Green Bay - Up on the third floor of the Green Bay Packers' administrative wing where Ted Thompson keeps a modest office, there is carpet whose piles were never meant to stand up to the weight of so many footsteps.
But for several days in early January 2006, Thompson's soles were all over his office, the hallways and the draft room, where he had literally paced in circles around the conference table.
When Thompson made the most important decision of his football career, it was with all the angst, deliberation and rumination of a professional gambler about to wage it all on a hunch. Make the wrong decision and it might send him home to his parents' ranch in Texas.
"I prayed a lot," Thompson said last week.
Choosing the Packers' next head coach, one who would do more than just fill the 14th slot in the franchise's all-time list, was a responsibility that weighed heavily on him.
An undersized former NFL linebacker, Thompson was no match for the physical and mental toll the decision-making process would take.
"I was desperate to make a good decision," Thompson said. "It's an important thing. It's important to Packers fans, important for the tradition. It's a huge thing."
Before it was over and Mike McCarthy had become Thompson's choice, he remarked to several people that he never wanted to go through this process again. That he couldn't. He told people he couldn't be wrong.
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For every good decision made in the NFL, there are seven, eight or nine bad ones when it comes to choosing coaches. Three have already been fired this season, none of whom won more than a single playoff game during their tenures let alone get a team to the Super Bowl. There could be five or six more firings at season's end.
Thompson chose McCarthy and if there has been a better decision made in the six years since, good luck finding it. Since 2006, McCarthy has won 65.6% of his games, gone 5-2 in the postseason, led the team to two NFC Championship Games and won a Super Bowl.
This season, he has led the team to a 13-0 record with a chance Sunday to become the first coach in NFL history to lead a defending Super Bowl champion to a 14-0 mark.
In front of him is a shot at the first 19-0 season in league history and the franchise's first back-to-back titles since the incomparable Vince Lombardi walked the halls at 1265 Lombardi Ave.
"Ted's just done a tremendous job of building the team and finding the perfect coach," said former president Bob Harlan, who hired Thompson in '05 and retired in '08. "It's just a great, great find because I thought Ted might go different directions."
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How did Thompson come to hire McCarthy?
It was through a long and grueling interview process that both can laugh about now, but when completed gave neither a strong feeling that they were soon to be partners.
McCarthy was the second-to-last candidate to interview with Thompson. There were eight total, the most impressive of which had been Dallas offensive coordinator Sean Payton, who was coming off a far better year than McCarthy.
John Schneider, assistant to the general manager and now the GM of the Seattle Seahawks, had done the majority of the legwork and background checks on the prospects, delivering large files for Thompson to study before the interviews.
Schneider was biased. He wanted McCarthy to be the choice. The two had met while with the Kansas City Chiefs in the late '90s, and Schneider had put in a good word for McCarthy when Ray Rhodes hired him to be quarterbacks coach in 1999.
The only problem was that Schneider had to be objective because it was Thompson's choice, and his job was to provide as much information as possible. He had convinced Thompson McCarthy was a qualified candidate despite the fact the 49ers were coming off one of the worst offensive years in their history.
"Obviously, Mike and I were good friends," Schneider said. "But he had also worked with (49ers GM) Scot (McCloughan), who is good friends with Ted. Scot knew him, and I had worked closely with him in Kansas City and had told Ted if I ever got an opportunity (to be a GM) he was going to be the first guy I talked to.
"I think those things resonated with Ted."
In spite of the bias toward McCarthy, Schneider and Thompson had agreed they were going to put all of the candidates through the same process. The structure would be the same, the subjects they touched on the same and the objective the same.
Some of the interviews took place outside Green Bay, but those that were held in town included Schneider and player personnel director Reggie McKenzie. They met in the Dominic Olejniczak Room on the third floor of the facility, the same room where the executive committee meets.
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McCarthy was thrilled to hear from Schneider that he would be interviewed. He had interviewed for the Cleveland Browns job in 2000, but it didn't go well and he left realizing he wasn't ready to be a head coach yet.
Schneider picked up McCarthy from the airport on Friday night and they went to Legend's, a bar-restaurant on the city's east side. Thompson was to join them for a bite to eat, but he had driven down to Chicago to interview Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera and had driven back that same night.
By the time, he got to Legend's he was exhausted and excused himself after a short while, leaving McCarthy and Schneider to nurse their beers.
"I think it kind of spooked him a little bit," Thompson said of his quick departure. "I just didn't want to taint the whole thing we were going to do the next day."
Thompson and McCarthy agreed to meet early on Saturday morning. After breakfast, McCarthy took a tour of the facilities with Harlan, whom he had gotten to know while an assistant in '99. Harlan had already taken Payton, Maurice Carthon and Wade Phillips for tours.
McCarthy had not seen the new facilities since the renovation, but he seemed to care more about seeing Harlan again.
"He gave me a big hug," Harlan said. "He said how happy he was to see me, and I'll never forget him saying, 'I'm ready.' "
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All of the interviews at Lambeau Field had been conducted the same way. Thompson, Schneider and McKenzie sat in the middle on one side of the cherry wood conference table and McCarthy on the opposite side.
At times, Schneider and McKenzie would leave and it would just be McCarthy and Thompson.
McCarthy had brought a giant-sized ringed binder with all his notes, ideas and schedules in it. He had a datebook with other work-related information in it. Not once did he pull them out during the interview.
"He asked everything," McCarthy said. "We talked about hiring staff, training camp, philosophical questions, how to manage a roster. It was top to bottom. He fired a lot of questions at me. I answered a lot of questions."
Because he had been through so many of these, Thompson was a little numb to the whole thing. But he was looking for something with each candidate that would tell him he was the right guy.
Just about everyone had an impressive presentation and all of them had excellent credentials in X's and O's.
"I talked to a whole bunch of people, and there were some fairly way-up-here kind of people compared to me that were very gracious," Thompson said. "I kept saying, 'What am I looking for.' At the end of the day, through suggestions from others and to my own thoughts, I was looking for the guy, I wasn't looking for the coach.
"I wanted to find the right man. Being a head coach you have to deal with so many different personalities and coaching staffs and organizing and all that. That's all well and good but you have to be a person. I think Mike's a good person."
After the morning session was over, at about 2 p.m., Thompson, McCarthy, Schneider and McKenzie went to Curly's Pub for lunch.
During the entire lunch, there was an uncomfortable silence. Thompson didn't utter a word. He ate his lunch and periodically watched one of the televisions on the wall.
When McCarthy was done, and being driven to the airport by Schneider, he had no idea where he stood.
"I'll say this, Ted Thompson could be the greatest poker player in the world," McCarthy said. "I had no idea what he was thinking. He was in my head; I wasn't in his. That's the way it was.
"I was giving him everything I had. I wasn't holding back. I was very myself, very upfront, honest. I couldn't think of a topic on my job responsibility today that we didn't talk about."
Thompson interviewed defensive coordinator Jim Bates the next day to conclude the process. He was very impressed with Bates and when he went to Harlan's office, he clearly had not made a decision which way to go.
Harlan could tell Thompson was run down. He was agonizing over the decision.
"I distinctly remember him saying, 'I'm going to go walk the hallways and do some thinking,' " Harlan recalled.
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Asked to remember one thing out of the ordinary that he remembered about the interview, Thompson laughed and said, "I probably shouldn't repeat this.
"John and Reggie and I, we all laughed that he (McCarthy) was all buttoned up. His tie only came down to right there. Way too short. I'm not a fashion guy as you can see. But I know for sure that tie wasn't tied properly."
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On Monday, Jan. 9, Thompson called McCarthy and asked another interview-type question. McCarthy answered it and Thompson said, thanks, and hung up. McCarthy found it odd, but he thought to himself that he had a shot.
The problem was he was in Austin, Texas, visiting his daughter and was without any of his dress clothes. He had left those back in San Francisco after the interview.
So he went to a tailor and made it clear he might need something soon.
Thompson called again Tuesday and asked another interview-type question. McCarthy answered it and that was that.
He called the tailor and told him to hurry up.
Around lunchtime the next day, Thompson called again. He had a couple more questions. Finally, he asked McCarthy, "How would you like to be the 14th head coach of the Green Bay Packers?"
After accepting, McCarthy found himself standing in a parking lot with tears in his eyes.
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The press conference was scheduled for Friday, but then word came to McCarthy that it had to be on Thursday because Harlan said there was no way he was introducing a new head coach on Friday the 13th.
So McCarthy and his daughter were picked up in Austin and flown on executive committee member Edward Martin's private jet to Green Bay. McCarthy's parents flew in from Pittsburgh, also.
Thompson had his coach, a guy who understood the general manager had final say in personnel and was willing to coach the guys he was given. He had a guy who embraced the philosophy of keeping the roster young and building through the draft. He had a tough guy from the Steel City who would bring a working-class ethic to the team.
Most of all, he had someone he liked.
"I don't think you ever know," Thompson said of hiring the right person. "You draft people and you hope you did your work and made the right decision. I don't know that you ever know, but I did feel like worst-case scenario you're getting a good man.
"Everybody can do X's and O's. And they start doing that (talking about it). I've played some football but that was years ago, so that kind of goes right past me. I knew he'd be a good man. I thought that was important."
In McCarthy's case, he had no qualms with not having a large say in personnel. He loved the draft and the process of evaluating young talent. He loved the challenge of taking rookies and molding them into stars.
He knew he could win a Super Bowl with Thompson picking talent. And he knew he never would have to deal with a phony.
"I couldn't have been partnered with a better guy," McCarthy said. "I think our personalities are different, but I think they blend very well. He's a great boss because he's a great listener and he doesn't get emotional. You hit tough times; he makes it easy to talk those things out.
"He's extremely consistent. You know what you're getting every single day."
These days, that's a whole lot of success on the football field.
Tom Silverstein wrote: