| Like many children, Bill Belichick grew up with
an affinity for sports and an admiration for his father, who just happened to be a scout
for the Navy football program. As a teenager, Belichick would tag along with his father
on the road as he scouted the team Navy was going to play the following week. Back in
those days, film exchange was much slower than it is today, with films coming by train and
air freight. It was not uncommon for opponents to send film on the wrong flight or to the
wrong airport so that the film didn’t arrive until mid-week, if it arrived before the
game at all.
The importance of scouting games live, in person, and bringing it back to the coaches
was paramount to a team’s success. Such was the job of Steve Belichick, a fullback
for the Detroit Lions in 1941, who would spend 33 years coaching at the Naval Academy,
with a young son closely watching him as he traveled to press boxes around the country,
analyzing and breaking down opponents’ strategies.
Belichick would watch his father in amazement, trying to understand how he could see
what all 11 players were doing on offense, defense and special teams. There were fewer
assistants then and coaches had more responsibilities. They were required to know
everything.
"It wasn’t as specialized as it is now," Belichick said. "I really
learned a lot from watching him, seeing offensive plays, the triangle, the guards, the
fullback, being able to get the entire blocking scheme and the entire pass pattern,
shifting your eyes down as the receivers run their routes. And defensively, shifting from
the front back to the coverage, if it was going to be a passing play."
Belichick observed his father down after down throughout the length of the game, 150
plays, drawing up formations, defenses, punt returns. It started then, with the young
Belichick charting down-and-distances and eventually drawing up formations with numbers
where the players were aligned. Soon he started sketching plays and defenses.
When he graduated from Wesleyan University in 1975, he volunteered to help the
Baltimore Colts as a special assistant, which soon led to paid coaching stints with the
Detroit Lions, Denver Broncos and New York Giants, where he spent 12 seasons under head
coach Bill Parcells and won two Super Bowls as a defensive coordinator.
His success with the Giants landed him his first head-coaching job with the Cleveland
Browns in 1991, where he commanded the ship for five years before rejoining Bill Parcells
with the Patriots in 1996. When Parcells left New England for the Jets in 1997, Belichick
followed for three seasons before returning to the Patriots as head coach in 2000.
With 27 years of NFL coaching experience, Belichick became familiar with the
intricacies of defensive strategies.
Even Patriots LB Bryan Cox, an 11-year NFL veteran who made it a habit in his college
career to memorize the top three runs and passes out of every formation prior to game day,
has enjoyed the sophistication of Belichick’s defensive game plans.
"Everything is new from week to week," Cox said during the week of
preparation before the Super Bowl. "What we play this week may not be what we play
next week. There are 16 different philosophies based on 16 different teams we play."
New England QB and Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady realized Belichick’s masterful command
of defenses early this season, when Belichick decided he needed to help make up for the
loss of quarterbacks coach Dick Rehbein, who died suddenly from a heart attack in training
camp.
"If I ever show you some of those sheets that he brings in, it’s just — God,
I mean, it’s incredible," Brady said. "Sometimes I think he knows what
their defense is doing, more so than their defensive players know what they’re doing.
And to have him come in each day, and break down the film with us, to understand why teams
are playing certain coverages, certain schemes each week, you go into a game realizing
that, hey, there’s nothing this defense can do to surprise us, because we’ve
seen it all."
As other coaches around the league study Belichick’s brilliant game plan that held
the explosive Rams offense to 17 points and forced three turnovers, they need look no
further than an innocent boy’s passion for the game and his admiration for his
father, to understand why the Patriots shocked the world. In fact, the longtime Naval
Academy assistant proudly stood on the Patriots’ sideline during the Super Bowl
dressed in a light-blue v-neck sweater, dark slacks and tennis shoes watching his son
reach the pinnacle of his profession.
"There’s a lot of people out there, a lot of fans that spend probably just as
much time on football as a lot of coaches do," Belichick said, "and I’d
probably be one of those if I wasn’t in football."
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