parcellsbook.com

I met Doug Lo in 1997 during my first year covering the NBA's Supersonics for the Seattle Times. Sitting behind me in a front-row seat, he often tossed funny questions about power forward Vin Baker's sluggishness. Doug, the so-called mayor of Seattle since he seemingly knew everyone there, became one of my best friends. And we stayed in close touch even after I left for the Washington Post in 2002. When I first told Doug that I was pursuing the book, he promptly gave me a substantial loan for expenses through the first couple of years. I declined his generous offer to fund the entire project, not wanting the burden to fall on one person. Nonetheless, without the early loan, I would have been forced to abandon the book to obtain a regular gig. In November 2009, I attended the wedding of Doug Lo and Roxie Leung at Las Vegas's Bellagio hotel. One day before the occasion, I had made a pitstop in Los Angeles, where I interviewed Clippers assistant coach John Lucas for Parcells. (For more acknowledgments photos, click on this photo or one of the arrows up top.)

Rhahime and I have known each other since 1975, when my family moved from Ghana to New York City for good. We grew up together in West Harlem -- on 121st between Amsterdam and Broadway. When it was time to pursue my first book, I hoped to maximize leverage through the material. In feeling fortunate that Coach planned to give me so much of his time and use of his image, I certainly wasn't going to ask him to put me up. I also wanted to accommodate Bill as much as possible in a project that would take several years. So after a significant loan from Doug Lo, I turned to Rhahime to help me fund the bulk -- roughly half -- of it.

This photograph was taken a few blocks from our gym, Reebok on the Upper West Side, where we projected expenses on a napkin. But with a Wall Street background, Rhahime knew a thing or two about money management and investing. Because of inevitable hiccups, including Bill joining the Dolphins as an executive after declaring an end to his NFL career, Rhahime ended up providing multiple investments. Without him and three other financial supporters, a book of this scope would have been impossible.

Me and my "pro bono consigliere" on the Upper West Side after talking about the project over a meal: I wasn't being biased by simply describing Kurt Andersen in the Parcells acknowledgments as "brilliant." How many people do you know who 1) graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, 2) have written bestselling novels 3) co-founded an iconic magazine 3) have written for TV, film and theater and 4) whose book parties draw heavy hitters from publishing and entertainment. Illustrating his polymathic range, Kurt was even Time's architecture and design critic for almost a decade. He now hosts the acclaimed public radio show Studio 360, among his other endeavors. No wonder companies, from Universal Television (a.k.a. NBC) to Random House, have hired him as a creative consultant and official brainstormer. So I've been lucky to be able to occasionally pick his brain for free! Anyway, after I secured Bill's participation, Kurt played a key role during the early stages of the project: He read material, gave input on the vision and introduced me to publishing lawyer Eric Rayman, a fellow member of the so-called Harvard mafia. 

The Devil is in the details: I hired my publishing lawyer to vet all contracts related to the book. Despite being a first-time author -- or in some ways because of it -- I wasn't going to sign anything that lacked Eric Rayman's approval. Bill and I received Crown's contract on November 15, 2012, the same day Eric was headed to Hong Kong for a one-week vacation with his wife. Nonetheless, Eric told me to email the 14-page document to him anyway. He spent much of his 15-hour flight scrutinizing the deal, jotting down detailed notes for me. 

Bill and I were supposed to get equal billing; the book was essentially an authorized biography with Coach naturally being front and center like the unconventional approach of The Yankee Years by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci. Mauro DiPreta, the acquiring editor at Crown, compared the project to Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs because of how closely the Apple chief had cooperated with his Boswell. I suggested to Eric that the contract needed to specify that the bylines receive the same type size. But Eric went one step further, requesting that the publisher insert a sentence requiring the same type size and font (wherever any bylines appeared). Eric pointed out that unless the contractual language involving co-authorship also included "font," a publisher could ignore the spirit of the agreement, and still differentiate the billing. Aha.

I was fortunate to have someone with Eric's acumen and impressive credentials. He teaches media and entertainment law at Cardozo School of Law. And his resume includes gigs as the top lawyer for companies like HBO and New York magazine. Eric also used to be a counsel for Simon & Schuster, one of the country's biggest publishers. So like a prosecutor-turned-defense-attorney, he understood all the legal intricacies used by the other side. And it's an extra benefit to have a publishing lawyer with the writing chops to have been published by the New York Times give me feedback on the manuscript.

Eric's willingness to work during part of his vacation illustrated one of his appealing qualities. He graduated from Harvard with honors, and then Columbia Law School. And although he's usually the smartest guy in the room, he acts unassuming. (I found out about his Harvard honors only by doing deep research.) But trust me, Eric can get pit-bull tough when necessary. Even after negotiations over the semantics substantially delayed the execution of the contract, Eric advised against autographing anything until the details made sense beyond dollars. And ultimately, the publisher obliged virtually all his persnickety requests. In this photo we've celebrated the completion of my contractual obligations at Le Midi, a delightful French restaurant in the Village, where Eric represents the owner. And Eric still insisted on picking up the tab.

Soon after Bill and I landed a deal with the Crown Publishing Group, he confused the P.R. chief Tammy Blake with the publisher and senior vice president, Tina Constable. So I corrected him: "No, Tina's the boss. The Big Tina," prompting laughter. As you can see in this photograph, our nickname was strictly figurative. Or else, we would have stayed far away from it.

Tina Constable, who expressed ambivalence when informed about the moniker, oversees multiple imprints at Crown, a division of Random House. Nonetheless, as I wrote in the book acknowledgements, the Big Tina showed extraordinary multitasking skills. The best indication of Tina's impact -- and wide-ranging talents -- behind the scenes is how often she's mentioned on this site in the telling of key developments: authorizing a preemptive offer for the book and meeting Bill in Saratoga Springs, New York to seal the deal; having a decades-long connection to the respected book doctor, Peter Guzzardi, which factored into my decision to hire him; switching gears to a splendid new jacket despite a sharp original choice; and giving crucial instructions to tighten the manuscript during the final stage.

After the departure of her lieutenant, Mauro DiPreta, during the home stretch, Tina made sure that we maintained the book's vision and the manuscript's integrity. She processed information at lightning speed, and made smart decisions to maximize the book's potential. Tina once traveled to Nicaragua, yet on returning to the U.S., she was somehow up to speed on the smallest details of Parcells: photos, timeline, etc. The Big Tina occasionally sent inspiring emails; Bill and I were lucky to have someone with her leadership skills oversee the unique project. In my first experience as an author, it was good to observe that at least in the case of Crown Publishing, the best and brightest reside at the top.

In starting the project, I intended to hire a freelance editor to sharpen the manuscript before sending it to a publisher. Aiming high, I courted uber-talented writers who I consider to be my friends: Kurt Andersen, Ira Berkow and Steve Coll. But their own projects prevented them from accepting the assignment. Kurt recommended an ex-colleague who worked as a so-called book doctor, Jamie Malanowski, an author and former editor of magazines like Esquire, Playboy and Time. Jamie teamed with me for a few weeks, enhancing my copy while giving candid feedback. But after Bill and I landed a book deal, Mauro DiPreta -- the acquiring editor -- asked whether I was open to working with a book doctor connected to Random House: Peter Guzzardi, who'd known his boss for almost a couple decades. I told Mauro that I would heed his suggestion only if Peter was a splendid editor, and not merely the publisher's pal. Mauro sent me Peter's resume, which emphatically addressed my condition: Peter had been a high-level editor for several reputable imprints, shaping multiple bestsellers including A Brief History of Time, the mega-blockbuster by Stephen Hawkings; and Leap of Faith by Queen Noor. Given Peter's credentials, I decided to pay Crown's own queen -- Tina Constable -- her schilling. Despite being disappointed at not getting to finish the job he'd barely started, Jamie called the move a no-brainer. He switched gears from line editing to being a sounding board.

Meanwhile, Mauro devised a disciplined system that factored in the control-freak tendencies of Bill: I sent several chapters at a time to Peter. After using his chamois cloth to clean up grammatical and organizational stains, Peter sent the material back to me. Then I revised his revisions as necessary, accepting roughly 95% of his edits. Occasionally, I flagged a tweak that I felt would anger Bill, or increase any paranoia. Next, I sent the latest version to my NFL historian Dan Daly, who doubled as our fact-checker while providing football insight and context. Finally, I presented the polished product to Bill for his input. After incorporating Coach's requests -- or trying to dissuade him if I felt strongly against any of them -- the chapter was ready for Crown's production team. Peter made countless terrific tweaks throughout the manuscript, but his work in Chapter 6 illustrated the value of a talented editor. The pages I had originally sent to him contained a ton of football jargon, describing Bill's early lessons in a complex system for gauging personnel. But Peter's intricate edits made the material more readable without dumbing it down. It's no wonder that although Peter resides in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, he makes his living by landing assignments from the mecca of publishing. As a former in-house editor, he also proved valuable to Parcells by giving the publisher's perspective on certain situations.

In the above picture, Peter and I have just finished a meal at a Le Midi, a French restaurant in downtown Manhattan recommended by my publishing lawyer, Eric Rayman. The two had never met until I introduced them on this day, September 19, 2014. It turned out that Peter had edited one of Eric's favorite authors, Douglas Adams, the late British humorist.

For Parcells's joint dedication page, Bill chose his father figure and high school coach, Mickey Corcoran: "a perfect role model for an aspiring young coach." I selected my mother, "a special woman who started calling her son a writer several years before he officially became one."

As mentioned in the Authors page detailing the roots of our partnership, Bill didn't agree to collaborate until I had sent him a 20-page summary about her life. Dorcas Demasio had moved from Ghana to Harlem, USA in 1975, and raised five children, including three boys. Working around the clock, Queen Dorcas, as she's known, put all of us through college. She herself ended up with three degrees, including a Bachelor's from NYU and Master's from Columbia University. Possessing an indomitable Christian faith that had helped her overcome the long odds, she became an ordained minister after graduating from New York Theological Seminary. But those contours don't quite do justice to Queen Dorcas's remarkable life story. After reading about her, Bill told me that he couldn't put the material down. And perhaps partly because he was moved by my backstory through my mother's life, Parcells was on!

No one knows about the behind-the-scenes aspects of this project quite like Dorcas Demasio, if only because she insisted on -- and received -- daily updates. And I knew that a higher force was at work when I once woke up at 5AM to use the bathroom at my mother’s apartment during a visit: I heard her praying in her room for Bill Parcells, Tina Constable, Mauro DiPreta and other key players in the project. Wow!

Every several months during the project, Kafui told me that I was squandering money by living on the Upper West Side while working on the book. She suggested that I temporarily move into her Westchester home, and save on rent. I resisted for a few years before realizing that I needed to get my expenses under control. I loved my neighborhood, located a few blocks from Central Park, Lincoln Center, the post office, a subway station and a movie theater. Nonetheless, Kafui -- who's been named one of the best obstetricians in the state -- owned a lovely, spacious home only a 45-minute train ride from Manhattan. So by 2012 -- the late stage of the book -- I decided to temporarily join her son, Zeke, and their two Golden Retrievers in North White Plains.

Alexa and I at one of our favorite spots in Central Park, Sheep Meadows, a few blocks from my apartment building: It's not easy to maintain a serious relationship when you're immersed in a book. Alexa Roubachewsky was one of the few people who could cause me to take a relatively long break. But I failed to take enough of them during the project. And she once told me to "marry Bill Parcells" instead of her. I conveyed the remark to Bill after an interview session in Florida. He grabbed my cell phone, and dialed her, but she didn't pick up. Who knows what he would have told her? Ha!

I met this idiosyncratic woman early in the book project while we attended the same gym: Reebok on the Upper West Side. Fame Cohen was also an artist -- a talented rapper, songwriter and disc jockey who happened to be female and Jewish. Because I had turned the gym's lounge into my quasi-office, Fame often ran into me in between workouts. And she would break the monotony of researching and transcribing --  initiating discussions that would go much longer than planned. The Bronx native possessed many of Parcells's Type-A characteristics, and enjoyed hearing about the book. So our engaging conversations made her one of the only gym members who I allowed to penetrate the shield necessary for an author to complete a 500-plus page manuscript.

When Fame received the book in October of 2015, she sobbed in delight. The only reaction that was more visceral came from my 79-year-old mother who started dancing while clutching the tome. During Parcells's launch, Fame urged her friends and colleagues to check out the book. She purchased several copies during the holidays to give away as gifts. Fast forward to February of 2015: Fame had moved to the Los Angeles area to work as an executive for a startup named Slyde, which had created a mobile app that delivers exclusive content by music artists. With New York undergoing its worst winter in decades, she encouraged me to take my first real break in several years. I heeded her suggestion in late March, spending a few days in Miami with Rhahime Bell (the book's main financier) and then more than a week in West Hollywood where I enjoyed the balmy weather. In this photo -- snapped on April 5, 2015 -- Fame and I sit an Italian restaurant near Beverly Hills's Rodeo Drive, and discuss her new endeavor.

Although my neighbor lacked the literary credentials of my editorial team, his feedback was just as valuable. And in a real-world sense, it may have even been more important. An ophthalmologist, Craig Moskowitz -- who also loaned me a substantial amount during the project -- exemplified Parcells's target audience: a sports fan who enjoys quality books across multiple genres. He read tons of my material, and offered detailed takes. For example, in Chapter 14, I embraced Craig's suggestion to identify Bill's left anterior descending artery as "the widow maker." The top-notch eye doctor might as well have doubled as my agent, sometimes making outlandish comparisons of my unedited chapters to the bestselling books on his bedside. But he gained currency by being candid if he disliked something in particular. Craig was an author's amigo, persuading me to take timely breaks and watch sports at his apartment two floors above mine; or drink wine with some eye candy, umm, I mean a couple of his well-rounded friends pictured here: Malin (left) and Jasmine.

Switching seats with Dr. Craig Moskowitz, I obtained the opinions of Malin and Jasmine about whether Parcells could draw women who weren't football nuts. At least, these two promised to purchase the book, and spread the word among their friends.

Time Inc honcho John Huey after getting an update on the project at a Sushi restaurant in my neighborhood: John occasionally took such time off from his busy schedule overseeing Time Inc, the magazine behemoth that owns publications like Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated and Time. I had joined SI in 2005 when John Huey and Norm Pearlstine -- the departing chief -- authorized the move despite an official hiring freeze at the magazine. After my first piece, a cover story on Troy Polamalu, John sent me a congratulatory email. Even when I officially left SI a couple years later, and started working on Parcells, Time Inc's boss of bosses remained supportive. Well before leaving his position in late 2012, John considered me still part of the Time Inc. family, introducing me to Time magazine's chief editor so that I could freelance if my intensive schedule allowed. While expressing interest in my project being acquired by Sports Illustrated Books, he predicted that a major publisher would buy it. John -- who had penned Sam Walton's blockbuster autobiography -- read my first chapter and boosted my confidence by remarking that I was off to a strong start. He suggested a question for Bill about his earliest memories in football. Coach's response led to a funny story about his most enjoyable football game as a kid. The anecdote appears on page 5 of Parcells.

Since I stuck to thanking human beings in the Parcells acknowledgement, I'm using this photo gallery to give a shout-out to my apartment. Environment and even ambience are crucial to writing. And sometimes, the best place to be was at home. Pictured here is my living room, which includes my modest book collection. The bookshelf to the right contains strictly sports books. The one to the left comprises non-sports works. Occasionally, I browsed through my David McCullough collection, which reminded me that I had tons of work to do.

Special gratitude goes to my home desk. The file shelf on the far left of the photo contains all sorts of stuff related to the book. No, that antique phone isn't what I would use to dial Bill -- it was for decorative purposes. But the manilla envelope to the lower right of the photo includes the handwritten All-Parcells team. The framed shot on the wall has flowers growing amid rocks, and helped me with writer's block. The powerful message, under the title "Determination," is too small to see here. It says: "Yes, there are obstacles and lots of excuses. Some people get sidetracked, and never make it. Others -- the ones we admire -- get the job done anyway. It's called determination."

In balmy weather, I often decided to work in one of Central Park's relatively quiet areas. The bench in this picture was a sweet spot between Strawberry Fields and the Central Park Lake. Since I owned a second battery, I could stay on my computer all day long. And an air card provided Internet access, where Wi-Fi didn't exist. To maintain the starving artist image -- and counter the Louis Vuitton bag Alexa had gotten me for my birthday -- I sipped from a 2-liter bottle of Diet 7 Up. I know, I know. Not classy:) In time, some familiar passersby inquired about what I was up to. And every once in a while, they'd ask, "How's the book going?"

At the start of the project, David Maraniss spent an hour on the phone with me, giving insight into the making of his Vince Lombardi masterpiece. As a first-time author, I was delighted to discover that my dozens upon dozens of notebooks filled with handwriting weren’t such a nutty idea. In fact, the author extraordinaire had organized his material in similar fashion for When Pride Still Mattered. David confirmed that transcribing interviews in longhand was painstaking and time-consuming, yet led to a stronger command of the material.

Me and mom at Zeke's junior high school graduation on June 21, 2011: Parcells limited the opportunities for me to spend quality time with my cousin's son, particularly watching his basketball games. But Zeke improved enough to generate college scholarship offers -- not just athletic but academic. And now that Zeke is a senior, I have more time to watch him plays hoops before he takes the college leap.

Somehow, I recreated the organization of my book shelves when I moved from Manhattan to my cousin's home in Westchester.

i also somehow recreated the organization of my notebooks in Kafui's home. The net in front of me is part of an electronic basketball game belonging to Zeke. Whenever I searched for a notebook, I couldn't resist taking a few jumpers. And occasionally, I challenged Zeke to shooting contests at the machine, trying to prove to my cousin that I had a few skills back in the day.

Family: Rhahime Bell, who financed much of Parcells, and my younger brother, Bubu (middle). In this picture, we're celebrating Bubu's birthday at his Harlem apartment. Bubu is an IT expert for the Federal Reserve. When I told him about my plans to create parcellsbook.com, he introduced me to Squarespace, the popular website-building company. So Bubu gets major props for helping me create parcellsbook.com. And Rhahime's brother, Kenyatta Bell, a beverage entrepreneur and real-estate agent, gave a wide range of support.

Being obsessed with a book poses challenges to a relationship. Another hurdle involves living in a different city from the person you're dating. I visited Alexa in D.C. only once in a blue moon like here when we went to the Smithsonian Museum. Conversely, Alexa would visit me in Manhattan every other week. She inevitably had enough of the rigamarole, and we split up just before I finished the book, and stayed friendly. But I still have to give her props for being supportive while providing some balance in my life for several years.

The manuscript was already several weeks late on June 30, 2014 when I transmitted it to Crown Archetype for the publisher's production team to turn the pages into a book. And within days, we faced another quandary: at roughly 230k words, the material was a good amount longer than planned (200k words). But Bill and I maintained an agreement with Crown -- that few changes beyond copyediting would be made upon submission. So on July 10, Tina Constable sent the material back to me and my editorial team, led by Peter Guzzardi with a challenging assignment: tighten the manuscript in consultation with Bill Parcells by July 18, topping it off at no more than 220k words. At least, the manuscript had already been copyedited, an essential step in processing it.

To make the new deadline -- and allow Crown's production team to do its thing -- we needed to break the manuscript into three parts while maintaining our disciplined, intricate system: me tweaking some of Peter's edits before sending them to Bill for any objections; and then having our NFL historian, Dan Daly, vet the material. Since Bill preferred scrutinizing the pages in print rather than on the computer, I rushed to Saratoga Springs to spend the week there.

After working around the clock with Bill and my crew, I sent the material to Crown in three chunks. We were all pleased that the manuscript, shortened to roughly 216k words, was even sharper than before. Nevertheless, since it had been sent in piecemeal -- with countless tweaks -- I worried about how Crown's production team would be able to merge it all into one document. Bill had read the manuscript several times before approving it. And too many omissions of the precise revisions might anger him into disowning the project. I expressed my concerns to Jacob Lewis, an editorial director at Crown, who for various reasons became essentially the third person shepherding the book at the publishing house. Considering that the original manuscript had been copyedited, it would be human nature to have some things slip through the cracks. Nonetheless, Jacob chuckled when I pointed this out, showing confidence in his crew despite the challenges we had imposed on it. He predicted that when Bill and I reviewed the galley proofs in about a week, the roughly 540 pages would be virtually a cleaned-up version of what I had sent. As explained in our Behind The Scenes category, the galley proofs show how each page will look in book form while giving authors a final chance to correct any mistakes.

When I received the galley proofs and leafed through a good portion of it, I was delighted and pleasantly surprised: It looked like all the revisions by me and my editorial team were had been accounted for, affirming Jacob's expectations. I knew that whenever Bill unleashed his microscope on the galley proofs, he would be equally impressed. The copyeditor, Aja Pollock, had taken the manuscript to a higher level after asking several smart questions, and making dozens of slight yet important changes. Despite knowing a thing or two about the English language, I learned plenty of new stuff from her. For example, "persona non grata" is an adjective -- not a noun as I had used it to describe Charlie Weis in Chapter 22: Bill Parcells booted him from Jets headquarters during the soap-opera involving Bill Belichick's bizarre departure to the Patriots. Aja also enhanced our accuracy, an important contribution since we viewed the book as akin to a historical document.

On August 1, 2014, I made another trip to Saratoga Springs -- to combine on the galley proofs with Bill. We faced our own challenge of reading every word within a week. Given the time constraints, I scrutinized the manuscript in my hotel room day and night, breaking only for daily, 30-minute workouts so I wouldn't lose my mind; Bill read at home, even taking time off from attending his beloved Saratoga Race Course. We exchanged several telephone calls before meeting up to confirm any errors. The biggest mistake in the galley proofs belonged to Bill and me: the timeline in the Army chapter -- 3 -- was off by a year. I had placed Bill at West Point in 1966 as Wikipedia states instead of 1967. We didn't catch the gaffe until reading the galley proofs, ideally a stage for spotting only typos and such. Because of a domino effect on the material, the one-year discrepancy required me to reorganize the chapter, imposing yet another inconvenience upon Crown's production team.

This oversight gave extra work to Mark Birkey, who I describe in the Parcells Acknowledgements as being "a persnickety and versatile production editor." I could have also added "indefatigable." Mark's talents were crystallized when I sent Crown my captions for the photo insert. I wanted to make them more in-depth than the typical ones. Mark improved on the idea, making several smart changes under a tough deadline. I would be happy to have Mark and Aja participate in my next book.

Crown's designer Barbara Sturman helped turn the the photo insert into essentially a collectible. Despite her expertise -- and my status as a rookie author -- she sought my input on the layout, going strictly in chronological order, starting with Bill at age two. Jenni Zellner, an editorial assistant, acted like a pleasant pit bull -- if that's not oxymoronic -- about deadlines and material that the production crew needed. Her silky voice made it impossible to get annoyed at her occasional, ratcheting-up-the-pressure voicemails.

For some of the other folks at Crown / Random House who played key roles in the book, you can check out my original Acknowledgements in our Extracts category, or use the "Look Inside" feature to view it in Parcells. My first experience in book publishing was an eye-opener about the difference that these hardworking, talented folks can make in the quality of your product, and ultimately, its success. It's no wonder that Crown Archetype has a reputation for producing so many quality books.