NEW YORK — Tom Coughlin’s wife of 54 years, Judy, has progressive supranuclear palsy, the Super Bowl-winning former Giants coach wrote in the New York Times on Tuesday.
Coughlin’s essay describes Judy’s rare and incurable brain disease and his struggles to switch to the role of primary caretaker.
“For the past four years, we’ve helplessly watched her go from a gracious woman with a gift for conversation, hugging all the people she met and making them feel they were the most important person in the room, to losing almost all ability to speak and move,” Coughlin wrote.
After leaving the Giants after the 2015 season, Coughlin ran the Jaguars from 2017-19. Judy was diagnosed the next year, he said.
“The first year I was home was frustrating. Judy had always taken care of everything at the house, and I had always thrived on the structure of football. That was gone, and I was lousy at my new job,” he wrote. “I would constantly tell myself, ‘I shouldn’t be here.’ But now, even though I am still lousy at being at home, I know there is no other place I could ever be.”
He wrote that he went public with Judy’s illness because “what my family and I are experiencing may be helpful for others to read.” And he was, by Coughlin’s gruff standard, honest and raw about what he experienced. “Admittedly, transitioning from being with an NFL franchise to full-time caregiver wasn’t easy,” he wrote. “It’s still not easy. The playbook is either changing by the minute or so numbingly repetitious, you lose track of time and self.” He added that his children “have had to bear the brunt of my frustrations because of my inability to deal with all the emotions that pile up day after day.”
Coughlin, 74, had a 20-year NFL head coaching career and won two Super Bowls with the Giants after the 2007 and 2011 seasons.
