How Eagles coach Nick Sirianni and DT Milton Williams connected by parents overcoming cancer

Nick Sirianni drew a pink ribbon under the brim of his visor and wrote “DAD.” Milton Williams wore a pink-adorned skull cap under his helmet. 

During the NFL’s month of raising cancer awareness, the subtle gestures were personal. But neither Sirianni nor Williams needed to explain theirs to each other.

One day last season, when Williams stretched before practice, he was approached by his head coach. Sirianni said the two should talk after the session. Sirianni had heard Williams’ mother, Willanette, was dealing with breast cancer.

Williams was stunned that Sirianni knew. The 24-year-old is so soft-spoken that in the team’s media guide, he lists his biggest pet peeve as “talking too much.” He was not one who went around the locker room confiding with others about what was happening at home. So he met with his coach, and he encountered the type of empathy exclusive to someone who’s seen a parent endure cancer treatments. 

Sirianni explained that his father, Fran, is a three-time cancer survivor. He was there for Williams. He understood. He connected.

“I didn’t have cancer, but when I’m able to talk about cancer with somebody else, I’m able to tell somebody that my family sees so much good,” Sirianni told PHLY. “As beat up as my dad got from cancer, my family sees so much good in what happened to us as a family, the way we’re together. And so we try to talk about those things to give hope. You try to talk about them to connect.”

The conversation was meaningful to Williams. His mother was in Texas undergoing treatment. He would check in on her and try to maintain a presence from across the country. Sirianni was someone in Philadelphia who was there for him — not necessarily as a coach, but with the perspective of a son. 

“He just gave me hope for my mom that everything will be all right,” Williams said.

Williams’ mother has since recovered. She had a full checkup last month and Williams said “Everything is 100 percent clean.” But it weighed on Williams last year during a season when he played through turf toe and an elbow injury. Williams had kept it to himself, although he admitted “certain things you keep in the back of your mind.” Which was why Sirianni’s gesture resonated.

“It’s big to have somebody that’s been through it, that’s been through the worst of it,” Williams said. “And just to see how positive he is, you still focus on what are you going to do, but at the same time, making sure that it’s going OK, checking in and things like that. Just having somebody older give advice on what to do in certain situations.”

For Sirianni, this is a fundamental part of coaching. As much attention goes to schemes or calls or decision-making, his first core principle is “connect” for a reason. When a player is hurt, he’ll share his experience from college when he was hospitalized following a serious leg injury. Religion, brotherhood, geography, sports, music — common ground with his players can come from anywhere.

“Find any possible way to connect with the guys,” Sirianni said. “And sometimes when that thing in common is an adversity, that bond can be even stronger.”

Sirianni learned the challenges of cancer when he was 4, and then 10, when his father was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Fran overcame a different form of cancer in recent years. It’s a weight Sirianni carries with him, even if he does not always wear it. During a month when there are more outward recognitions of cancer, Sirianni has been selective with how public he is about his feelings. But after the Eagles’ October 8 win over the Los Angeles Rams, Sirianni felt compelled to share with the world the message was under his visor.

“Love you, Dad. Love you,” Siranni said, looking at the cameras. “He beat cancer three times. I wouldn’t be in this position for sure if he didn’t. So I love you, Dad.”

Sirianni explained that because he was so young, his parents were careful about how much information they shared with him. The three decades that have passed — with other health scares mixed in — offered Sirianni the type of perspective that he relayed to Williams. 

“My dad doesn’t complain, ever,” Sirianni said the day after the Rams game. “My dad didn’t complain through that. When he wanted to rest when he was tired going through the chemo, he went upstairs. He didn’t let us see him down. And so really, that cancer battle, you ask anybody in my family, it was good for us in the sense of we see the light — we had to go through that as a family because it made us stronger as a family and all those different things.

“Another thing it taught me is my dad is the toughest son of a bitch I know. Like even now, if you ever see my dad, he’s got a drop neck, so he’s got to hold his head up to look forward because he can’t hold his head up on his own because the muscles in his neck don’t work anymore. I’ve never heard him complain about that. So how do you get that as a man? You get that as a man through the things that you went through. My dad was tough as hell when he went through cancer and he’s tough as hell now and he’s 75 years old.”

The connection that Sirianni and Williams forged last year does not necessarily need to be exclusive to them. It’s not hard to find others in the locker room who have seen the realities of cancer up close. But the affliction of a loved one can affect people in different ways. Like other areas in coaching, Sirianni must know when to prod and when to offer space. 

“I think that there’s always the right time to do that,” Sirianni said of offering support. “…I didn’t go through it. I’m just trying to tell him on a second hand of somebody who went through it when I was 10. My dad is always willing to talk to people that have it (about what) they’re going through.”

Williams appreciated the connection because it was on the back of his mind even if it was not on the front of his tongue. The discussion with Sirianni not only presented the head coach as empathic, it lifted the formality of the coach-player relationship. 

“We’re all human,” Williams said. “Everything’s not going to be easy. We’re all going to deal with some stuff like that. It was good to hear from him being the head coach. He’s just human. We’re all the same. That was big coming from him.”

It was a reminder that you never know what’s happening beneath the surface — or under the helmet or brim of a visor.