An NFL coach for 15 seasons, Dick Vermeil took three different losing franchises and, through hard work, transformed them into winners. His journey began after he led a struggling UCLA football program to its first conference championship in 10 years, followed by a win over number 1-ranked Ohio State in the Rose Bowl in 1975. The following season, Vermeil took his first NFL job as the Head Coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, which boasted a 26-53-4 record since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
Vermeil’s first three seasons in Philly didn’t yield many results on the field. But with hard work in the former of rigorous practice sessions, the work paid off in 1978 when the Eagles finished with their first winning season. Two seasons later, Vermeil’s Eagles took the NFC East division crown and defeated the Dallas Cowboys in the Conference Championship to advance to the franchise’s first-ever Super Bowl appearance. However, Philly fell short in Super Bowl 15, losing to the Oakland Raiders 27-10. Crushed by the defeat, Vermeil felt the only way to return to the big game was to work even harder, but inevitably burned himself out of coaching and stepped down as the Eagles HC following the ’82 campaign.
Following a fourteen-year hiatus, Vermeil returned to coaching in 1997. This time taking over for another struggling franchise, the St. Louis Rams, who hadn’t seen a winning season since the end of the 1980s decade. Three seasons after taking the St. Louis job, Vermeil transformed the lowly Rams into the Greatest Show on Turf and won a Super Bowl Championship at the turn of the century. Two months after building the Rams into a winner, Vermeil announced his retirement.
After spending the 2000 NFL season away from the sideline, Vermeil returned to coaching and reunited with General Manager Carl Peterson, who was with Vermeil during his time with the Eagles, by filling the HC vacancy in Kansas City. Much like his time with the Rams, by year three, the Chiefs went from a basement dweller to a playoff contender in 2003. Unlike the Eagles and Rams, Kansas City never saw a championship and only went to the postseason once. After five seasons coaching the Chiefs, Vermeil walked away from football for the third and final time.
