Bill Belichick, the head coach of the New England Patriots of NFL football, has 5 Super Bowl rings, 3 as head coach. But there's a lot more to him than that.
When we look to sports for a political metaphor, I tend to get a little squeamish, especially as sports jargon invades the language of politics, but when I think about Bill Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots football team, I marvel at how a thoroughly progressive man with a progressive plan has come to dominate NFL football, one of the reddest of redblooded American sports.
Some background on Belichick. He grew up in North Carolina and Annapolis, son of a Navy guy. On a trip to New England as a young kid, he fell in love with the region. He decided to go to school there, Wesleyan (a most liberal liberal arts school). He was an excellent student, graduated with a dual degree in Literature and Economics. Back in his long-haired days he was also quite the political activist. Although he is on record as being a Democrat (one of the few in football management), he made a few token gestures of support for Kerry and Obama, he was not been very active by any means.
OK, so why am I bothering with a diary about Belichick? Well, he is back in the Super Bowl again this weekend, but more than that: A few years ago when the Patriots went to the Super Bowl, the team entered the stadium and refused to be recognized individually as is standard protocol. They insisted they be recognized as a team. This was part of the Belichick ethos. The individual must subsume himself for the common good if the team is to be a great success. Well, that little idea was quickly pounced upon by right-wing commentators all over the country. I was astonished that Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage would take the opportunity to blast Belichick the next day. Literally, the politicos took an afternoon to bash Belichick's idea of teamwork. Limbaugh branded him Unamerican.
At the time, I thought it was funny. Talk about mixing metaphors. But now I've come to appreciate Limbaugh's sense that somehow the metaphor between football and civics is apt, at least as much as it concerns Belichick.
In the last several years, the Patriots have proven themselves the class of the league. They have won three Super Bowls, and been a top team each year. And much to the astonishment of fans and media in this salary cap era, they seem to do it without a large contingent of the requisite stars on the team. They win with Everyman and the team concept. Sure, there are a few bonafide excellent players on the team. But when you look at their paychecks, you begin to notice something special about the Patriots. All of them have willingly taken less money to play for Bill Belichick. They have bought into a theory which says, if you're not greedy and if you work for the common good, you will have success: the team will win. No wonder Limbaugh is incensed. Is this Communist football or what?
Here's the deal on how the Patriots are constructed: in the NFL's salary-cap era, you are only allowed to pay your 60 players a total of $120 million a year or so. Most teams pay lots of money ($10 to $15 million) to several players while the rest are left to fight over what's left. On the Patriots, the top players other than QB Tom Brady take less. That allows the Patriots to spread out more money to the players who aren't stars. They have developed depth and versatility by offering ordinary players a good salary, players who would not make that kind of money anywhere else in the league. There is very little disparity between the Patriots top earners and the bottom earners. They're kind of like Japan, with CEOs who make a modest amount compared to their American counterparts. Even the entry-level players are quickly compensated fairly for their toils once they have proven themselves. In this manner, the Patriots have been able to develop an almost fanatical loyalty to the team. Sure, a few of the players have walked away for more money but the great number of veterans have stayed and taken less money than they could have elsewhere.
OK, so now how does all this socialist football benefit the style of play on the field? Well, with all the players being compensated well, and with their welfare looked after, they tend to focus on the task at hand. Winning. Some of the rancor and jealousy that exists on other teams is non-existent. But the best reason is this: since the Patriots can afford to compensate the average football player pretty well, they attract average players who give their all. These players are generally regarded as hard workers, with less physical talent, but with an understanding of the game and their relative role within it. They are versatile and knowledgeable. In fact, the Patriots boast more college graduates than any other team in the NFL. The most successful NFL team is also the best educated NFL team. Is it any wonder? In short, the Patriots have depth. If someone drops the ball, there's always someone else there to pick it up. They are a tight community and they work well together.
I could mention a few more factors. Belichick is a disciplinarian who insists on following the rules. Players are well-behaved and rarely do they get into trouble. In Belichick's tenure, I can only think of one player who was brought up on charges. A top draft choice played a prank on a personal assistant by throwing scalding water on him while he was on the toilet. Belichick threw him off the team, and the player in question is out of the NFL. So, Belichick combines discipline, sound economics, with the concept of teamwork, and out comes a great football team.
Most NFL observers will credit Belichick simply for outsmarting other coaches. He's known to devise a great gameplan. His strategies are the most complex gameday strategies in the NFL. And for this, he is considered a kind of "genius." While it is true that Belichick is very smart and a tireless worker, I believe most NFL observers are missing the point. Belichick doesn't win by being smarter than everyone else. He wins by installing a system which Limbaugh derides as Communist.
Lastly, I'll end by saying that Belichick still has a bit of community activism in him. Ask Jim Brown, one of the NFL's all time leading rushers, about Belichick. Brown, a virtual pariah in the NFL community for his strong stances on discriminatory practices in the league and for his dabbling with the Black Panthers, works with Belichick in the offseasons. Where do they spend their time? Belichick goes into the jails and works with convicts. This isn't the typical United Way NFL community service stuff. No one knew about it until the story burbled up from Brown years after Belichick had been doing it.
I'll simply end by saying that Belichick has learned a lot about life, economics, sacrifice, community, compassion, hard work, discipline, education, and he's come up with a system that seems to instill these values into his football team. And this is exactly why right-wing commentators are incredulous and downright pissy that these progressive and democratic values could come to dominate one of the reddest of our cultural icons, one that has been repeatedly compared to the military, the NFL.
The sad thing is that Belichick could never get become popular with all these qualities (he had a negative reputation prior to the infamous and totally overblown so-called Spygate scandal). The media and many in football hated him because of his dour personality. The media holds up their noses when Belichick steps to the podium, since he gives the most boring press conferences ever. He had to be handplucked by an owner who believed in him to get another shot in the NFL. One thing is for sure, he doesn't win by the force of his personality. This is a true man of substance.
Odd thing about sports metaphors. I recently read from an avowed Commiunist economist in Greece about how much he admired the NFL:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/...
[A] paragon of aggressive competitiveness. On the pitch, extremely well prepared players give their all for victory, wealth and glory. Teams pull no punches to win. The road to the Grand Final is littered with injured bodies, broken egos but, in the process, a great deal of satisfaction and camaraderie is shared by everyone, winners and losers, both on and off the pitch. Meanwhile, the League is based on a Central Plan. Teams cannot spend highly differential amounts on salaries and the best new players are forced to sign with the weakest teams. The market works but to do so it must be severely circumscribed by the Common Pursuit. The constraints liberate the true spirit of competition, preventing the successful from monopolising the best players and killing off the interest of most matches. Thus, planning and competition are fused into a League that minimises predictability and maximises excitement.
