Super connections

Look closely at the television today. Hickory is well-connected to the Super Bowl.

Prowling the sidelines with the New York Giants are defensive coordinator Perry Fewell and tight ends coach Mike Pope. They’re graduates of Lenoir-Rhyne University.

Giants Head Coach Tom Coughlin and his team don’t mind saying they’re in the Super Bowl because of the impact of the former L-R Bears. Coughlin went after Fewell, who had been the interim head coach of the Buffalo Bills. Pope is the only one on the Giants coaching staff Coughlin retained when he took the top job in New York.

Giants safety Antrel Rolle calls Fewell a "brilliant guy. And fiery. I think it definitely trickles down to us. We feed off of him. He feeds off of us."

About Pope, Coughlin says, “He is the best tight end coach in football.”

Today, the Giants face the New England Patriots on football’s biggest stage.

“We play to win,” Fewell said, the attitude expected from two guys who are proven winners.

HARD-NOSED ATTITUDE

Perry Fewell played offense and defense at L-R

Fewell, 49, in his second year with the Giants, has the defense back at the top of its game after a rough stretch during the regular season when it was hit with injuries. Now, the hard-hitting defenders are up to their usual tricks with Fewell masterminding mismatches and surprises.

Rolle is blunt about the team’s relationship with Fewell. “We have a bad-ass mentality” and it’s because of Fewell.

The tough coach will call out an individual or the entire defense if he thinks a wake-up call is necessary.

The leadership he exudes with the Giants and his work when he was interim head coach of the Bills has him high on the unofficial list of prospective NFL head coaches. Some coaching jobs have a high turnover rate, so Fewell is among several former head coaches who might get another top job.

The fire Fewell inspires in his pro players was inside him when he was a four-year letterman with Lenoir-Rhyne, from 1980 to 1983. He was a running back and a linebacker. He was named the team’s most improved player in 1983.

Fewell earned his bachelor’s degree from L-R in 1985.

Noted for his savvy in coaching defensive backs, Fewell established a reputation in Buffalo as a full-fledged defensive coordinator. When the Bills named him interim head coach, Fewell became the first Lenoir-Rhyne graduate to earn a head coaching position for an NFL team.

Fewell went to South Point High School in Belmont, and was inducted into the Belmont Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.

His high school coach Jim Biggerstaff remembers him well.

Biggerstaff, now 77 and living in Belmont, coached Fewell for three seasons at South Point, including Fewell’s senior year.

Fewell was a fullback on offense and a linebacker on defense for the 14-0 South Point team in 1979 that won the state 3A title. That team ended Hibriten High’s playoff run that year in the semifinals.

Fewell also was student body president while at South Point.

Biggerstaff and Fewell maintain contact on an almost weekly basis, Biggerstaff said, talking by phone. Biggerstaff went to Buffalo twice while Fewell was coaching there and he’s been to New York once since Fewell has been with the Giants.

When Fewell was inducted last fall into the Lenoir-Rhyne Hall of Fame, he could not attend and asked Biggerstaff to attend on his behalf. His former coach was glad to oblige.

Biggerstaff and his wife, Judy, are in Indianapolis for the Super Bowl. Fewell had two tickets and wanted the Biggerstaffs to be at the game.

“He was extremely knowledgeable of the game,” said Biggerstaff. “He knew what he was doing. He was easy to coach, it was easy for him to learn what he had to do. He was a leader with the other kids on the team. They respected him.

“He hasn’t changed a bit.”

Fewell’s traits: “Hard work. His grandpa did a lot of different jobs, and at the end of practices sometimes there would be his old grandpa in an old truck waiting to pick Perry up because they had several little jobs that Perry had to go help his grandpa. … before they could go home.” Fewell was raised by his grandparents.

The coach says Fewell was always personable. During his high school days, he used to come to the Biggerstaffs for a meal on Sunday.

“The first Sunday he came, he rang the doorbell and Judy went to the door and looked, and Perry was standing there and said ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’ And every Sunday after that, he was there. He spent a lot of time at our house.”

SUPERSTAR COACH

Mike Pope knows what it takes to excel

Pope has tutored several NFL tight ends to stardom. Three former Giants who come quickly to mind are Mark Bavaro, Jeremy Shockey, and Howard Cross.

Kevin Boss is looking to be the next great Giants’ tight end. He has the blocking ability and the pass-catching skills be great., according to Pope.

Pope has worked for three different Giants head coaches. He’s the longest-serving assistant in the franchise’s history. Pope was there for all four of the Giants’ Super Bowl games – 1986, 1990, 2000, and 2007. He has his name on four Lombardi trophies (he won one with New England).

In his 10th year with the Giants, the desire to see his players succeed – and win – is as strong as ever. He’s come a long way since his first football job, one he landed almost immediately after his graduation from Lenoir-Rhyne.

Pope spent a short time as head coach of the old Lenoir High School in Lenoir. His assistant was a young fellow who stuck around this area: Tom Brown.

They were teammates at Lenoir-Rhyne. Brown played football at L-R with Pope in 1961, 1962 and 1963. Pope graduated in 1964, and Brown graduated in 1965.

Pope was on that great 1960 Bears team that won the national title and played on the 1962 team that lost to Central Oklahoma in the Holiday Bowl in Sacramento. He was the quarterback, so he knows what passers want from the guys they throw to.

Brown still calls Pope “Michael Lee.”

Brown recalls the time he was Pope’s assistant coach at Lenoir High in 1965. They were the only two coaches working with the varsity full-time. Brown and Pope were sitting around prior to playing Hickory, at Pope’s trailer in Whitnel, and watching game films. They turned to each other and said simultaneously, “What the hell are we doing?” Hickory High was the perennial powerhouse of the old Northwestern Conference. Hickory would win 54-0.

Pope has been able to be in the right place at the right time, Brown said. When Pope left Lenoir High and went to Florida State University as a graduate assistant, he was assigned to work with Bill Parcells, a tough hombre who became a Super Bowl champion coach.

Brown said Pope was a happy-go-lucky guy and a typical college student who was fun-loving and enjoyed playing golf while he was at Lenoir-Rhyne.

The two ex-teammates haven’t talked in a number of years, Brown said, not since the time he was hanging out with some friends in Maiden who were big Redskins fans. Brown told them if they would pay for his trip, he’d try to get some tickets.

So, he went through directory assistance to track down Pope.

“Michael Lee, this is Tommy Brown down here in Maiden.” And he said he wanted tickets to the Redskins-Giants game in New York.

Brown said Pope’s answer was “So do six million other people … Come any time, I’d love to see you, but there ain’t no such thing as a ticket” when the Skins come to town.

“For a person to coach one position in the NFL for 29 years, he must be pretty damn good,” said Brown. “He was a very, very typical college student who happened to be crazy about football.”

“When I came to L-R, a scared-to-death 18-year-old … Michael Lee took me under his wing until I understood what was going on.”

“He was a student of the game. He was a great student in the classroom and that carried over into the football part of it. Back then, you didn’t have hand signals. He was the quarterback, meaning he called the plays. Michael probably called 75 percent of his own plays, and that doesn’t happen anymore.”

“He definitely had aspirations to get into coaching and as a result paid close attention to everything. He crossed all his Ts and dotted all his Is and as a result, he was very adaptable to coaching at all levels. And he has coached at all levels – high school, college and pros, which is very unusual.”