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A few months later, John was in his office when his phone rang. “Gagliardi,” he answered as always.
“Hi, John. This is Leslie Frazier with the Minnesota Vikings. I want to invite you to come down and be our guest at one of our mini-camp practices.”
John went to the event and later told me, “I was eating lunch with Leslie after practice, and I was tempted to tell him your story. But I decided against it.”
“Good restraint,” I said with a smile.
CHAPTER 5
A good amount of John’s success on the gridiron happened because players believed in themselves, in each other, and in John’s system. On many occasions, such as the 1963 national championship game against Prairie View, the Johnnies were less physically talented than their opponents. However, the team trusted that if they followed John’s plan, they would win the game. The players knew that John would not put players in position to fail—he only asked them to do things he knew they were capable of. He put his players in position to win, and as a result, they trusted him and played with confidence. With this confidence, the team generally played together far better than its opponents.