Free Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers Page A

Team. The Patriots were Foxborough’s team. In the four years before Kraft bought the Patriots, they were a pitiful 14–50. Even so, the Patriots fans were excited to have local ownership. The day after the NFL approved Kraft’s purchase in January 1994, New England had one of those fabled winter nor’easters. It was a day when sitting in front of the fireplace is a more attractive option than driving out to the local ballpark to buy tickets to see a bad team. Even so, it was quite busy at the ticket office at Foxboro Stadium. An astounding 5,958 season ticket orders were processed, more than six times the Patriots’ one-day record. The previous record was the 979 tickets sold when Parcells was hired in 1993.
    Kraft began his business career working for the Rand-Whitney Group of Worcester, Massachusetts, a company that converted paper into packaging. It was owned by Jacob Hiatt, the father of Kraft’s wife, Myra. Kraft later bought the company. They had met in 1962 at a deli in Boston. She was a student at Brandeis, and he was at Columbia and in town for the Ivy League basketball game against Harvard. They made eye contact, and Kraft latershowed up at the Brandeis campus to find her. They went out on a date, and Kraft is fond of saying she proposed that night. She was nineteen years old. They had a true love affair.
    I met with Robert and Myra in the summer of 2010, and we had dinner at a restaurant a few minutes from their home in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Myra looked healthy and energetic. Her ovarian cancer had gone into remission, and she remained active in her philanthropic ventures. Even after finding out the next spring that the insidious cancer had returned, she insisted on keeping a commitment to travel to Israel. But Myra, who adored Robert, wasn’t supportive when her husband informed her that he was buying his favorite football team. “This young lady thought I was a little cuckoo,” Kraft said. “It was the first time in our marriage she questioned my business sense.”
    He tended to her every need at the restaurant. He ordered for her and made sure the food was cooked to her liking, not letting on how concerned he was about her health. They were married in June 1963, had four sons, and never tired of each other. They finished each other’s sentences. She was a wonderful lady and the love of his life. He always called her his sweetheart. She died on July 20, 2011, about one year after our dinner.
    In 2012,
Forbes
ranked the Patriots as the third most valuable franchise in the NFL and the sixth most valuable sports franchise in the world at $1.4 billion, so it turned out to be a pretty wise investment. The Patriots’ biggest asset when Kraft became the owner was the Jersey guy who owned two Super Bowl rings from his eight years as head coach of the New York Giants. “You need to get people to trust in your brand, and you look at having someone like Bill Parcells as being a plus and an asset,” Kraft said. “But you need a bond.”
    Parcells quit the Giants on May 15, 1991, leaving them in an awful bind with training camp just ten weeks away. When coaches leave, they usually make the decision within a week or two of the end of the season. But there were many factors at work with thecomplicated Parcells. His ally with the Giants was co-owner Tim Mara, the nephew of co-owner Wellington Mara. The Maras had an awful relationship, but Parcells managed to get along with both of them, though he was particularly close to Tim. Less than one month after the Giants beat the Bills in Super Bowl XXV, Tim Mara sold his 50 percent interest to New York businessman Robert Tisch, who had long wanted to own an NFL team. The price was $75 million, now one of the great bargains in sports. The Giants were valued at $1.3 billion in 2012 by
Forbes
, making them the fourth most valuable NFL franchise.
    Wellington Mara had right of first refusal on his nephew’s share but didn’t have the money to finance the purchase.