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NEW YORK -- He is witty. He is compassionate. He is humorous. He is ...
Tom Coughlin?
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| 'It's a passion we believe in,' Coughlin says about the Jay Fund Foundation. (Getty Images) |
Both spoke for several minutes, and Martin was what you might expect -- poised, eloquent and gracious. But it was the Giants' Coughlin who provided the evening's changeup, appearing relaxed, cracking jokes and fielding a prickly question from the audience with the ease that hasn't exactly characterized past news conferences.
He was -- dare I say it -- downright likeable.
"That's what he's about and what he's like," said daughter Keli. "He is very dedicated to his career and his job, and he puts a lot into that. But he also has other sides to him."
Well, he has at least one, and it's a dimension you rarely see or hear about, and that's a shame. Because what Tom Coughlin does on behalf of his Jay Fund Foundation, a charity he founded years ago and represented Thursday night, is worth mentioning and appreciating.
Essentially, it's a fund Coughlin started in 1996 in memory of one of his football players at Boston College, a 21-year-old safety named Jay McGillis who died in 1992 of leukemia. McGillis was Coughlin's kind of guy -- a team ballplayer who was selfless, tireless and productive -- and his death had a life-changing effect on the head coach who sat at his hospital bedside.
"It was an experience that, at the time, was devastating," said Coughlin, who left Boston College in 1994 for the pros. "He started 10 games, and came home from that 10th game with glandular problems. They thought it was mono (mononucleosis), but it wasn't. It was leukemia.
"It's a terrible disease. At one point you think you have it licked, then you go through other stages. He had a bone marrow transplant that didn't work, and watching the family drop everything and rally around the sick child ... watching his sister come back from law school and literally live in his hospital room ... seeing him and his courage -- his thoughts were always about his family; not him -- and seeing how he lived his life I knew when we went to Jacksonville what I wanted to do."
He established the Jay Fund Foundation, which has donated an estimated $1.2 million to Jacksonville-area families of children suffering from leukemia and which now takes its turn in the New York metropolitan area.
"It's a passion we believe in," said Coughlin.
People in Jacksonville know about the foundation and Coughlin's commitment to it. He makes hospital visits there. He holds an annual celebrity golf tournament there. But people in New York know little about his off-the-field work -- at least they didn't until Coughlin appeared Thursday to announce a partnership with the National Law Enforcement and Firefighters Children's Foundation.