Everybody who knew Dave McGinnis had a Mac story. If you spent any significant time around him, you had multiple Mac stories.
One that came to mind Monday after McGinnis passed away was one from my first season covering the Cardinals, in 2000. Coach Mac was the interim head coach by then, Vince Tobin having been let go earlier in the season, and I had gotten into the media room at the team complex around 8 a.m. one day, before anyone from media relations had shown up for the day. Mac, as he was wont to do, came into the room looking for someone to chat with, and found me.
At this point, he was the interim head coach. He wondered aloud if he should take the permanent job if the Cardinals offered it. (Yes, he probably knew it was headed that way at that point, but he wasn't going to tell the East Valley Tribune beat writer in that moment.)
Mac, being Mac, then poked fun at himself, and the by-then very public story about how he was about to be hired as the Bears head coach before the 1999 season but backed out when the Bears started telling everyone he was coach before they finalized any deal.
"Damn Darren," he said, "I can't be turning too many of these down."
Mac indeed got the Cardinals job officially with a couple weeks left in the season. He coached through the 2003 season. He was in the middle of the vote push for Prop. 302 so State Farm Stadium could be built. (He did some door-to-door himself.) He guided the Cardinals through the difficulty of 9/11, when the Cardinals were the lone NFL team on a bye in Week 1 (yes, that was a thing in 2001) and then watched the world turned upside down two days later.
He was Pat Tillman's coach. First his coordinator before head coach, and also as the guy who was able to deliver Tillman's message when Tillman had no desire to be public. Once, Tillman asked McGinnis who was the backup kicker after Bill Gramatica blew out his ACL jumping after a made field goal in New York in late 2001 (You had to be there.) McGinnis said "you are." Tillman said "F yeah!" (although Tlllman used the full first word.)
A few months later, after Tillman decided to join the Army Rangers in the aftermath of 9/11, and told McGinnis, McGinnis asked him who was going to tell everyone. "You are," Tillman told him.
So Mac did, first gathering three reporters -- myself, Kent Somers, Mike Jurecki -- in a back room for the news. The Army?!? My jaw dropped when Mac told us. "Darren," Mac said without missing a beat, "you can close your mouth now."
His final locker room speech as Cardinals coach, after the Cardinals shocked the Vikings to end the 2003 season -- McCown to Poole! -- and yet him knowing he was going to be fired the next day, remains one of the most stirring talks I've seen:
Mac was the guy who loved his Diet Dr. Pepper, and often had a then-media relations intern go fetch him a bunch, giving the intern way more money than was needed for the errand and always refusing to take back the change once the soda was delivered. (That intern, Chris Melvin, is now the senior director of media relations for the team.)
His anecdotes were legend. One press conference he spun a yarn about battling pests in his home and needing an insect vacuum -- mentioning "bug vac" in his Texas twang over and over. If he had something to say and perhaps couldn't quite say everything he wanted, he just give you an exaggerated "Wow!" or a side-eyed "please" in that same twang. Or a, "Well, yeah."
An exasperated McGinnis was frustrated with a down-the-depth chart wide receiver because he had gotten an offside penalty in a game. "There are a lot of things hard about this game," he said. "Lining up ain't one of them." Another classic: "Ain't but one letter difference between hot sh*t and not sh*t."
A story Somers loved to tell was when he called Mac the day he was fired. Mac was packing up his office and made sure Kent heard the packing tape being ripped in the background. "Hear that, Kent? That's the sound of a coach getting fired."
The Cardinals drafted safety Adrian Wilson in 2001. "The first time I ever heard player's coach was with him and had no clue what it meant," Wilson wrote on Twitter, "but understand it deeply now." That was Mac. Bruce Arians loved to talk about "coach 'em hard, hug 'em later." Mac never waited to hug. It was out there on the field, after big moments. He cared. He cared about his players, his coaches, his staff, even the people that covered him. Somers tells another story about, after a hard loss, seeing McGinnis emerge from the shower, towel wrapped around his waist -- and McGinnis asking how his son's high school football team fared.
He was full of humor, compassion and love of the game of football. He was one of a kind.
Mac left the Cardinals in 2003, but he and I stayed connected since. We'd chat when the Rams and Cardinals played when he coached with the Rams, we'd chat when the Titans and Cardinals played once he worked as Titans' color analyst, including last year's game in Arizona. We'd talk at the Scouting combine (when in the last few years, he'd always ask where Kent was.)
He wasn't at the Combine this year. I wish he had been able to make it.
You'll be missed, Coach Mac.
