‘He was such a jerk’: Nick Sirianni’s trash-talking, camera-mugging ways date back to high school and still anger past foes

Nick Sirianni’s high school friends have two text message threads: one titled “Fly Eagles Fly” that includes the coach of those currently soaring football-playing Birds, and another without him that has become their mode for communication during Eagles games.

Last Saturday night, the latter chain was filled with a steady stream of “Let’s Go!”s and Eagles emojis as Sirianni’s squad jumped out to a 14-point lead vs. the New York Giants, best friend Tom Langworthy said.

Sirianni was feeling it, too. He celebrated with assistant Kevin Patullo — often his sideline partner in chest thumps — and laced a couple “Let’s go!”s of his own with expletives. As the TV broadcast cut to commercial, a replay of the 41-year-old coach mugging for the camera was shown in slow motion.

And a meme was born.

It didn’t take long for one of Sirianni’s buddies to text a link from social media.

“We had some good laughs about that,” Langworthy said, “because we’ve all seen that side of Nick before.”

Eagles fans have caught glimpses of the cocksure Sirianni in his first two seasons, but the divisional playoff game was the coach perhaps at his most brash. Later, when an official questioned him for stationing himself too far down the sideline, he shot back, “I know what the [expletive] I’m doing, and I’m allowed to be down here.”

» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni’s introduction to ‘pro’ football: Checks bounced, coaches quit, and players boycotted

Sirianni was right, of course. He typically is when it comes to his profession. The Eagles, who host the 49ers in the NFC championship game Sunday, aren’t on the cusp of reaching the Super Bowl without his being detail-oriented. It is that preparedness, along with extreme competitiveness, that often unleashes his brazen side, those close to him said.

Philadelphians, many of whom have been preconditioned not to boast, fearing bad karma that has seemingly cursed their sports teams, don’t quite yet know what to make of Sirianni. Some have embraced his attitude. Many others would rather he won something first before stoking the ire of rivals.

“He can be loud and he can be in your face about it,” Langworthy said Wednesday. “But at the end of the day, he has a yearning to be the best and he takes a lot of pride in it. That comes out in different ways for different people, and for Nick, it comes out with his emotions and his energy.”

Sirianni is, ultimately, just being genuine. If there’s one way to lose a locker room, it’s to be the opposite. But the Jamestown, N.Y., native has left a trail of chagrined opponents in his wake — friend or foe — from Southwestern High to Mount Union College, from the Chiefs to the Eagles.

As a player, he was the smack-talking, Joe Hustle-type who would get under the skin of opponents and fans alike. As a coach, he’s the paternal guardian, who will curse out another coach in the preseason, or hop on a bench post-road victory to honor his fired mentor.

“You can ask some of the people from the neighboring high school or the rival colleges. Ask some John Carroll guys or Baldwin Wallace guys,” Sirianni said Wednesday when asked if his antagonist behavior predated the NFL. “I know my brother married a girl from our rival high school. Kind of rival. A little smaller school.

“They have all sorts of family members there, and my brother will go to an event at Randolph and he’ll be like, ‘You know the people there still don’t like you from all the things that you did when you were playing against them.’”

Three of the cornerbacks who faced Sirianni when he was at Division III Mount Union in Ohio recalled a wide receiver who was confident, if not cocky. But in his younger years, particularly in basketball, his arrogance on the court still rankles ex-Randolph players.

Aaron Emley, who often covered Sirianni for the Cardinals, said he no longer harbors ill will, partly because he now teaches and coaches at Southwestern. But some of his former teammates, he said, don’t feel the same way.

“I’m like, ‘It’s kind of a big deal this kid we played against is a head coach in the NFL right now. It’s huge,’” Emley said. “And they’re like, ‘Eff that guy. He was such a jerk in high school.’

“And I’m like, ‘All right, at some point you got to be happy for him.’”

» READ MORE: Connect and trust: For Nick Sirianni, his Eagles coaching journey and fatherhood align

There are almost two Siriannis, though: the intense in-game one, who often looks like a man possessed, and the gregarious off-field one, who strives to make a connection — one of his five core values to coaching — with almost everyone he comes in contact with.

But the competitive goading and gloating are also his way of connecting. The Siriannis, from father, Fran; to eldest son, Jay; middle son, Mike; and youngest son, Nick, all coached or still coach football. Nick, nine and six years younger, was often the target of his brothers’ ribbing, but it was mostly good-natured, Langworthy said.

Sirianni takes a similar approach to his trash-talking. Asked for an Eagles player who reminded him of his playing days self, he named safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson. But he was probably closer to defensive end Brandon Graham, who delivers his jabs with a smile.

» READ MORE: ‘Can’t stand this heat, get out of my way’: Trash-talking C.J. Gardner-Johnson remade himself with the Eagles

Nevertheless, the banter can cut like a knife and get into the heads of the opposition.

“It pisses you off and you don’t like it,” said Todd Haley, the former Chiefs coach who gave Sirianni his first job in the NFL. “But if you’re in that locker room and you’re celebrating winning 15 games, you don’t care what anybody else thinks. But it can be done many different ways.

“We’ve seen Hall of Fame coaches that act like Bill Belichick and you see very little emotion and then you see the other guys that are much more emotional about how they go about their business. But the key is being who you are.”

Langworthy grew up a street over from Sirianni. They met in first grade and have been friends ever since. They played their share of street ball and sandlot sports as kids, but the inner-competitions of their close-knit group didn’t get intense until adolescence, he said.

Any number of activities could end in arguments, shoving, or even fist fights, but like brothers, all was often forgotten the next day. On break from college one summer, Sirianni proposed a neighborhood Olympics of sorts after Langworthy kept beating him at ping-pong.

There were nine events to break a tie.

“Jenga was the deciding factor,” Langworthy said. “I can still remember that tower falling and Nick beating me and I had to watch him gloat.”

In team sports, Sirianni dug so deep it often lifted his teammates. In his senior hoops season, Southwestern and Randolph met in a home-away series within a span of three days. The Trojans were highly ranked with Siena-bound 6-foot-8 center Justin Miller, but Sirianni was a sharp-shooting guard.

The Cardinals scored a home upset in the first meeting, though, on a last-second shot.

“Three days later, we showed up in our shirts and ties before the JV game two hours before,” Emley said. “Everybody on our team knew who Nick was and he’s freaking there in his uniform all by himself getting shots off and we’re like, ‘Damn, what the hell’s he doing? Oh [shoot], he must want to get us back.’”

Randolph’s best player had to sit in the first quarter for a disciplinary reason and Sirianni, per Emley, delivered an early message to its point guard: “You guys are in big effing trouble.”

“I think they ended up beating us by 30 that night,” Emley said.

Langworthy and Sirianni played football together at Southwestern, but the former wrestled in the winter and watched the latter in basketball from the stands. It was Sirianni’s preferred sport through most of his youth. Rail-thin at 6-3, he often wore an armband above his right elbow.

“And 20 years ago that was the best swag you could have,” Langworthy said. “There would be moments when he would be dramatic on the court and play to the crowd. He would shoot a three and keep his hand posed up and make eye contact with the other team’s bench.

“Something subtle, but enough for people to be like, ‘What’s up with this guy?’”

Sirianni was a late bloomer in football. When he got to college, Mount Union had already won three national titles under coach Larry Kehres. The Purple Raiders played in the powerhouse Ohio Athletic Conference with chief rivals John Carroll and Baldwin Wallace.

When Mount hosted Baldwin in the second game of Sirianni’s senior season in 2003, the teams were ranked Nos. 1 and 3 in the nation, according to former Baldwin Wallace cornerback Tom DeLuca. The Raiders had returning all-conference receiver Randell Knapp on one side and the burgeoning Sirianni on the other.

“It was kind of pick your poison,” said DeLuca, now the football coach at Olmsted Falls High in Ohio. “I’m sure him and I went at it a few times and we were probably jawing back and forth. But all that crap kind of just goes out the window after the game. I do remember him being confident, though. He tore us up that day.”

Sirianni caught seven passes for 135 yards and two touchdowns in a 24-0 win.

Four weeks later, 6-0 Mount was at 4-1 John Carroll’s Don Shula Stadium. The Fanelli brothers, Sonny, a senior, and Anthony, a sophomore, were in the secondary for the Blue Streaks.

“We both have living-in-the-past slash photographic memories when it comes to that stuff,” Anthony said. Sonny, though, followed Sirianni in coverage the entire game. He held him to six catches for 72 yards and a score, but the Raiders won 34-16.

Neither Fanelli could recall if Sirianni ever acted demonstratively. If anything, the elder brother said he was struck by a conversation the future coach broached with him early in the game.

“It wasn’t trash talk. It was more complimentary to our team,” Fanelli said. “It was, ‘Hey, I saw this film and I thought your defense came across as strong.’ You see him as a coach now and thinking back to a story now, you’re like, ‘That makes sense.’

“But my recollection from the experience of covering him, he was only professional. He was a great player who just went about his business.”

Not always. Later that season, in the national semifinal against Bridgewater, Sirianni’s second touchdown put the Raiders up 42-0. He saw one of his brothers in the back of the end zone, jumped into his arms, and was promptly flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, he recalled not long ago.

Kehres let him have it. When Sirianni scored again, he flipped the football to an official and as he ran to the sideline, he said his coach said, “Hey, smart-ass, next time celebrate with your teammates.”

Sirianni had fallen in love with the game by that point and stayed at Mount for one more year to assist under Kehres. He moved on to Indiana, Pa., for three years and got his foot in the door in the NFL after a chance meeting with Haley led to a quality control position in Kansas City.

Haley said he threw a lot on his protege’s plate, but with purpose.

“I used to put him through the ringer just to see how he would react, no different than Bill Parcells put me through the ringer,” Haley said. “When I talk to Bill now, he said he wanted me to earn his trust and his belief. And so, I put Nick through a lot of bad situations and a lot of it was to see his confidence in himself.”

The pair got close in three years together. Haley would have the bachelor Sirianni over to his house often, but that didn’t stop him from beating his boss on his basketball court. Sirianni was smart enough not to celebrate.

“He knew not to cross the line,” Haley said.

Sirianni’s four-year stint with the Chiefs was followed by five years with the Chargers. In 2018, Frank Reich brought him to the Colts to be his offensive coordinator. They first worked together in San Diego and then for three years in Indianapolis.

When the Colts fired Reich in November, Sirianni took umbrage. Two weeks later, after the Eagles slipped by his mentor’s former team, the coach jumped on the visiting team’s bench, and appeared to be jawing with spectators in blue clothing.

“I saw that and within a couple minutes of it happening on social media the initial reaction was ‘Coach Sirianni fires up the Eagles crowd in Indy,’” Langworthy said. “I was like, ‘Nah, he’s not. He’s talking some smack to some Indy fans.’”

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Nick Sirianni wins one for Frank Reich, in spite of his decision-making

To Sirianni, Reich is family, and when you’re in the clan and you’ve been disrespected, it’s go time. But there was also disdain for Colts owner Jim Irsay, who hired a replacement without coaching experience, Jeff Saturday, and made comments suggesting that those who take traditional paths to the top coach with fear.

Coaching is just another form of competition for Sirianni. An “obsession with detail” — a phrase he dropped again Thursday — is one way for him to gain an edge, and when his preparedness results in success, conceit can be the outward manifestation.

Langworthy and three more from the Southwestern crew traveled down to Philly for Eagles-Packers in late November. The trip is why they created the second text thread. On the Saturday night before the game, Sirianni allowed Langworthy, who coaches football at Jamestown High, to sit in on the team meeting.

“It was a great opportunity to see it at that level but also how Nick interacts with his players,” Langworthy said. “He’s got that fire, but he also loves those players and cares for them deeply because he’s a loyal person. I think that combination does well — at any level, including the NFL.

“But then that hits a crossroads with this incredibly authentic competitive guy.”

Graham is a non-stop chatterbox from the coin toss to the final whistle. He’s seen the entire spectrum of coaching personalities, from Andy Reid to Chip Kelly, from Doug Pederson to Sirianni. He said he likes his current coach’s emotion because it keeps everyone loose.

He said he does worry about Sirianni’s taking it too far with officials.

“I just want him to take it easy on the refs sometimes,” Graham said. “They look at the [stuff] you do on the sidelines, too. And I don’t want some flag to come of him showing his emotions in a pressure situation.

“They’ll take all the [nonsense] in a regular-season game, but in a high-stakes game like this, you don’t want them to beat you.”

But the trash-talking, chest-thumping, camera-mugging is mostly harmless, Graham said, even if Sirianni is becoming a villain for the Eagles’ rivals and their followers. Because, more than anything, he’s just being himself.

“There’s probably people out there who think it’s an act. This is what he’s going to do because this is how he’s going to make a name for himself,” Langworthy said. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s who he is.”

In October, when Southwestern beat its longtime rival in football for the 25th straight year, word had gotten around Sirianni’s group that he was looking for the phone number of Falconer High graduates with whom he had since become friends.

“The following weekend I saw one of the guys kind of randomly,” Langworthy said. “So he said Nick sent him a text, ‘Hey, just wanted to let you know, the streak continues! Go Trojans!’”

If the Eagles win two more games, he can brag all he likes.