In in his new book “Big Blue Wrecking Crew: Smashmouth Football, a Little Bit of Crazy, and the ’86 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants” (St. Martin’s Press), author Jerry Barca takes a behind-the-scenes look at how the Giants prepared for Super Bowl XXI against the Broncos in Pasadena, Calif.:
In his office at Giants Stadium, Bill Parcells kept elephant figurines. He had 10 of them and each one faced the door with its trunk raised up.
This was one of many superstitions bestowed upon him by his Italian mother. “I’m still a little bit of an elephant guy,” he said decades later.