It was the NFC Championship Game on Jan. 20, 2008.
The New York Giants were battling the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau Field for a spot in Super Bowl XLII against the undefeated New England Patriots.
The wind chill was a frigid 23 degrees below zero.
Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes had just missed a game-winning 36-yard field goal at the end of regulation.
Now-LSU special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey was on the Giants’ sideline that fateful day in his first season as the New York assistant special teams coordinator, a position he held from 2007 to 2010.
The Giants won the game courtesy of special teams redemption when Tynes split the uprights with a 47-yard field goal to send the team to the Super Bowl, which it ultimately won. It was the longest field goal in Lambeau Field postseason history.
“In Lambeau Field in January, the field goal percentage is less than 40 percent,” McGaughey said. “When you kicked the ball, it wasn’t hanging in the air very long or going very far.”
Now McGaughey, 37, is in a much warmer environment in Baton Rouge. Hired March 10, he is entrusted with the role of coaching an LSU special teams unit that lost its 2010 starting punter, Derek Helton, and kicker, Josh Jasper, along with its best returner, No. 5 overall draft pick Patrick Peterson.
McGaughey’s wife, Erika, said Thomas’ transition to LSU has been a whirlwind for their family. The McGaugheys have two sons, Thomas III, 17, and Trenton, 8, and one daughter, Taylor, 15.
“He was coming back from the [NFL Scouting] Combine in Indianapolis, so I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days,” Erika said. “When he got back home, he got a call from Les Miles asking if he wanted to come to Louisiana.”
Erika said being married to a football coach brings both thrilling and emotionally taxing experiences. She and the children are still living in New Jersey until the school year ends.
“It has an effect on the family when one parent has to be gone a lot,” she said. “It takes a certain type of personality as a woman because it’s challenging and demanding, especially when you have children.”
McGaughey, a long snapper and defensive back at the University of Houston from 1991 to 1995, said winning the Super Bowl in his first season with the Giants is at the top of his most memorable moments.
It was especially sweet after he fell short in the 2005 AFC Championship Game when he was with the Denver Broncos.
“It puts you on another stratosphere as a player and coach,” McGaughey said. “Once you get that ring, you look at it and realize there aren’t a whole lot of these.”
McGaughey coached at his alma mater as special teams coordinator from 2003 to 2004. He also had a pro scouting internship with the Houston Texans before their inaugural season in 2002.
McGaughey’s 13 years of coaching — eight in the NFL — have caused some sadness that tugs at his heart. He said the value of family is immeasurable.
“When I worked in Denver, my youngest son was 2 or 3 years old, and he said his daddy lived in the airport,” McGaughey said. “Every time he saw me I was coming from the airport.
It’s life-changing when you hear stuff like that. I said to my family, ‘I don’t care where the next job is, but you guys are coming.'”
Miles recognized McGaughey’s abilities to connect with his players. McGaughey said it was a smooth process during spring practice, which ended April 9.
“It’s a great group of guys. They’re all very coachable,” McGaughey said. “It’s a beautiful thing to tell a guy to do something, and when you look up, it’s being done at the speed and tempo you like.”
 
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Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]