Head Coach
When former Giant fullback Alex Webster was named to replace Allie Sherman as head coach of the team at the beginning of the 1969 season, it was freely predicted that by 1971 a 'name' coach would replace Webster. But Big Red fooled everyone last season by directing the team to its first winning season since 1963, and missed winning the Eastern Division title only when the Giants lost to the Rams in the final game of the regular season. For this feat, Alex was named Coach of the Year in the National Conference.
He proved a stronger coach in his second season on the job as he took charge more. He promises to increase his authority this year. Webster preaches one philosophy, saying, 'Football is fun and that's what we keep telling our players. I know when I played on championship teams we all enjoyed the sport.' He uses a man-to-man approach and the players have responded to this.
Alex still holds the Giants' all-time rushing record, having piled up 4,638 yards (1955-64) which ranks him 21st on the all-time NFL list. He played in six championship games, including the 1956 massacre of the Chicago Bears. Now he's looking forward to coaching a championship team."
-Brenda Zanger, Pro Football 1971
COACH WEBSTER REMEMBERS HOW IT WAS FOR PLAYER ALEX
"Maybe the best thing about Alex Webster as a head coach is that he remembers what it's like to be a player.
In this age of credibility gaps, generation gaps, communication gaps and down-with-the-establishment thinking, Webster has achieved a modest measure of coaching success because he can reach his players.
Sometimes, when the situation warrants it, he reaches them with hard-line discipline. But more often his approach to the 40 high-strung professional athletes under his care is based on a quiet understanding of their problems. Hard or soft, though, Big Red is always fair and objective. No one can accuse him of allowing personality considerations to color his decisions.
In his two years as head coach of the Giants- seasons that brought records of 6-8 and 9-5- Alex has discovered that there is more to running a pro team than preparing playbooks, showing films, chalking Xs and Os on the blackboard and shouting into a field phone on Sunday afternoon.
'That's all part of it,' he says, ' but I've learned that coaching goes way beyond the basic mechanics of football. Today, with the way things are, I believe it requires tact and common sense and human understanding. You must let your players know you're willing to meet them halfway on every issue.'
The ideal thing, of course, says Alex, would be not to have any issues that require direct confrontation between player and coach. But he's been around too long to expect any such Utopia-in-the-locker-room.
'This is a game of intense pressure and emotion,' he explains, 'and anticipating and understanding some of these explosive situations is a coach's most important task- at least I think so.'
It wasn't too long ago, seven years to be exact, that Webster was himself a Giant player, not a trouble-maker but no choirboy, either, and he remembers how it was. He recalls what irked him about long, tedious practices, curfews, meetings, travel and the numerous pitfalls of a hot, boring training period.
'Don't get me wrong,' Big Red hastens. 'It was a great life. Good pay, short hours, lots of laughs. But there were tough times, too, and that's why today I do my damndest to understand these kids. I close my eyes and go back a few years and try to think how I felt under the same conditions. Sometimes it works, sometimes I come up empty, but at least the players know I am trying to relate to them and to their specific problems. Each man is different, you know, and requires different handling.'
When Alex took over the squad, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, two years ago he did not, for example, read off a long list of curfew rules and fines to the squad. He merely said, 'Look, I know all the tricks because I used them myself when I was a player. So if you're going to take a shot at breaking the rules, you'd better be able to outsmart me- and that won't be easy.'
There have been few, if any, curfew violations under Alex Webster.
There was another instance when Webster, a powerful 230-pounder, offered to step into the corridor and prove himself to 'one of you or all forty of you.' There were no takers.
Webster's approach to problems does not always follow the Guide to Proper Coaching but it is usually effective. 'It's kind of like flying by the seat of your pants,' he laughs.
The 40-year-old former Giant ball-carrying great had only two seasons as an assistant coach behind him when he was named Allie Sherman's successor prior to the opening game in 1969. Overnight he had been thrust into a strange new world- a world of unrelenting pressure, of total responsibility, an arena where a good-natured, easy-going redhead could be carved up like a delicatessen salami if he made a wrong step. 'My first decision,' he recalls, 'was to be my own kind of coach, for better or worse. I knew I was no Lombardi or Landry.'
Alex realized from the first that he would have to maintain a necessary detachment from the squad. ('A head coach can't be one of the boys.') But secretly he vowed never to lose sight of the players' problems nor to forget what it had been like for Alex Webster under men like Jim Lee Howell and Lombardi and Sherman.
'If a coach stays on his toes,' advises the Kearney, New Jersey native, 'he can often head off situations before they develop. That's part of understanding what makes a pro football player tick. I think I know.'
Like Howell, his first pro mentor, Webster prefers to let his assistant coaches assume complete responsibility in their respective areas. 'I want them to feel they are part of the total picture,' he says. Just as quickly, though, he lets it be known that he'll step in with an iron fist at the first sign of a breakdown.
When quarterback Fran Tarkenton complained that too many coaches were relaying information to the huddle against Dallas last year, Webster gathered his staff and said, 'I know each of you wants to win like hell; so do I. But from now on, nobody, repeat nobody, except me sends a play into that huddle.'
This was the first occasion of Big Red hurling his authority at his dedicated aides. 'But I felt it was time for it,' he says.
Webster's casual manner and quiet charm are often mistaken for softness. In truth, however, the Giants' coach is hard as nails and will not shirk from an unpleasant task.
"The toughest thing about coaching,' he confesses, 'is having to tell a rookie that you're cutting him or, even worse, when you have to trade a veteran, especially a fellow who might have been a teammate or an old buddy. I hate these situations but I accept them as part of my job. And I feel I owe it to the player to look him in the eye and tell him the bad news.'
Despite his calm exterior, Big Red is a very nervous person, a chain smoker who skips meals and loses sleep when he wrestles with the problems of coaching. 'I try not to show it,' he smiles, 'but sometimes my guts are tied up in a knot.'
While he may not have the computer mind of men like Landry and George Allen and Don Shula, there is intelligence and soundness and imagination in Webster's coaching style. He has a razor-sharp football mind and, more important, an instinctive 'feel' for the game. He doesn't pretend to be a master of gridiron theory or logic but over the past two seasons he has proved that his approach to the profession is pretty damned good.
Webster is everyone's friend, a big, warm bear of a man who likes people. He is also intensely loyal to those around him, especially to the Giants. He refuses to sign more than a one-year contract, even though the management offered him a multi-year pact after his second season.
'I prefer to take it one season at a time,' he says. 'That way, Mr. Mara (owner Wellington Mara) won't be stuck with me if I flop. I know if I'm good enough I'll get another contract. If I'm not- well, then I don't want one anyway.'
Webster considers coaching '... a continual learning process.' During the off-season he spends many hours talking with other NFL coaches, exchanging ideas, looking for better ideas, always attempting to improve his own ability. Despite the rivalry among NFL clubs, Big Red remains close friends with his former Giant teammates who are now coaching around the league, men like Tom Landry in Dallas, Dick Nolan in San Francisco, Ed Hughes in Houston, and former playing rivals like Norm Van Brocklin in Atlanta and Joe Schmidt in Detroit.
'You can learn a helluva lot just talking to these fellows and watching their methods,' says Alex.
It is the general feeling around Yankee Stadium that one can learn something, too, by watching Alex Webster."
-1971 New York Giants Official Yearbook
Offensive Line Coach
"Last year was his second as a coach, but Ivy is a long-time Cardinal, having been one of the team's top pass receivers as well as one of its top defensive ends.
An All-American at Oklahoma, Ivy served six years as the Sooners line coach. He coached Edmonton of the Canadian League to three consecutive national titles.
His new-fangled offensive formations- double and single wings, Split-T and spread- made the '58 club an exciting team to watch.
Born in Skiatook, Oklahoma, Frank is 43 years old."
-Pro Football Handbook 1959
"Ivy was born in Skiatook, Oklahoma and was a University of Oklahoma All-American end. He played with the Steelers and Cardinals (1939-47) and was the No. 2 pass catcher in 1942 and a top defensive flank in 1947.
He handled the assistant coaching job at Oklahoma (1948-53). He took over the Edmonton Eskimos (1954) and compiled the best coaching record in the Canadian League over four years.
Ivy became the head Cardinal coach in 1958. He's considered the most radical of all NFL mentors, introducing more offensive patterns than a mathematician can count."
-1960 Pro Football Handbook
"Frank (Pop) Ivy, innovator of the most spectacular, and difficult, of NFL offenses, is now in his fourth season as Cardinal ringmaster. He earned his early coaching spurs as an assistant to Bud Wilkinson at Oklahoma after starring as a defensive and offensive end with the Cardinals. Pop took over the head job with Edmonton of the Canadian League, winning 61 games and losing 18 in four years.
His sense of humor has helped in shaping the Cards into a reasonably efficient unit."
-1961 Pro Football Handbook
"Ivy comes to the Oilers after four years as the top coach of the Cardinals. He's famed for his double-wing offenses which proved spectacular but costly because of excessive ball-handling and a great number of fumbles.
He was a two-way playing end with the Cardinals before taking on an assistant coaching job at the University of Oklahoma. Ivy got his first pro teaching post with Edmonton in the Canadian circuit, winning 61 games in four years."
-Don Schiffer, 1962 Pro Football Handbook
"For imagination and resourcefulness, this Skiatook (Okla.) strategist goes to the head of the class. Ivy was an end at the University of Oklahoma and then played for the Cardinals. He passed six years as his alma mater's assistant coach, leaving to run Edmonton in the Canadian League.
The Cardinals hired him in 1958 and he introduced the most colorful offense in the NFL, specializing in the double-wing T. He left the Cards to accept employment at Houston for the '62 campaign.
Especially popular with the players, Ivy believes that the game should be fun."
-Don Schiffer, Pro Football 1963
"Frank (Pop) Ivy was under considerable criticism and many urged him to hand in his coaching reins after the fall in quality in play last year, but he'll be at the Houston helm for the third time because his bosses believe he did the best job possible with the many injuries and problems of 1963.
Born in Skiatook, Oklahoma, Ivy was an end at Oklahoma and with the NFL Cardinals. After serving as a Sooner assistant coach, he went to the Canadian League and then onto the Cards as head coach in '58. His offensive formations were the most revolutionary ever put into practice. Ivy was replaced as Cardinal pilot by Wally Lemm, the former Houston mentor, in an unusual coach-for-coach deal."
-Don Schiffer, Pro Football 1964
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