Here’s what former New England Patriots head coach Bill Parcells had to say during his Patriots Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Saturday, September 20, 2025 at Gillette Stadium.
“Obviously, I am very humbled and honored by this award, and I thank Robert very much and the Patriot family. You know, this is kind of melancholy for me in a couple of ways and I want to tell you why, because I don’t know whether all the fans here know, but this is where I started my professional football career. And 1980, my first year in football. I had aspired to be a pro coach for my last five or six years in college. I didn’t know whether I was going to get the opportunity, but I came here. I’m an East Coast guy. I loved it and came up, and I got to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I couldn’t have come to a better place. And I want to tell you why. We in those days, I have to tell you, we had training camp down there at Smith. Smithfield College? No, Bryant College, Smithfield, Rhode Island. And I remember going down there and walking on the field from my first practice and I walked out there about 20 minutes early, and I looked down there, my lapel on my jacket, and I was giving myself a pep talk and I said, ‘you know, Parcells, we’re really doing this now. And we’re going to find out what you got when we get started.’ And that was the beginning and we had a great collection of coaches, some of the great names from pro football. Gino Cappelletti, you all know, Raymond Berry, Jim Ringo. It was great. It really was. They helped me with that.”
“And there were two other men here at the time that probably had more influence on me than any other single people in pro football. One of them was the then general manager, his name was Bucko Kilroy. And the other was the personnel director, his name was Mike Hollaback. I didn’t know Bucko when I came here, but I knew Mike from slightly from interaction in the college ranks. And I don’t know why they did this, but they befriended me. I really don’t know why. Here I am, just a new guy, college coach, come in here trying to keep up with the football and the systems and the new personnel and everything. And they’re taking me aside during the course of that entire year. And they taught me every single aspect of personnel acquisition in the NFL.”
“And they taught me a draft system, they taught me a valuation system, they taught me the critical factors for every position, every player, they taught me all the trade mechanisms, and they insisted I learn it. And occasionally they would put a test on my desk, it would have 10 questions, and I had to answer them or they put two guys names down and I had to write reports to them. And when the test came back, if I had an answer wrong, it had a red check on it like I was in fourth grade again. But it was invaluable. The other thing that existed down there, I just saw some of these guys here today, was the visuals of what pro players are supposed to look like.”
“Remember, ladies and gentlemen, this is my first experience, so I’m going out there. Well, these visuals that I’m going to recite to you were the things that I used as comparisons for all future acquisitions. Now we had two corners. One of them was here tonight, Ray Claiborne and Mike Ames.”
“Now I’m going to tell you, those guys would be stars in the NFL today. They would. Every time I was looking at a corner, I was on film or in wherever I was evaluating them. I’m comparing them to Claiborne and Haynes. Then we had prototype lineman John Hannah, Pete Brock. Every time I look at offensive linemen, I’m comparing them to Brock. Prototype tight ends Russ Francis and Don Hasselbeck, first of the big block, speed down the field, receiving tight ends. We had two of them here. So those were my points of comparison. I took them with me wherever I went, and I followed through all the way with that. So this place has a place in my heart. It always will.”
“We sometimes reflect on things. And you wish you would have done things a little differently. Well, when I come back here and I see this, I wish I would have done things a little differently. But as we got going, as we got going, we stabilized the quarterback a little bit with Drew [Bledsoe]. We started making some picks, started getting better quality players, got in a couple playoff games, we won a little something, and finally, the New England Patriots were competitive.”
“So I want to thank, namely, all the players that were involved in that, because it was a real grind, ladies and gentlemen. It was a real grind physically, and it was a real grind mentally, and they withstood it and profited from it. The other thing, when Robert came, now we got the resources to compete, too. So now we were able to do those things that we hadn’t been able to do before. And so that’s what kind of made it and got it going.”
“And I just want to say thank you to the coaches that I had who worked hard, and I’m remiss I didn’t mention her earlier. I wanted to. My personal assistant, Kathleen O’Neill, I know she’s somewhere. I just don’t know where she is. But, you know, she wasn’t there for a lot of dinners at home with her husband. She was banging it out with us during the week. And then the other woman I wanted to mention, longtime friend of mine, this woman has devoted her entire working life to this franchise. Her name is Nancy Meyer, and I want to tell you she is a true, true patriot.”
“I want to congratulate Julian. I told you I wish I could have got my hands on you, buddy. So I say thank you. I’m humble and I’m honored, and I appreciate everything you guys have done.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This transcript was done based on the available footage and is subject to typographical errors. If you spot anything, please let me know in the comments below.)
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
