South Jersey’s Dan Williams is a coach for Andy Reid’s Chiefs, just like his dad was for Big Red’s Eagles

The Eagles fired Ray Rhodes after the 1998 season, but Jeffrey Lurie told assistant Ted Williams that his job was safe. The owner liked the team’s running backs coach and pledged to make sure the new head coach kept him on board. And then Andy Reid pulled Williams into his office, told him he liked him, but he had his own guy.

It was the same spiel, Williams said, that Reid gave years later to Nick Sirianni when he dismissed him after being hired by Kansas City. Except unlike Sirianni, Williams survived. Reid’s first choice elected to stay in Green Bay as his wife was from Wisconsin and didn’t want to leave home.

“So more or less, Andy was stuck with me,” said Williams, who spent 20 years with the Eagles as a running backs and tight ends coach. “We grew to love each other.”

Nearly 25 years later, Williams’ son — who was then just a baby — is now an offensive assistant for Reid’s Chiefs as dad’s good fortune helped create a pathway to the NFL for his son. Dan Williams will coach Sunday in his third Super Bowl as he opposes the team that once paid him to fold its towels while he was a high schooler.

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“Wrap your head around this,” Ted Williams’ wife, Theresa , said. “He’s 26 and this is his third Super Bowl. OK? I mean, this blows our mind. At 26, he’s going to his third Super Bowl.”

Dan Williams grew up in Sicklerville and didn’t play football until the eighth grade. He won the quarterback job at Timber Creek as a junior and led the Chargers to the state final in 2012. He set the state record for passing yards in a game (536) and in a season (3,545) as a senior in 2013. Ted Williams worked long hours for the Birds but was in the stands every Friday night to see his son.

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“He was awesome,” Dan Williams said. “He always taught me to put my foot forward. Just knowing that he was there to support me. Win, lose, or draw, he was always there to support me any way he could.”

Williams moved on to Stevenson University as the Division III school in Maryland said he could play both football and baseball. He was the son of a football coach, but a future in coaching wasn’t his dream when he arrived on campus. Then he tore an ACL as a sophomore and the head coach asked him to stick around the program.

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“To see him hobbling around on crutches and see him talking to different units and see him reminding them and inspiring them, it was endearing,” his mother said.

That experience showed Williams the value he could bring without playing. He now had the bug to coach just like his dad. Reid hired him in 2019 as an intern after he graduated with a communications degree. Williams has been there ever since, working the same long hours — 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. — for the same coach his dad did.

“I think the biggest thing I learn now is how much he had to lean on my mom with parenting because he wasn’t home a lot with the late nights Monday through Thursday,” Dan Williams said. “Whatever she said was the law in the house. Now I’m leaning on my wife with our baby girl and that’s been a blessing. I know my dad was doing the same thing.”

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Williams started accompanying his dad to practice when he was 9 years old. During high school, he helped with the laundry and fired passes to defensive backs before practice. It was his introduction to the NFL, but then the NCAA said he couldn’t do it anymore because the payments could affect his amateur status. Williams has already survived his first firing.

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“He was talking to his sister one day and he said, ‘Terry, I get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and I get home at 10 o’clock at night. Is this real life?’” Ted Williams said. “She said, ‘I’m afraid so.’ He said, ‘Real life sucks.’ That was the joke he carried from high school to college. But he never complained.

“He’s a special child. You can raise them all to be disciplined. You can raise them all to have good character. You can raise them all to have a good work ethic. It doesn’t mean they’re going to do it. We always said the one attribute about him is that he never wanted to displease his parents. That was important to him.”

Ted Williams loved Reid because there were never surprises. The head coach kept everything organized and the staff members always knew when they would be at the facility, when training camp started, and when they could take vacations. Dan Williams said Reid is still the same detail-oriented coach.

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“He didn’t bother you about coaching,” Ted Williams said. “He bothered you about personnel at night when you had to discuss the players at training camp. But after discussions about what they were doing and how well they were doing, he never bothered you again. It was just ‘Go to practice’ and ‘Go do what you have to do.’”

Five years ago, Dan Williams was in the crowd when the Eagles won the NFC championship and on the sidewalk for the Super Bowl parade. He grew up an Eagles fan while his dad oversaw the development of players like Duce Staley, LeSean McCoy, and Chad Lewis.

His father told himself that he would cry on the field if he ever reached the Super Bowl, and he did when the Birds finally did in 2004. Reid teases the younger Williams that he must think reaching the Super Bowl is normal, as he won his first championship just months after earning his master’s degree.

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His career, Dan Williams said, has been surreal. And it may not have happened had a coach decided to leave Green Bay. No matter who wins Sunday, Ted Williams said he can’t lose. Either his son wins another ring or the championship goes to the franchise that made it all possible.

“To put this into great perspective, the Eagles foundation led our son to Kansas City, so it will be very hard to not feel some kind of way no matter who loses and exuberant for whoever wins,” Theresa Williams said. “We owe so much to both of those programs.”

“You never forget your roots and our roots are in Philadelphia,” Ted Williams said. “We’re forever grateful for them giving us the opportunity.”

The Eagles are one win away from their second championship. Join Inquirer Eagles writers EJ Smith, Josh Tolentino, Jeff McLane, Marcus Hayes and Mike Sielski on Gameday Central Sunday at 5 p.m. as they preview the game at inquirer.com/Eaglesgameday