Bill Belichick: The Mystery of The Hoodie

By: D.K. Wilson

Bill Belichick is giving the press nothing. Nada. Not an inch. And I, for one, love it. Mike Greenberg on the Mike and Mike in the Morning show is “flabbergasted” over the Patriots head coach’s ability to give so little of himself to the press. Greenberg said things like he has never seen anyone who is so guarded in the public, who we don’t know.Greenberg stated that he was not being critical of Belichick, he is simply flummoxed that the coach has the singular ability to keep his emotions in check while in the public eye. Here are some selected Belichick quotes from yesterday:

“It takes a lot to get to this point, but we’re starting all over in the new ‘08 season and it’s already time to move on. We’re already into the offseason and that’s just the way it is. So, we’ll start moving ahead towards next year.”

“Certainly, I’ve seen that in my career as a coach and I’ve had feelings after a game that, after a period of time, have shifted a little bit, too, for various reasons.”

“I personally wouldn’t put too much into anything that happens soon after the end of any season, good or bad. Immediately after a particular game, a lot of times those are emotional decisions and not really good fundamental ones.”

The press stops being flummoxed and starts hating real quick when sports figures do what Belichick is doing. Perhaps this is why there has been a drastic shift in the way Belichick is discussed from the 2001-02 season until now.

At the beginning of New England’s free agency-era dynasty, Bill Belichick was seen as a close-to-the-vest type of fellow who was very protective of the psyche his team. He was labeled as a quiet leader with an acute sense of football history passed down from his father.

In the early days of the dynasty, Belichick let us - as in the press and the public - into his study, showed us his library and spoke at length about his love for his father and his of love of the game he has lived since he was a young boy. But somewhere along the line, after the winning began and the press began to place increasing demands on his time, Belichick chose to distance himself from the very thing that draws most people to it like a moth to a flame - fame.

It appears that for this man, fame in the NFL is an inevitable by-product of winning. But fame is not your face on every magazine and interviews in them. Fame is not “Five Good Minutes” or “10 Questions With…” or ‘Let’s see what Bill Belichick thinks about these issues’ that have nothing to do with him or his team. He has never purported himself to be a personality, nor has he ever called himself an expert. For Bill Belichick the fame is in the winning.

Maybe the change occurred when his “affair” was made public and the disgruntled quasi-estranged husband began talking to the press. It was interesting that the incident went away almost as quickly as it rose to the top of the headlines. Maybe the thought of being just another piece of clothing in ESPN’s 24-hour sports news spin cycle and subject to the words of every ESPN NFL writer and Page 2 columnist that wants to care made Belichick understandably queasy.

We will never know.

However, what we do know is that despite being divorced from his wife, we do not see Bill Belichick’s sons attempting to become white chocolate versions of Marlo Stansfield like Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid’s sons. They have not committed suicide as did Indianapolis Colts head coach, Tony Dungy’s son. Though they are there on the sidelines with their father each game day or night, Belichick’s sons seem to be protected from the abnormal life of siblings of a sports personality. We know this precisely because they do not make headlines.

Belichick is also revered by his players and the Patriots are the team that every player in the NFL want to join. They are close as teammates and they win. What more could a player ask for?

But.

Because of the success and the unflinching manner in which New England plays the game and because of Belichick’s unapologetic ways with the press, the worm turned - quickly.

Even before Videogate, now known as Spygate because it sounds so much worse than it is, the national media began to turn against the Patriots leader. The Red Sox won the World Series, the Patriots had won multiple Super Bowls and suddenly the entire New England region became unbearable to the rest of the United States. To think that the New York press and New York-based sports media were not culpable in spreading anti-New England rhetoric would be naïve; they were.

Suddenly the New England fans were unbearable, the teams - especially the Patriots that won too much - and the thought somehow arose that it was deemed that the city of Boston had won its share of championships and now it became time for another city to feel the high of winning it all.

Peyton Manning went from perennial choker from his days at Tennessee and Indianapolis, to being called perhaps the best quarterback in NFL history and a quarterback who deserved a world championship - if only his coach, Dungy, could match his reputation as a defensive coach and recreate the system he lorded over in Tampa, Florida and help Manning win what became rightfully his.

Suddenly, when a battered New England team that had just played one of the most physical games in recent playoff game memory the week before against San Diego lost an 18-point second half lead to the Colts, Peyton Manning was a brilliant signal-caller, rather than Manning was as good as the Patriots were worn.

Suddenly the headlines read Manning out dueled Tom Brady instead of finally Manning and his receivers lived up to their billing.

Suddenly, Dungy was mentioned as a real coach equal to and because of his more personable public demeanor and sanguine relationship with the press, perhaps a better coach than Belichick.

The nation seemed the revel in New England’s loss and was more than willing to exalt Manning G.O.A.T. status.

Then came halftime of the first game of the 2007 season between the Patriots and the New York Jets. A videotape was taken from New England video assistant, Matt Estrella - and the rest is on-going history.

Now Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has become an evangelical, strike-him-dead-with-lightening patron saint leading the charge against the scourge that is Bill Belichick. Now the head coach is said to have filmed everything from the JFK assassination to the Watergate break-in.

The head coach who was once brilliant, then an enigma, then despised, became reviled. His team won only because it filmed the opposition’s signals and red zone plays better than other teams. It’s three, three-point Super Bowl victories could never have occurred without the benefit of knowing the opposition’s formations before the players on the field knew; the three-point wins became last Sunday’s three-point loss. And the nation loves David, the New York Giants, for defeating the undefeated, cheating Goliath the is the New England Patriots whose brain is Bill Belichick. And all the better that Eli Manning, the little brother of last season’sconquering hero, Peyton, matched Brady’s apparent game-winning drive with a Super Bowl-winning drive of his own.

Citizens around the country are as tuned into the happenings of Videogate as they are the vagaries of the presidential candidates they voted for or against just yesterday.

If Belichick is guilty of surreptitiously videotaping the St. Louis Rams’ final walk-through before Super Bowl XXXVI, the punishment will be harsh - and rightfully so. It would not be a stretch to say that, if guilty, Belichick’s NFL coaching career might be done. If so, there will be much gloating from the reporters who doggedly pursued the coach. However, if no tape exists, there will be no apologies from those who hoped to write Belichick’s demise. But unlike the writers, there will be no gloating from Belichick; he will have moved on.

It is as if as Bill Belichick walks, a vortex of activity swirls viciously just behind him: a Super Bowl loss in which his decision-making and the play-calling of his staff was called into questioned; upcoming decisions about loyal, longtime Patriots who might have played their final game for New England; resigning other free agents; and of course the tornado that is Spygate.

And in the face of all of this, Bill Belichick says only:

“It’s pretty much over. Time to move on. I’m not going to sit here and dwell on anything good or bad. It’s over,” said Belichick. “It is what it is. We played our last game of the ‘07 season.”

The enigma has spoken.

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D.K. Wilson is a freelance sports writer. He is better known on the internet as "DWil," and writes for Sports On My Mind.

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