THE idea hit home as he studied sideline pictures of his father, Dick Nolan, the former head coach of the 49ers. But long before that, wandering up and down and around the NFL coaching maze, Mike Nolan conjured up a vision for himself.
If I’m ever fortunate enough to become a head coach, he thought, I’m going to dress a certain way.
“I always had a tremendous amount of respect for my father; he came from the [Tom] Landry era,” Nolan recently reflected during an interview with The Post. “I worked for Dan Reeves for 10 years. All the guys who were my mentors early on were suit-wearers. The people I used to admire so much were those same people, so I’d always kind of thought, if I have the opportunity, I’m going to wear a suit.”
At long last, the opportunity arrived for Nolan, 46, who after 18 years as an NFL assistant landed a head-coaching gig of his own on Jan. 17 when the 49ers – the team his dad guided from 1968-75 – hired him. Nolan assembled a staff, selected Utah quarterback Alex Smith with the first pick in the NFL draft and then, in a quiet moment, went public with his haberdashery intentions.
One problem: The league interceded and decreed that Nolan can’t wear a suit.
“If you bend the rule for one coach, then you don’t have a rule,” explained Brian McCarthy, the NFL’s director of corporate communications. “Part of the reason these coaches are paid these excellent salaries is because we’re able to use them to help promote the league and their teams.”
You can’t make this up. Bill Belichick can look like your basic college ragamuffin in a baggy, hooded sweatshirt, but Mike Nolan can’t be nattily attired in a crisp suit.
The NFL began garnering contracts for sideline apparel in 1997. In 2002, the league signed a 10-year contract that made Reebok the exclusive outfitter of all sideline personnel. The deal is reportedly worth $250 million, a figure McCarthy says is “probably low.”
“If we don’t make it,” Reebok spokesman Eddie White told The Associated Press, “[Nolan] can’t wear it.”
The NFL won’t allow itself to even acknowledge the possibility that denying Nolan is at best, ironic, and at worst an insult to common sense. This from a league constantly battling image issues, a league that has rules against excessive celebration, worries about its players’ comportment and an official at every game whose sole charge is to enforce the uniform code.
“It’s a great representation of the NFL if someone’s in a suit,” Nolan said. “Everything to me did – and still does say – wear a suit. Now obviously, I can’t, because the contracts say I cannot.”
When he first heard about the Nolan flap, Giants GM Ernie Accorsi said he immediately thought of Vince Lombardi and so many other coaching legends, men who never would have patrolled the sideline sans dress clothes.
“I don’t want to take league on, but I thought it was a grand tradition and I was a little surprised,” Accorsi said. “And I thought that was really meaningful that Mike would do that in honor of his father. The world has changed. It’s another example of the passing parade.”
Nolan’s football upbringing was largely nurtured by Reeves, whose stubborn streak is well-known to anyone who has ever spent time around the 23-year coach. “Dan Reeves was the last holdout with the suit and tie,” McCarthy said.
Reeves played in Dallas during a time when Landry oversaw the Cowboys with that steely glare and omnipresent fedora. In his four years with the Giants (1993-96), Reeves faced pressure to ditch the formal wear for Giants-issued clothing; he gradually relented.
“I had a tough time when I went to New York,” recalled Reeves, speaking from his home in Georgia. “I told them, ‘Why in the world are you gonna make me stop wearing a coat and tie – I’ve done it for 12 years now’; The Mara family was supportive and that helped, because it’s really the owners that kind of got control of the sidelines now. It’s become a marketing thing, there’s no question about that.”
For his first year as a head coach, Nolan will wear what the league tells him to wear – but sometime soon, representatives from Reebok and the NFL’s consumer products division will meet with Nolan in San Francisco to discuss his garb for the 2006 season. The plan is to come up with something dressier but still in keeping with what Reebok believes it can sell.
“I am sympathetic to the other coaches; there are some big-men coaches who would love to wear Tommy Bahama and stuff like that; it’s much more comfortable for them,” Nolan said. “And if Reebok pleases Mike Nolan saying he can wear a suit, those guys are gonna say, ‘Look-it, I don’t like that [stuff] we’re wearing, either. I want to wear Tommy Bahama.’
“But as to what’s right, I think the suit is right. That will happen in time. I think when they find a way to market it, make money on it, they’ll do it.”