Legendary UCONN women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma was in his New York City hotel room in mid-April getting ready for the WNBA Draft when he received a call from Eagles coach Nick Sirianni.
They established a connection when Sirianni sent Auriemma a congratulatory text "kind of out of the blue" following one of the Huskies' wins last season. Being a Philadelphia-area native and a "typical, die-hard Eagles fan", Auriemma made sure to stay in touch in the ensuing weeks as Philly made its Super Bowl push.
The Huskies went on to win the national championship -- its 12th under Auriemma, the most by any coach in NCAA Division I history. The Eagles' 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, meanwhile, marked the first time Sirianni had led a team to the top, and he wanted to know the keys to making a return trip.
"The sense that I got was that he was concerned, not in a bad way, but like most coaches are after your greatest success," Auriemma told ESPN. "I remember Bob Knight said one time, 'Be most attentive after your greatest successes.' That's when things can kind of slip away from you. So I think, in a good way, he was curious about, where does the message go from here when you've reached the goal...where do you go after that happens?"
It was part of Sirianni's broader offseason mission to learn about sustained success. He spoke with a number of high-profile figures including former Alabama football coach Nick Saban, South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley, Auriemma and four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson to help him ready for a challenging second act, which continues Sunday in a Super Bowl LIX rematch against the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium (4:25 p.m. EST, Fox).
"There's a lot of different things," Sirianni said earlier this offseason of his takeaways, "but if I really broke down everything it was thinking about the past too much and resting on your laurels...or looking too far ahead. Both are very dangerous."
Sirianni drew a clear line between the successes of the past and the here and now on the first day of training camp. As he addressed the team in the auditorium, there was an image on the projector screen behind him of a car - from the vantage point of a person driving - and in the rearview mirror was Super Bowl signage. Sirianni has hammered this idea for months -- that the victory lap is over; that prior accomplishments don't guarantee future successes; and that Philadelphia is not defending a title because this season and last are two separate entities altogether - so much so that his players, almost to a man, echo the same message.
"As players, we have to move on," said left tackle Jordan Mailata. "That is the only way we can improve or strive to perform this season. We can't carry the baggage from last season -- good or bad -- you can't bring it in. It's just like a new relationship.
"You've got to buy into that because you see everyone else buying into it. And you can see who doesn't buy in because you get left behind."
As a coach, Auriemma called winning a championship "the best thing that ever happened to you and the worst thing that ever happened to you."
Your thoughts are "completely dominated" by figuring out how to win another one. There is fear about being a one-hit wonder.
Players from that title team are naturally in demand and some had to be replaced, as was the case on defense with free agents like Josh Sweat, Milton Williams and Darius Slay. There's the prospect that older players could get complacent, having captured what they've long been after, and that the same intensity and urgency that was present at every practice and for every game won't be there team-wide now that the dangling carrot has been removed.
"[Fans] just see, 'Wow, we got a lot of really good players. We got all the pieces. People think we're the best team in the NFL. This is going to be easy.' Nah. This will be the hardest thing they've ever done," Auriemma said.
The other concern, which was discussed during Sirianni and Auriemma's phone call of about 45 minutes, was the psychological switch that happens when you're king or queen of the mountain. You go from an attack to a defensive posture, having to fend off all the teams that will inevitably deliver their best performances in the name of trying to take what you have. But Auriemma has learned that there's a way to turn that on its head.
"I asked [Sirianni], I said, 'Well, why can't the message be: We're not the hunted. We're on the hunt for another one. Why should we feel like everybody's chasing us and everybody's giving us their best shot? Why don't we flip the switch and we're hunting for another one? And is that more powerful, knowing that you've done it and now you're on the hunt for another one than someone who's not done it and is trying to get one?" Auriemma said.
"That has helped me the last number of years, to try and not let my team feel like everybody's after us and sometimes play the victim: woe is me, we're getting everybody's best shot, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, try to think about it in a completely different way."
Keeping the Super Bowl in the rearview mirror is not as simple as it may seem. There are constant reminders, as the Eagles continue to discover. Their ring ceremony was delayed to July 18, the week before they were set to report to camp. The championship banner was unveiled right before their season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. And now this week, they're taking on the Chiefs and are being inundated with questions that tie this game to the one they played in February.
They can't even watch film without being drawn into the past in some form.
"Obviously anytime you watch a game that you have a good memory of...it always brings that emotion back," Sirianni said. "But you're watching it for a purpose, too.
"It's not like I'm jumping up and down when [Eagles WR DeVonta Smith] catches the touchdown. I'm not running down the sideline like I was in the game when [Eagles head of football development and strategy] Connor Barwin shoved me. And so it's a different type of emotion because I think you can have that and get the job done that you're trying to do."
The pulls are many. But thanks in part to his conversations since the championship game, Sirianni has been able to set a tone that should help the Eagles avoid some of the Super Bowl trappings.
"He said something in the beginning of the offseason: 'If you think you're the reason we won the Super Bowl last year, you're exactly right. If you think you're the only reason we won the Super Bowl last year, you're exactly wrong. It's going to take all of us,'" said running back Saquon Barkley.
"I love that with all the stars and playmakers we have and legends like [right tackle] Lane [Johnson], Hall of Famer, we do a good job of buying into the message that Coach wants."