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Sam Garnes has tasted a Super Bowl appetizer once before as a player. Now, as a coach, he wants the full meal.
“I was on the only Giants team go to a Super Bowl and lose,’’ said Garnes, the former Giants safety now an assistant secondary coach with the Broncos, referring to the loss to the Ravens on Jan. 28, 2001. “Jack [Del Rio, the Broncos defensive coordinator] reminds me of that all the time, because he was Baltimore’s linebackers coach at the time.’’
Garnes, who played his last couple of seasons with the Jets after leaving the Giants, has tried to use the Super Bowl heartache he felt to help motivate the Broncos.
“I tell my players, ‘We’re not interested in having fun for two weeks between the AFC Championship game and the Super Bowl,’ ” Garnes said. “We want to have a great time for several months after that, at least. That [loss] was very tough.’’
The Giants are 4-1 in Super Bowls, with their only loss after the 2000 season.
Garnes, who is from The Bronx and whose parents live in Teaneck, N.J., in a house he bought soon after joining the Giants in 1997, called this week “big time for me,” adding, “Once we found out the Super Bowl was going to be in New York, that’s something I selfishly felt like I had to be a part of, because this is where I’m from.
“That’s something you never thought would happen, because of the weather and all that stuff. The league was able to get it done. I’m excited, I’m excited to be here. I just knew it was something I wanted to be a part of, selfishly.”
Garnes, who played with the Giants from 1997-2002 and the Jets from 2002-2004, said he wanted to play until he was 40, “but that wasn’t realistic,’’ so the next-best thing was coaching.
“I love this game,’’ he said. “I love the things that come with this game as far as the people, the personalities. You can’t play forever, but once you start coaching you can coach for a long time. So you can get that locker room feel that you miss. That’s one of the things you miss most as a player, being with the guys.’’
Now he wants to share a Super Bowl victory — a title he always wanted as a player — with his players.
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