-3, made the playoffs, and took the crown of the AFC West. They also had the NFL’s top-ranked offense for the second straight year.
Unfortunately, the defense was a bit suspect, and the offense could not carry the team, which had a defense ranked 31st out of 32 teams in the NFL. Now they arose again in 2005 to a 10-6 record, and on December 31 of that year, Vermeule announced that he would retire at the conclusion of the season. The next day, he led the Chiefs to a 37-3 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.
However, that 10-6 record was not good enough, and the Chiefs failed to make the playoffs despite that excellent winning record. Now Vermeil coaches with heart and emotion, laughing, crying, and cheering his teams on to victory. The players really sense the emotion and really appreciate his honesty and, you know, brave enough to shed a tear when he’s talking to them. And the people he worked with and those who opposed him all respected and enjoyed their time spent with him on the gridiron and in the broadcast booth.
His coaching legacy included great moments such as the miracle at the Meadowlands, the aforementioned Super Bowl 34 fantastic finish, and a Greatest Show on Turf. Now Dick Vermeule posted an overall record of 120-109 as a head coach, a Super Bowl title, multiple coach of the year honors, and a couple of other Super Bowl appearances where he lost, but perhaps his most lasting reward is the great friendships and great memories he had with the players and coaches. Now Dick Vermeule will be honored with enshrinement at the 2022 Pro Football Hall of Fame celebrations, and we are certainly glad that he made it in there and happy that you were able to join us today so that we could share this history of this outstanding man, an outstanding human being, and great football coach here today.
And we’d like to honor these great Hall of Famers, so make sure you check it out this summer when he’s going in and getting his bronze bust put there in Canton, Ohio. And if you can see it in person, that’s even better. It’s a great time.
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