Glauber: Saints coach Payton has come a long way

At the time it was happening, Sean Payton couldn't have imagined a future in which he would reach the pinnacle of NFL success. Winning a Super Bowl with a team long considered the laughingstock of the league? Unthinkable after what Payton went through with the Giants seven years earlier.

This was the 2002 season, when Payton had his play-calling duties stripped by head coach Jim Fassel just weeks after an ill-fated interception by Kerry Collins near the end of the first half of a Week 4 game against the Cardinals. Then came the call from doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, who told Payton his mother had terminal cancer.

"It was so challenging because of the combination of events," Payton told Newsday in a phone conversation this past week. "There's a part of me that regrets the time of not even having a chance to properly go through the process of losing a mother. When the year ended, your first thought wasn't the death of your mother, it was, 'Gosh, what's happened to me?' There was just so much."

Payton wrote in detail about the experience in his newly published autobiography, "Home Team." The book was co-written by Newsday columnist Ellis Henican.

But it was out of that difficult period that Payton began to put his life and his career back together and eventually become one of the league's premier coaches. To this day, he believes his experiences in the crucible of New York helped transform him into a champion.

More importantly, it signaled the eventual beginning of a relationship with former Giants and Jets coach Bill Parcells that would provide the biggest imprint on Payton's coaching career.

Oddly enough, not long after Payton's play-calling duties were stripped by Fassel, a recommendation from Giants scout Chris Mara to Parcells helped Payton rebound. Parcells had decided to return to coaching, this time with the Cowboys, and one of the first assistant coaches he hired was Payton.

"There was still something that was eating at me , and Parcells called," Payton said. "It was really ironic how that all came to fruition. I had never met Bill, but he told me about six months after I got to Dallas that Chris Mara was the one who recommended me."

The two spoke by phone, and Parcells offered the job. "It was, 'Meet me at Republic Airport [in Farmingdale]' on a Friday," Payton said. "There he was, and we jumped in the plane and went to Dallas."

And it was during those three years with Parcells that Payton soaked in the lessons that eventually turned him into a successful head coach. Payton was particularly fond of the head games Parcells would engage in with his players, whether it was putting mousetraps in their lockers before what Parcells called a "trap game" against a weaker opponent or building up the team's confidence during a losing streak. But it also was Parcells' intense attention to detail that won over Payton.

"Bill wants passion in what you do, and if you have that, he's a guy that likes being around you," Payton said. "He thought constantly about how we can get an edge, and he was never satisfied. Bringing that attention to detail was something he was very good at."

Payton frequently has used props and other attention-grabbing devices to motivate his players. Last year, for instance, he gave his team baseball bats during the playoffs with the reminder, "Bring the wood." And during a team meeting before a big game against New England last season, he imitated Patriots coach Bill Belichick addressing his own team and pointing out the Saints' weaknesses; New Orleans routed the Patriots, 38-17.

Now Payton will have to be at his motivational best as he attempts to accomplish something even Parcells has never done: winning back-to-back Super Bowls. There will be plenty of distractions along the way, including allegations from a former Saints employee that implicated Payton and assistant head coach Joe Vitt in the theft of Vicodin from the team's drug cabinet. Payton has vigorously denied any involvement, saying he has never stolen or abused Vicodin or any other pain medication.

"I think we've gotten very good at handling potential distractions," he said. "We also recognize that with success comes some of this. Part of it is when you're winning, these stories become magnified. But we've become resilient."

He'll learn more about his team's resilience next month, when the Saints open training camp and embark on their Super Bowl defense.

"We've studied the history of the teams that have failed the year after and the teams that have had success," he said. "I embrace the opportunity."