There are about 10,000 miles between Nebraska punter Archie Wilson’s home town in Victoria, Australia and his new campus life in Lincoln. So when the homesick Cornhuskers freshman openly wept in response to a question about distant loved ones last week, the viral video was met with a healthy dose of understanding from teammates, fans, and at least one Super Bowl winner.
‘Well, this kid has deep family relationships that probably are deeper to him than his family or even he realizes,’ legendary NFL head coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer Dick Vermeil told Daily Mail. ‘Because, you know, you go from day to day taking each person for granted. That’s the normal process anyway.’
Now 88, the busy owner of several California vineyards and a proud great grandfather, Vermeil draws a distinction between crying, as Wilson did with reporters, and ‘getting emotional’ — something he was famous for doing over his half century in coaching.
He may have never sobbed as Wilson did in Lincoln recently, or like Chicago Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent after signing his new deal, but Vermeil’s tearful press conferences remain an indelible image from stints with the Philadelphia Eagles, St. Louis Rams and Kansas City Chiefs.
They’re also a window into his success as a coach and a person.
Agreeing to speak to Daily Mail in the days after Wilson wept, Vermeil was eager to discuss what he considers a ‘good subject’: Expressing our feelings and the counterintuitive impact a few tears can have on a football team.
Vermeil, then coaching in Kansas City, gets emotional with reporters after his last playoff win
Archie Wilson was overcome with emotion when asked about leaving his family in Australia
An emotional Vermeil embraces Kurt Warner after the Rams’ dramatic Super Bowl XXXIV win
Vermeil doesn’t remember seeing much emotion from men while growing up in Northern California. What he does recall is the way he felt after receiving encouragement from his first high school coach, a man whom he credits with his decision to attend college.
‘Well, for me, it was very meaningful, because my dad was just the opposite,’ Vermeil said. ‘[Coach] was the first guy that ever told me I could play college football if I wanted to.’
Vermeil would need to take a detour into junior college because he was admittedly not ‘doing anything academic,’ but eventually made it to San Jose State, where he’d play some quarterback while earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical education.
His time with the Spartans is another cherished memory. It was at San Jose State where head coach and professor Dr. Bob Bronzan took Vermeil ‘under his wing’ and helped him land his first head-coaching job at a California high school.
‘[Bronzan] called me and told me the athletic director was going to call me and give me a job and I should take it,’ Vermeil said.
These scenes aren’t quite Hallmark Channel material, but Vermeil recalls them fondly for the subtle messages they conveyed.
‘Those kind of displays of respect startle you, especially when you’re not used to it,’ Vermeil said.
Coach Dick Vermeil of UCLA got this response from his wife Carol, left, and daughter Nancy, 15, after his team upset Ohio state in the Rose Bowl in 1976 in Pasadena
Fast forward to Vermeil’s time in St. Louis, where he was hired to be the head coach in 1997.
He’d already coached in Philadelphia, where Vermeil reached one Super Bowl and first developed a reputation for shedding tears with players and media. But it was in St. Louis where he would truly perfect what future Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner has since referred to as the Coach’s ‘superpower.’
As Warner wrote for NFL.com in 2022, Rams players were stunned during training camp in 1998 to see a tearful Vermeil at a team meeting.
‘We all anticipated some sort of tragedy,’ Warner wrote. ‘Instead, Coach Vermeil told us how he had to cut our fifth-string tight end, preventing the player from fulfilling his dream.’
This was a dramatic departure for NFL teams, as Vermeil is all too aware.
‘Some coaches don’t approach their leadership position the same way other coaches do, or how I did,’ Vermeil told Daily Mail. ‘I mean, I’ve heard coaches sit in meetings and call this guy a ‘turd’ and that they can’t wait to get his ass out, and I just never looked at a football player in that vein, really.
‘You have such admiration for these kids you coach and what you put them through to help them be the best they can be, and then you got to cut them sometimes after three or four years,’ he added. ‘It’s not easy for me.’
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Dick Vermeil embraced his wife, Carol, after his last game
An exuberant Vermeil is carried off the field after coaching the Eagles to their first Super Bowl
But Vermeil’s tears offered their own crucial subtext, which was evident to each individual on the team.
‘Coach Vermeil truly wanted what was best for each of his players, and that’s a rare quality that cannot be overlooked,’ wrote Warner, a former grocery store clerk and Arena Football League quarterback who’d somehow managed to make the Rams 53-man roster in 1998. ‘Shoot, it completely changed the course of my life.’
Both Warner and Vermeil’s lives would forever be changed a year later when free-agent acquisition and expected starter Trent Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason.
Already on the hot seat following 5-11 and 4-12 seasons with the Rams, Vermeil’s emotions were instead fixated on Green rather than his own predicament.
‘I had quickly developed a great admiration for Trent Green and his his path to getting his opportunity to play,’ Vermeil said. ‘You look at his background. He was in the league a long time before he ever took a snap. He wasn’t a first-round pick, okay… And here’s a guy that finally gets his opportunity after years. Then all of a sudden it was taken away.’
By this time, Rams players were no longer puzzled by Vermeil’s emotions. Instead, they were sharing them with their 60-year-old head coach.
‘They they reacted like I reacted and I really believe that’s part of them becoming a deeper, more committed team,’ he said. ‘A true team, because they shared an experience that really hurt them. It was much deeper than the game itself. They had invested two years into becoming a potentially fine football team, and now all of a sudden, a dramatic thing takes place and it might limit their chances of achieving what they’ve worked so hard for the last two years.
‘I told them in meeting, we aren’t going to use that excuse for playing poorly. We’re going to play better because of it.’
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Dick Vermeil hugged his grandson, Jack (left) in the post-game press conference following the 37-3 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in 2006
Teammate JJ. Stokes (left) comforts San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Terrell Owens (right) as he cries after catching the game-winning touchdown pass in a 1999 playoff game
Vermeil’s exact words: ‘We will rally around Kurt Warner, and we will play good football.’
The Rams would go on to become, perhaps, the unlikeliest Super Bowl champions ever, all while Warner, Marshall Faulk and Torry Holt molded an offense that became known as the ‘Greatest Show on Turf.’
To Warner, the moment showed the sheer size of Vermeil’s superpower. Rather than some binary reaction, the soon-to-be Super Bowl winner was somehow capable of grieving with Green while making Warner feel like he deserved this opportunity.
‘As much as Trent’s journey resonated with Coach V, so did mine,’ Warner wrote. ‘He thought about both of us quarterbacks in that moment, knowing each of us needed something different — and he delivered with aplomb on both fronts. To this day, I don’t know how he was able to express genuine pain and real encouragement simultaneously, and I’ve never witnessed a moment that powerful.’
Bears backup quarterback Tyson Bagent got emotional after signing his first NFL deal
Last year, Travis Kelce wept as older brother Jason tearfully retirred from the NFL
Vermeil would retire after the thrilling Super Bowl XXXIV victory over the Tennessee Titans only to return to coaching and reunite with Green on the Kansas City Chiefs in 2001. He’d spend another five seasons on the sideline before another tearful retirement ceremony in 2005.
In the 20 years since, outwardly emotional coaches like Vermeil have become scarce, even as players such as Wilson, Bears backup quarterback Bagent and even Pro Football Hall of Famer Terrell Owens have openly sobbed in front of cameras. And last year, Travis Kelce cried as older brother Jason tearfully announced his NFL retirement.
And while Vermeil readily admits each coach has their own style and method, he can’t help but see an emotional disconnect between them and their players.
‘Some coaches just don’t coach that type of relationship with the player,’ he concluded. ‘They coach his ass to take him to Super Bowls and win, but they don’t go to that other level.
‘I’m very close to a lot of football players I coached, so they say things to me,’ he concluded. ‘I’ve heard players say: ‘Coach, we always knew you cared about us.’
‘That’s a hell of a compliment.’
