Suddenly, Jaguars are a Tough Sell

With a drink in hand (ice water), and a story or two to tell, Jacksonville Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin worked the room--shaking hands, signing autographs and making nice with all the fans who came to see him.

“No, this really is not me,” Coughlin conceded, looking strangely out of place in the country club dining room, dressed in his black suit, blue tie and wearing an unmistakably painted-on smile.

But this is a different time in Jacksonville, and the Jaguars find themselves in a strange situation.

Once an easy sell in the NFL’s second smallest market, the Jaguars have had two straight losing seasons. Ticket sales are down. Coughlin is getting a contract extension even though the area’s coaching icon, Steve Spurrier, was available.

In the move that might best symbolize their problems, the Jaguars let Tony Boselli -- the first draft pick in franchise history -- go in the expansion draft to alleviate their salary cap problems.

It has added up to a sizable public-relations mess, and now, the Jaguars have some explaining to do.

They’re doing the talking in a unique set of cocktail parties in which fans can get to know Coughlin, owner Wayne Weaver and other coaches and front office figures.

“There’s a saying we’ve always had in my business, and it’s that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result,” said Weaver, who made his fortune selling women’s shoes before buying the Jaguars.

Weaver came up with the idea: cocktail hour, handshaking, a formal presentation and an extensive Q&A; session at about a dozen country clubs and rotary clubs around town.

It’s a format college coaches are used to. They make annual tours through their states to pump boosters for support and money.

“It’s something that’s just not done in pro football,” Coughlin said.

In pro football, especially in a one-sport town like Jacksonville, the product is supposed to sell itself.

But while that axiom held true the first five years in Jacksonville, things changed when the team slipped to 7-9 and 6-10 the last two seasons.

Attendance dwindled to an average of just more than 60,000 -- 8,000 fewer than the first five seasons. Season-ticket renewals went down. A team that had never blacked out a home game in six years did it three times in 2001.

“I think we’ll win more football games next year,” said Weaver, who is committed to keeping the Jaguars in Jacksonville and is preparing the city to play host to the 2005 Super Bowl.

“But do I need to get Tom Coughlin out there, talking to the public? Absolutely,” Weaver said.

Coughlin’s speech to fans could have come straight from a corporate CEO’s restructuring memo. The theme: Change and reality--the Jaguars have changed plenty lately, and now fans must face the reality that this roster will never look the way it did when Jacksonville made the AFC title game twice in four seasons.

“But I also want to make them understand that there is hope,” Coughlin said. “We’ve become a one-year league.”

As much as the message, however, fans are coming out to meet the man. In seven seasons, Jaguars fans have never really gotten to know Coughlin much beyond the militaristic caricature he’s portrayed as in local and national media.

He doesn’t do TV commercials. He keeps public appearances to a minimum. He doesn’t make a splash about his charity work.

“I don’t mind doing that stuff, but it’s just a question of how you’re going to spend your time,” Coughlin said. From early reviews, the mix-and-mingle act appears worth the trouble.

Mark Anderson says he’ll renew his season tickets based largely on his positive experience with Weaver and Coughlin.

“We don’t see him every day,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of nice just to stand there and talk to him.”

Another fan, Harvey Bernhardt, was equally impressed.

“He’s no Bobby Bowden, but it was great,” Bernhardt said. “It’s nice to have him talk about the issues, and try to explain some of the salary cap stuff the general public doesn’t understand.”

Coughlin is, in a sense, the opposite of Spurrier, who built the program at Florida largely on the cult of his sometimes-prickly, always-entertaining personality.

Spurrier turned Jacksonville into a key recruiting base, and adopted it as something of a home away from home. He seemed the perfect fit for the Jaguars when he resigned in January. When Weaver all but ignored Spurrier--the owner announced he would give Coughlin a contract extension on the day Spurrier resigned--Jaguars fans howled in protest.

“I think Tom has done a brilliant job, and he’s the coach for this franchise,” Weaver said. “We tied his hands with our salary cap.”

In fact, Coughlin played a big role in it, too. He has final say on all personnel matters.

Besides passing on Spurrier, the decision to let Boselli go in the expansion draft was one of the most unpopular in the franchise’s short history. Mark Brunell complained. Fans were outraged. Weaver called it the most distasteful thing he’s ever had to do in business, and now he’s trying to make amends.

“I think there comes a time when you have to say, ‘It’s time to move forward,’” Weaver said. “I think there are a lot of thoughtful people out there who have come to recognize what we did and why we did it.”