TAMPA, Fla. -- The hottest NFL coaching prospect, the one with the Super Bowl XLIII media day crowd around him yesterday, started out a golf pro at a club called Burning Tree.

That was his game growing up, not football. Forget the four Super Bowls his dad, Dick, as a longtime Steelers personnel director, helped to bring home. Todd Haley was built more for fore.

The younger Haley played golf at Upper St. Clair High School, where football coach Jim Render never got his hands on him. Haley swung the clubs at college-football powerhouses Florida and Miami, then wound up finishing school at North Florida. He started his life's work at the tony Bethesda, Md., club known for its presidential duffers, but, somewhere between the cart path and the career path, it didn't last.

"Golf was driving him crazy," said the dad, who by then was director of player personnel for the New York Jets.

"He came to New York and he was helping me in the office. Then when Bill [Parcells] came in [1997 as head coach], he came to me one day, 'I just can't do this scouting' -- he thought scouting was too laid back -- 'I'm going to talk to Parcells about coaching.' "

Look how that worked out.

From daddy's caddie to Jets receivers coach in 1999; Chicago receivers coach in 2001; a reunion with Parcells in Dallas as receivers coach in 2004 and passing-game coordinator in 2006; a reunion with former Jets tight ends coach Ken Whisenhunt (another noted golfer) in Arizona as offensive coordinator in 2007; a head coach candidate hours before Sunday's match against the Steelers, for whom he once was a ballboy.

From Burning Tree to fiery coach.

All in 14 football years.

"How he got to be an offensive coordinator and in the Super Bowl is an amazing story," said Tim Feeney of Mt. Lebanon, alongside whom the then- Upper St. Clair student worked at Steelers games at Three Rivers Stadium.

"Parcells was his original mentor," added Render, a family friend who tried to lure the kid into playing football.

"Obviously, somebody's done good things with him. Brought out football creativity that I guess," he said, laughing, "I wasn't able to bring [it] out."

"Well," added Dick Haley, who works with Parcells as a player personnel analyst with the Miami Dolphins, "I think he got with the right guy when he got with Parcells. There's nobody in the league who's more demanding, but in a good way. I think right away Bill started to see some positive signs in him."

Todd Haley figures football is in his genetic code, from being around the Super Steelers, from watching films at home with his dad, from soaking up his surroundings.

"If playing were a criteria to being a great coach, I think you could eliminate a lot of great coaches from the Hall of Fame," he said. "It's in my blood. It's part of my personality.

"I guess I'm blessed. To grow up in a household with someone like my father, who is the absolute best at what he does. To go to bowl games with him on a yearly basis. To go to training camp. To do all those things, I think there is some osmosis involved. I think coaching is life. Whatever business you're in, you have to be able to lead [and] get the most out of people. And that's what I like to think I've been able to do over my career."

While the Haleys talk about him working training camps, his summers were spent more often on the links than in Latrobe. "Really, he developed into a good golfer," said Bill Nunn Sr., who oversaw the camps and golfed on occasion with father and son.

Added Dick Haley, "From a very early time, it was hard to be 100 yards behind [him] on every drive."

"He was very much interested in golf; I didn't think he was that interested in football, to be honest with you," said Feeney, who also numbered among his former game-day ballboys the offspring of coaches Tom Moore, George Perles and Chuck Noll. "We had a good laugh on the sideline while he was in high school. He was kind of a quiet guy. Wasn't a hell-raiser."

Look how that worked out.

Perhaps Todd Haley never earned more national attention than Jan. 18, when this 41-year-old offensive coordinator got into sideline tiffs with Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner early and receiver Anquan Boldin on the team's title-winning drive in the NFC championship game. That victory put Arizona in Tampa and another Haley on the NFL map.

Now comes talk about him possibly being hired early next week by new Kansas City Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli, who just happens to be Parcells' son-in-law.

Funny, but so forgettable was Haley in New York, Steelers linebacker James Farrior, who played for the Jets in 1997-2001, recalled, "I think he was one of the assistants."

From 1995-99, before he coached receivers, the younger Haley was a hazy offensive assistant, which a skeptic might contend meant a career change from professional golfer to professional gofer. However, Farrior said of this Parcells pet project, "He was a good guy. I thought he was an up-and-coming type guy. Full of energy."

"I'm grateful to be in the position I'm at," Haley yesterday told a gaggle of notepads and microphones. "I'm grateful that I've been around [coaches, players and football people] to help me grow as a person and as a coach. No, 15 or 20 years ago, I would never have expected I'd be here at the Super Bowl. But I'm happy about it, though."