COATESVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) — Dick Vermeil wanted serenity and the outdoors when trying to find a place to call home in retirement. Pennsylvania came calling.
The Class of 2022 Hall of Fame head coach knew his 100 acre ranch in Coatesville would do the trick. Purchased in the early 1980s, Dick and his wife Carol knew Chester County could give them everything they were looking for in a home.
Dick fondly remembers vacations to a log cabin and the warm feeling the home gave his family. So when the time came to build his house, he and Carol drew up the plans themselves. The Vermont Log Cabin Company would cut the lumber and deliver it to Coatesville, where Dick himself joined the crew to put the home together.
The 100 acres keep the 85 year old former Philadelphia Eagles coach occupied. He spends his days outdoors tending to the land, working in his garage on his dad’s sprint car or shooting out a tree stand with his grandson.
The Vermeils are seven miles from a grocery store, nestled away down a long driveway. It’s the slow pace of life they craved after 15 years as a coach in the National Football League with the St. Louis Rams, Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs.
The Hall of Fame inductee fondly points to the hundreds of pictures lining his basement walls. Littering his wood paneling with memories, he’s clearly a coach who cared about the people more than the game.
The two-time NFL Coach of the Year proudly displays his first coaching contract from Union High School in San Jose, California. In 1959, teaching was worth $5.260 per year with a $250 bonus for coaching football.
He has the newspapers from the morning after Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000, when the Rams and previously anonymous quarterback Kurt Warner beat the Titans 23-16.
A California native, Vermeil will always call Pennsylvania home. His 100 acre estate already owned by his three children, to be inherited by his 11 grandchildren one day.
Memorabilia for the ages
Vermeil became the 28th head coach inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame on Saturday, August 6, 2022.
