Super Bowl XLII-winning coach Tom Coughlin has had a long and distinguished coaching career. Always known as an uncompromising disciplinary, Coughlin’s tough outer shell has also earned him a great deal of respect and devotion from a select group of players.

Coughlin played fullback at Syracuse University in the late 1960s, where he set the school record for the number of passes caught in a season. In college he was a teammate of the great Larry Csonka. After graduating from Syracuse and serving a year as a graduate assistant coach at his alma mater, Coughlin received his first head coaching position at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he stayed from 1970 to 1973. With his success there, he found his way Back to Syracuse. College where he served as quarterbacks coach from 1974 to 1975 and then as offensive coordinator from 1976 to 1980. From 1981 to 1983, Tom Coughlin was employed as quarterbacks coach at Boston College, where he coached Doug Flutie .

In 1984, Coughlin made the leap to professional football, becoming wide receivers coach for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1984 to 1985, before holding the same position with the Green Bay Packers from 1986 to 1987, and then with the New York Giants as head coach. Bill Parcells from 1988 to 1990. In 1991, Tom Coughlin returned to the head coaching ranks when he, too, returned to Boston College. He coached Boston College for three seasons, from 1991 to 1993, before the National Football League called him up again.

Tom Coughlin became the first head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL expansion franchise in 1995. The Jaguars became the most successful of any expansion franchise in history when they reached the AFC Championship game in just its second season. Coughlin would return his Jaguars to the AFC Championship game in 1999 after posting a 14-2 record. After eight seasons in Jacksonville, Coughlin was fired from a team he helped build from scratch. Coughlin sat out the 2003 season, but returned in 2004 as head coach of the New York Giants, the same team he had served as wide receivers coach for a decade and a half earlier. Coughlin had turned Boston College around, built Jacksonville from scratch, and hopes were high for him to come to New York. In Coughlin’s second season in New York, the Giants under second-year quarterback Eli Manning went 11-5 and won their division. The Giants took a downward turn in 2006 with the announcement that it would be the last season for star running back Tiki Barber, who announced his retirement. The 2006 Giants barely made the playoffs in what many thought might be Coughlin’s last year with the team.

In January 2007, Tom Coughlin received a one-year extension as head coach of the New York Giants. The team he would lead would be without its star running back, lose its starting tight end for most of the season, and start the season with two straight losses. The Giants would win the next six games, and despite having a 3–5 home record during the 2007 season, the Giants would make the playoffs thanks to their 7–1 road record. The Giants would build on this tremendous road winning streak by winning three straight road playoff games and reaching the Super Bowl. Only two previous teams had done this, the 1985 Patriots who lost to the Bears and the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers who defeated the Seattle Seahawks to become world champions. The 2007 New York Giants would go on to defeat the undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl to become world champions themselves. The Patriots were favored by between 12 and 15 points in the game, and this will be one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history.

Tom Coughlin has definitely put in his time, with the exception of one season, coaching continuously from 1970 to 2007. He finally achieved every coach’s ultimate goal with a Super Bowl title in 2007.