We are in the Golden Era for Boston sports coaches.
Right now we have three active coaches (Bill Belichick, Terry Francona, Doc Rivers) who have won a championship with their respective teams. Until 2004 there had never been a period in Boston sports history in which even two of the four active coaches had a Boston title on their résumé (makes sense, I guess, when you consider that one team didn't win its first title until 2001 and another went 86 years between crowns).
With that in mind, here is our list of top coaches in Boston pro sports history. The only rule is this: We are grading only for the work done while in Boston. So, managing the 1961 Yankees doesn't help Ralph Houk, and the 9-8 effort submitted by Rod Rust with the Montreal Alouettes in 2001 was memorable but sadly not a factor on this chart.
Feel free to e-mail kminihane@weei.com with any agreements, disagreements or anything else that might help fill a mailbag ...
10. Bill Russell (162-83, two NBA titles)
I don’t feel great about this one (can’t shake the Sacramento run), but he did win two championships, which pretty much gets you a spot on the list. I can’t imagine there are many coaches who have two NBA titles and zero division crowns, but Russell managed to pull it off.
(What do think, will we ever see another player-coach in a major sport? I think probably not, especially when you consider that we are in the era of 30 assistant coaches for every team. I guess the best bet would be baseball, where you could get a guy in his early 40s playing twice a week with most of his energy focused on managing — as Pete Rose did in the 1980s. Not the best example in terms of a role model, but you get the point.
9. Duane Charles Parcells (32-32, one AFC title)
With Tedy Bruschi retired, there are now no players left from the Bill Parcells era in Foxboro. Bobby Grier has a 1-0 lead. See, Robert Kraft knew what he was doing.
Parcells was the anti-K.C. Jones, if you will (and I will, thanks). The Tuna needed to have his hands on everything. But, like K.C., he arrived at the job at the perfect time. The 1993 Patriots were in more dire need of a highly competent micromanager than any franchise I can remember. And sure, it got Joey Greco ugly at the end, but don’t forget this: Without Parcells, you never get Belichick.
It's hard to remember now — the Belichick era has pretty much wiped out the Parcells years from the memory of Pats fans — how important it was when Parcells took over in New England. It didn’t seem possible at the time, I’m not even sure there would be an equivalent today. Maybe if Belichick took over the Raiders, or Phil Jackson went to the Clippers. It just gave the franchise instant credibility that hasn’t gone away in 16 years. If you recall, the Patriots nearly went with a combination of Tom Donahoe as general manager and Dom Capers as coach before hiring Belichick in 2000. Let’s take a wild leap and assume that might not have worked out as well. Imagine how differently you’d then view the Parcells tenure. It would look like freaking Camelot. But Parcells managed to do what he does — burn some bridges on his endless search for a few dollars more. Just wait — he’ll leave Miami for somewhere else (I keep thinking San Francisco for some reason) in a year or two. And the Dolphins will have a much better team than before he arrived, and still he’ll be hated by at least half the fans. Happens every time.
8. Tom Johnson (142-42-23, one Stanley Cup)
Should he be on here? Is three years (really two-plus years, he coached just 52 games in 1972-73 before Bep Guidolin took over) enough? I don’t know, but I need a Bruins coach on this list. Guess I could’ve gone with Harry Sinden or Don Cherry or even Art Ross. Johnson has the best winning percentage in Bruins history (.738) so we’ll call that the tiebreaker. (The Bruins have won five Cups with five different coaches.) If Cherry had won a Cup, he’d be ahead of Johnson for sure (and higher on this list).
(Johnson, of course, was the coach for
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