After confirming rumors that, while in Jacksonville, he coached the Jaguars in Latin, Tom Coughlin, the New York Giants new head coach, admitted "it was a mistake. I should have seen how it lost the team."

"I've grown," Coughlin told reporters at an impromptu meeting. "I'm goin' back to English."

Coughlin said he began coaching in the archaic language during his stint at Boston College, where he came to national attention. It was natural, he said, after having been raised in a Latin-speaking family.

"It's a great language," he said. "But it's pretty impersonal, and none of the players know it, so it was probably kind've dumb of me."

Coughlin grew more defensive when asked when, and how, his hair had turned orange, saying only that it was "natural...runs in the family. All the men over 55 in my family have orange hair."

To buttress his assertion, he introduced an older brother and cousin, both of whom, indeed, had orange hair.

Throughout the meeting Coughlin mainly scowled and alluded repeatedly to the need to "respect the game of football." Occasionally, without provocation, he smiled with a sinister and chilling resemblance to Bill Parcells.

Coughlin, asked how he felt after hearing the news of Joe Gibbs' hiring by the Redskins, said, "Horny."