Rams News

Giunta enjoys his rapid rise
08/11 11:26 PM

By Jim Thomas
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

MACOMB, Ill. -- Were it not for Proposition 2, Peter Giunta might still be in Massachusetts, teaching P.E. at Salem High or coaching football the next town over at Swampscott High.
``My wife sometimes says, `I wish you were,' '' Giunta jokes.
But that cost-cutting measure put Giunta, who was low on the seniority pole, out of a job at Salem High in 1980. And propelled him -- forced him? -- to climb the coaching ladder.
Giunta didn't become a full-time college coach until 1984 at Brown University -- hardly a football factory, and not even an Ivy League power.
He didn't enter the NFL coaching fraternity until 1991, as an entry level defensive assistant for Bud Carson and the Philadelphia Eagles.
And now, at the ripe old age of 42, Giunta is an assistant head coach and co-defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams.
Yes, it's been a rapid and unorthodox rise for Giunta, who grew up in Salem, Mass.
Young Peter grew up a Boston Bruins hockey fan, and was a backup goalie on his St. John's High team. His mother is an accomplished artist, and Giunta picked up some of her talent. The guy can paint and draw.
``I've done some real good stuff,'' Giunta said. ``I haven't done anything for a while.''
His canvas these days is the artificial turf at the Trans World Dome, where he'll try to make the Rams' defense a work of art. With the retirement of Bud Carson, he is the only member of the Rams' defensive staff not to have played in the NFL.
Giunta's hodge-podge of career influences include Joe Paterno and . . . Brother Linus. Bud Carson and . . . Frank DeFelice. Dick Vermeil and . . . Rich Kotite.
Linus was a coach, guidance counselor and religion teacher at St. John's who steered Giunta toward teaching and coaching; DeFelice was Giunta's high school football coach.
After Prop. 2 passed in Massachusetts, Giunta wrote to every college in the East looking for a job.
The only nibble came from Penn State. If Giunta was accepted into graduate school, he could be a volunteer coach on Paterno's staff. Giunta was accepted to grad school, so he and his bride of a few months, Cindy, were off to Happy Valley in 1981.
Cindy worked a couple of jobs to make ends meet. Together, the Giuntas made about $7,000 that year. ``We were really scraping,'' he said.
After a year of breaking down film and helping on scouting reports at Penn State, Giunta was promoted to the lofty position of part-time tight ends coach. He had never worked offense before, not even in high school.
Desperate for insight into the position, he was introduced to Kotite -- then tight ends/receivers coach for the Cleveland Browns -- through a contact on the Penn State staff. During that offseason, Giunta made a weekend trip to Cleveland.
``Richie spent a whole day with me, like I was a rookie tight end, going through everything,'' Giunta said. ``Techniques, procedure.''
Giunta came back from Cleveland with enough info to put together a tight end manual for the Nittany Lions. He and Kotite stayed in contact over the years, and when Kotite became head coach in Philadelphia in 1991, replacing Buddy Ryan, he brought Giunta to the Eagles as a defensive assistant.
The defensive coordinator on Kotite's staff was none other than Carson -- one of the best defensive minds in NFL history.
With assistants brought together from various staffs -- who were used to different terminologies -- Carson wanted to put together a defensive workbook that would simplify things for players and coaches.
There was no free agency in 1991, other than the limited Plan B variety. So the coaches spent almost all of their time installing their defensive system.
``Gradually, I was learning the stuff from Bud,'' Giunta said. ``And Bud was great to me. He also gave me responsibility.''
With each passing season, Carson entrusted Giunta with more duties. After Kotite was fired in Philadelphia, Carson temporarily retired, and Giunta followed Kotite to the New York Jets, where he was secondary coach.
But two seasons later, Giunta was in coaching limbo when Kotite was fired by the Jets after the '96 season. He came to St. Louis with Carson as the last hire on Vermeil's staff. Having another year to work with Carson in '97 helped Giunta immeasurably.
``Bud was such a perfectionist,'' Giunta said. ``He didn't always want to do things the easy way -- he wanted to do things the best way.''
Giunta was as surprised as the next guy in late March, when Carson announced he was stepping down.
Not that Carson was retiring -- for good. But that Vermeil announced he was going with the unheard of concept of co-defensive coordinators. Giunta would share the title with linebackers coach John Bunting, although Giunta would have the tie-breaking vote in any disagreements.
``Dick explained the reasons why,'' Giunta said. ``It wasn't that he felt neither one of us could do it alone. He just felt we'd be able to play off each other's strengths, and that we both had a lot to bring to the table in different ways.''
Giunta is the deep thinker, the strategist, the teacher.
Bunting is the motivator, the picture of intensity, the blood-and-guts type.
If Bunting's the Fire, then Giunta's the Ice.

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