Vikings coach (and former Eagles fan) Kevin O’Connell comes from a ‘long line of Delaware Countians’

When Kevin O’Connell thinks about Philadelphia, he’s flooded with memories of Veterans Stadium, his grandmother’s cooking, and antagonizing the classmates in his North Jersey grade school.

The Minnesota Vikings coach never lived in the area, but he comes from what his father Bill O’Connell describes as a “long line of Delaware Countians.”

It’s where his parents met, where his father won a city championship in 1972 as a standout defensive back at St. James High School, and where he made some of his earliest football memories as a young Eagles fan idolizing Randall Cunningham. It’s also where he will usher in the first prime-time game of his head coaching career as the Eagles play the Vikings on Monday night.

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O’Connell will be wearing purple and gold on Monday, but the memories of arguments about Kelly green have been in the back of his mind this week.

“I remember living up in Jersey and the Giants fans giving me a hard time for wearing my Eagles Starter jacket to school,” O’Connell told The Inquirer. “I just remember the passion and the lifelong fans of the team and all Philadelphia sports. ... It’s an unbelievable passion, and that love of sports, I think I’ve carried that on from my dad.”

He eventually traded his Eagles gear for Chargers paraphernalia, then his own teams’ colors during his five seasons as an NFL player and a seven-year coaching career. Still, his first allegiance was his father’s hometown team.

“He had an Eagles locker in his bedroom,” Bill O’Connell said. “He had a Randall Cunningham jersey. He was a born-and-bred Eagles fan. For many years, for four, maybe five years, I’d take him down for a couple games down at the Vet. We’d watch the games and we’d visit my mom and drive back up to Jersey.”

Kevin spent part of his childhood a short turnpike jaunt away from his parents’ hometown. Bill grew up in Aston and was a standout defensive back at St. James when he met his wife, Suzanne, a Notre Dame High School alumna.

His job at the FBI led him to places like North Jersey, Phoenix, Knoxville, Tenn., and California over the last three decades.

He’s a full-time grandparent now, but his previous gig as a special agent involved counterterrorism work, and he was part of the investigation that led to New York mob boss John Gotti’s arrest in the 1990s.

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“I was involved in a very highly specialized team,” Bill said. “We did a lot of work besides the organized crime and Mr. Gotti and the Gambinos, but we did a lot of quality work. ... Our function as special operations was to assist the regular case squad and case agents to gather evidence. In this case, it was electronic evidence. That electronic evidence proved to be extremely fruitful. It became somewhat the contributory factors to the downfall of Mr. John Gotti and the Gambino crime family there in New York.

“I was one of many special agents who were assigned. I’d rather not get into my role, but it was rather intimate.”

Bill O’Connell’s job took him out to San Diego, which is where Kevin and his older sister Kelly spent the majority of their childhood. Kevin went on to star at quarterback at San Diego State.

There are few jobs that challenge the hours that NFL head coaches spend in their office for most of the year, but a high-ranking gig in the FBI just might stack up against Kevin’s time sheet. Kevin, 37, said the experience he and his mother had with his father’s heavy workload helped inform how his family dynamic functions now with young children in the house.

“Knowing how much I work now in a totally different world,” he said, “my wife is able to talk to my mom because my dad was gone a lot. I also learned how to be a great dad even when you work a lot because when he was there, he was so impactful and had so much to do with who I am to this very day.”

Bill and Suzanne, a retired schoolteacher, split time between Minnesota and California, where their daughter lives, to make sure they spend equal time with all of their grandchildren.

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Bill spent the early part of this week in Minnesota — he even borrowed Kevin’s office for a few minutes during Vikings practice to take a phone call — before flying back to Philadelphia a couple of days before the Vikings set course.

As Kevin’s second and final season as the Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator finished with a championship earlier this year, Bill and his former St. James teammates were anxiously waiting to see if the Rams would get an Eagles road game this season.

The group wanted to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of its city championship with a team reunion in Eddystone sometime this fall. Bill let the friends organizing the affair know it would be easiest if Kevin’s schedule took him to Philadelphia.

When Kevin got the Vikings’ head coaching gig a few months later, it didn’t take Bill long to realize he’d have his chance at a homecoming.

“It wasn’t long after that opening [introductory] press conference that he said, ‘You play at Philadelphia, it would be awesome if it’s early,’” Kevin said. “He’s got such fond memories. He still keeps in touch with so many of those guys.”

The NFL schedule-makers were kind to the O’Connells. Bill and a handful of his St. James teammates met in Eddystone on Saturday to celebrate the 42-0 win against Frankford at Franklin Field 50 years earlier.

“Teammates are going to get together and remember the good old days,” Bill said beforehand. “We’ll just remember our friends who have passed on, our teammates, and just enjoy the evening.”

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Bill said he’d spend Sunday at Catholic Mass, visiting family, and coaxing Kevin to spend some time with the family before game day.

What about Monday?

“There’s a tremendous tailgate that’s going to be at the Linc,” he said. “There’s an O’Connell tailgate, and there’s a St. James High School tailgate. I’m going to try to make both of them as well as have my sideline pregame pass and get in and visit a little with the Vikings and Kevin. It’s going to be busy for us, me and my wife Suzanne. It won’t be a boring day on Monday.”

Kevin has returned to Philadelphia before as a player and an assistant coach, but the first-year head coach said this trip will be different.

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“It’s significant for a lot of reasons,” Kevin said. “Obviously, some of my family will be in attendance, and I get to go back to a place that had an impact on me and my love of this game. And knowing just the challenge it’s going to be as well, I’ve been there enough to know they’ve got unbelievable, passionate fans. It’s well-documented.

“And they’re smart football fans. They know when to cheer. They know when to be loud. They know those critical moments where they can have an impact on the game. We’re going to have play really well to get a win against a really good team that Nick [Sirianni’s] got.”