MacPherson, NFL: So Far, So Great : Pro Football: New coach of New England takes to the job with enthusiasm.

One day it is the football equipment. It has held up great.

The next day it is the practice fields. Great.

The weight program. Great.

The training-table food.

The weather.

Athlete’s foot. Well, maybe not. But the cure, yes, that’s great, too.

In Dick MacPherson’s eyes, there are a lot of things about the New England Patriots that are, for lack of a better word, great.

MacPherson’s outlook on life is upbeat, positive, determined, enthusiastic, energetic and happy. And it has made training camp at Bryant College lively.

“We like what he has done coming here, just the attitude of the whole staff is very positive,” defensive end Garin Veris said.

After last season’s 1-15 record, the Patriots were dispirited. It is questionable whether a better morale-booster than MacPherson could have been found to coach the team.

“He has fun out there,” quarterback Tommy Hodson said, “and he tries to make that rub off on the staff and the football team. He’s glad to be here, and you can’t help but jump on his wagon and get excited.”

Gone are the days Rod Rust meandered through training camp with all the excitement of a computer programmer. And long gone are the seancelike days when Raymond Berry conducted training camp as if tuned to the football gods.

MacPherson tackles everything he does like a linebacker meeting a running back at the point of attack. He didn’t rebuild sagging programs at the University of Massachusetts and Syracuse by holding back anything and his methods won’t change with the Patriots.

After 28 years in coaching, MacPherson, 60, is not intimidated by his new job or new team.

“He’s been at this level several times and he has enough background,” linebackers coach Myrel Moore said. “He knows how to motivate and he knows how to organize and he can feel the pulse and the tempo of things and that’s a great gift.”

And make no mistake, the joker with the big grin sets a pace that is fast and hard-driving. Since he enjoys delighting the press so much, there might be a tendency to see MacPherson simply as a comedian, but he is not one-dimensional.

“He puts the message out there,” Veris said. “The message is he wants you to work hard and get things right, take care of business. He’s a little more talkative than coaches in the past, but he’s got one message and that’s to do your job.”

MacPherson has assembled an inordinately large staff of assistants -- no less than a dozen aides. He oversees what they do, but he gives them the responsibility for their respective areas.

The staff is a mixture of coaches with NFL and college experience, including three from MacPherson’s staff at Syracuse.

“My job,” MacPherson said, “is to stay out of the way and let them run with it -- stay up on the bridge and say, ‘Full steam ahead.’

“When you get people like I have you better let them run so they can have a good time. I think the players sense that the coaches are having a good time out there, and (that they are) competent, which is important. That’s my job -- to make sure there is nothing out there that could cause them to lose, to remove all excuses for failure.”

Building up confidence and motivating players has been MacPherson’s first order of business with the Patriots. Sunday night, when the players returned from a 24-hour break from work, the team meeting began with a viewing of the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in which former Patriots’ guard John Hannah and Patriots’ defensive line coach Stan Jones were enshrined in Canton, Ohio.

Hannah is the first Patriot player in the Hall of Fame.

“It was a great thing for our football team to see,” MacPherson said.

MacPherson is not particularly worried about the 1991 season. After last season, the Patriots virtually can go nowhere but up. In the ’92 and ’93 seasons the heat will be on.

But MacPherson knows a little positive reinforcement won’t hurt his chances of succeeding.

“I think you’ve got to win some games,” he said. “I think this is tough without it. I think this is a great job. If you win games it will be a real good job.”