"Rich Parrinello remembered the tears that welled in Brian Daboll's eyes, the listless face, and the lack of words. The message came through anyway: Daboll's career as a football player was finished.

It was 1995. Daboll was a junior free safety at the University of Rochester, a Division III school in New York, and Parrinello was the team's coach. Daboll had suffered a neck injury after a helmet-to-helmet hit during a game against Union College, and he was later told that if he didn't give up the sport, the next injury could be permanent.

"We're all grateful that he was going to be OK," Parrinello said this past week. "Being OK is a relative term in his case, because he wasn't going to be able to continue playing the game that he really loved."

Daboll asked if he could stay with the team as a volunteer coach, a kind of undergraduate assistant. He said he needed this. Sure, Parrinello told him. The coach knew what the game meant to Daboll.

More than 16 years later, it was that meeting that, in a twist, launched Daboll's coaching career. In the years since, Daboll has risen through the ranks, fueled by good connections and an impressive football acumen, and was introduced last week as the Chiefs' offensive coordinator.

Many Chiefs fans know little about Daboll, 36, other than that he's the latest member of the New England Patriots family to relocate to Kansas City, and that his career seems to have plateaued now that he's a coordinator with a third team in four years.

Parrinello and others described Daboll as a man who finds solutions in adversity; leans on determination when the odds are stacked high. Others might have seen a neck injury as a chance to move on. In Daboll's case, he could've focused only on finishing his economics degree at Rochester."