Originally published Jan. 20, 1981

CALISTOGA, Calif. — He was starting at the bottom, with a team that had been trampled the year before. So he started at the bottom, painting their shoes white and issuing stark white shoelaces to every player.

"One of the first things you've got to do," Bill Woods says, "is decide...are you a team or a bunch of individuals. The shoelaces were a minor thing, but I wanted everyone on the squad exactly alike.

"We stressed it. The kids kind of took to it. If you win, kids will take to anything."

Woods made the practices longer and harder. Switched from the single-wing to the belly-series T. Had a jut-jawed quarterback named Dick Vermeil to make it work.

It worked. Calistoga High went from 1-7 the year before to 7-1 and Bill Woods had put his mark on Dick Vermeil forever.

"I remember the very first game, against Lakeport," Louie Vermeil says. "They ran out onto the field to warm up, all wearing white shoes with white shoelaces.

"I said, 'Well, win, lose or draw, we've got ourselves a football coach.' The funny thing is, at practice, he had told the boys, 'I don't want anyone who played football 50 years ago to tell my boys how to play...I'm the coach.'

"So, Dick and Stan came home and told me and said, 'No more, Dad.' But after that, every Friday morning, Bill Woods would show up at the house, have coffee, and talk football."

They can do it again this weekend in New Orleans. Sit around, drink coffee, talk football. In addition to all his Napa Valley relations, Dick Vermeil is bringing Bill Woods to the Super Bowl as his guest, repaying the man who lit the coaching fire that has been raging inside him ever since.

"Usually," Woods says, "it's pretty easy to turn something around. If you've got a few things working for you. For one thing, nobody expects too much.

"I thought we had a remarkable group of kids. Pretty solid. Good-sized tackle, good guards. And, we had Dick, which made a big difference offensively. Plus, we had a couple of kids who could run fast.

"Dick was very aggressive, very intense. He hasn't changed at all. He was exactly what you wanted at quarterback.

"I had played at Pacific with Eddie LeBaron and those guys. We were pretty well into that inside belly series and outside belly series. Throwing off the run. Dick was agile, strong. He ran the quarter for me in track. And he did a good job.

"He had a fairly strong arm. We didn't have that much intention of doing a lot of passing. Why should we? You move it on the ground, you don't mess around."

Move it on the ground, you don't mess around. Sound familiar? So does Vermeil's insistence that everyone dress alike on the field. And where do you think Vermeil got his practice schedules?

"They didn't seem so long to me," Woods says wryly. "We just practiced 'til we got it done. It just didn't matter what it said on the clock.

"I'm not a strong believer in praise. If you do something right, hey, you're supposed to do it right. If you do something wrong, I'll let you know about it.

"Oh, some things we did just for fun. At the end of practice we'd do some forward rolls, some fancy sidesteps, instead of just straight wind sprints.

"And sometimes I'd pick something some of them just couldn't do, tricky stuff, and everybody would get a laugh out of guys trying.