Just Tuesday, Dick Vermeil was in Nebraska, speaking before 2,000 people at a clinic for high school football coaches. By late Wednesday morning, he was back in his log-cabin-style home in Chester County, digging through a stack of papers in his basement office to find the one that would confirm the point he had just made.
Thirty-five years ago, he began his final season as the Eagles’ head coach. At the end of that 3-6 strike-shortened campaign, he resigned, popularizing the term “burnout” by citing it as the reason he could not coach football anymore. Now he flies to speaking engagements—he’s looking forward to one next March in South Dakota, where he’ll have the chance to do some pheasant hunting—and keeps in close contact with his former players and compiles research about pro and college football so that, when a reporter or radio host calls to get his insight, he can speak with evidence and authority.