Pro Football Hall of Fame wait continues for original Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin
Tom Coughlin's Hall of Fame wait will continue for another year.
The original Jacksonville Jaguars head coach, who went on to capture two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, missed out on selection Wednesday for the Class of 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame nominee from the Coach/Contributor committee.
Instead, the committee chose a different two-time NFL champion: Buddy Parker, who won back-to-back NFL titles in 1952 and 1953 with the Detroit Lions.
Parker coached the old Chicago Cardinals in 1949, the Lions from 1951 to 1956 and the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1957 to 1964, compiling a record of 107-76-9. Parker's .671 winning percentage (47-23-2), three postseason victories and two NFL championships rank him as the most successful coach in Lions history by most measures since the franchise moved to Detroit in 1934. He died in 1982 at age 68.
While the committee's selection does not automatically confer Hall of Fame status — that part must wait for the Hall's meetings next year before the Super Bowl — election at this stage is most often regarded as a mere formality. An 80 percent vote at that meeting would ratify Parker's induction.
Gene Frenette: Former Jaguars' coach Tom Coughlin faces brutal path to Hall of Fame
In addition to Coughlin and Parker, the final set of coaches and contributors included Mike Holmgren, Bucko Kilroy, Robert Kraft, Dan Reeves, Art Rooney Jr., Marty Schottenheimer, Mike Shanahan, Clark Shaughnessy, Lloyd Wells and John Wooten. The committee only nominates one candidate from the coach/contributor category per year.
"Tom was a strong candidate and will be in the future," said longtime Associated Press writer Barry Wilner, who presented Coughlin's credentials before the committee and included quotes from Jaguars Hall of Fame tackle Tony Boselli, former Giants quarterback Eli Manning and original Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver.
In his presentation, Wilner emphasized Coughlin's role in building the Jaguars to near-instant prominence as well as his work with the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Foundation, which for 27 years has helped families dealing with childhood cancer.
"It was a really strong field," Wilner said. "If they were able to put in three [nominees] like the seniors category, we would have had no trouble putting three in."
The head coach of the Jaguars from their 1995 expansion season through 2002, Coughlin quickly built the Jaguars into a playoff team by their second season, qualifying for four consecutive postseasons and reaching the AFC Championship Game after the 1996 and 1999 seasons.
He then moved to the New York Giants from 2004 to 2015, where he directed unexpected championship runs from the wild-card round after the 2007 season (Super Bowl XLII) and the 2011 season (Super Bowl XLVI) and beat the New England Patriots of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick on each occasion.
In all, Coughlin tallied a career record of 170-150, with records of 68-60 in Jacksonville and 102-90 in New York. He also holds a .632 (12-7) winning percentage in postseason, a figure surpassed by only four coaches with 15 or more playoff games: Joe Gibbs, Belichick, Chuck Noll and George Seifert.
Coughlin's next chance at induction would come next year. Under a policy implemented by the Board of Trustees in 2022, the organization will select one honoree from the coach/contributor category per year through 2025.
To date, left tackle Boselli is the only former Jaguar inducted to the Hall, selected in 2022 after lining up for Jacksonville from 1995 to 2001.
The Times-Union's Gene Frenette contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars' Tom Coughlin misses football hall: Buddy Parker selected
