Michael Strahan Makes Hall of Fame Case for Ex-Giants Coach Tom Coughlin: ‘Made Me a Better Man’

Editor’s note: In an essay for PEOPLE, Michael Strahan opens up about the lessons he learned from Tom Coughlin, his former coach with the New York Giants. The pair helped lead the Giants to a victory in Super Bowl XLII in 2008 over the previously unbeaten New England Patriots.

When players hear the name Tom Coughlin, there are lots of words that come to mind: disciplinarian, old-school, tough, resilient, committed.

While he embodies all those individual qualities, the total of their sum elevates him to a status that few will ever achieve: NFL legend. Coach Coughlin is that, and so much more to millions of New York Giants fans and players he has coached during his storied career.

It’s no secret that I did not always have warm and fuzzy feelings about Coach Coughlin. The man fined me $500 for being “late” to a meeting even though I was three minutes early — to him, if you weren’t five minutes early, you were late.

When I think of him, I think about that clipboard he liked to walk around with. I never knew what he was writing down — until I got a letter fining me for wearing my socks incorrectly.

But he quickly went from the coach I didn’t want to play for to the only coach I would ever play for. All the little things that he asked of me made me a better player and ultimately a better man, because guess what: The details matter. Whether you’re setting up a blitz, or setting up an interview, or setting up a cancer treatment plan for your daughter.

Coughlin didn’t just build teams, he built a culture. He made us responsible to and for each other. He made us completely dedicated to a single goal and that was to play for each other. It sounds so easy, but when you take a bunch of guys with a lot of big egos and ask them to win, it is anything but.

He did the same thing in Jacksonville, building a team from the ground up and taking the Jacksonville Jaguars to their first AFC championship in only their second season. Who does that? Tom Coughlin, that’s who.

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But to know him is to know that everything he demands comes from a place of love. Yeah, I said it. Coach Coughlin loves his players, and we love him. Because the only thing he did that was greater than beating a football dynasty known as the New England Patriots — not once, but twice — and denying them perfection in that famous Super Bowl following the 2007 season was what he did off the field. He made us all better human beings.

Coach always says that God isn’t going to ask him about the Super Bowl rings on his fingers, but rather the impact he has had on the lives of others. Watching him and his late wife Judy work so tirelessly for families tackling pediatric cancer in New York, New Jersey, and Jacksonville, Fla., has not been lost on me or any of my teammates. He has inspired many of us to pursue similar paths in how we give back and that’s because he is a leader, a role model, and has our respect.

Coach, I am so grateful to call you a mentor and a friend. You have made me a better person. There is no doubt in my mind that you belong in the Hall of Fame, but until you get that gold jacket and that bust to talk to the other busts late at night in Canton, please know you are already a Hall of Famer to so many you’ve touched on and off the field.

I love you, Coach.