ANNAPOLIS, Maryland – Out the window of the third floor of Ricketts Hall, the Severn River feeds into the Chesapeake Bay and sailboats rock on the surf. The Navy football offices reside here, adorned with bowl trophies, a framed Roger Staubach jersey and ten wooden bookcases along the walls. The cases house more than 400 titles about football, some of which date to the 1890s. A plaque on the wall describes the library as “one of the largest of its kind.” It is called the Belichick Collection.
It once belonged to Steve Belichick, a venerated Navy football scout. He taped his business card inside the cover of some books, and many are inscribed with messages. “With Happy Memories – and With Best Wishes – To My Friend Steve Belichick – Paul E. Brown,” is scribbled inside of “PB: The Paul Brown Story.” On the front flap of “Building a Championship Football Team,” Bear Bryant wishes Steve Belichick the best.
Steve Belichick died in 2005, and the books were bequeathed to his son. Bill Belichick, having won three of his now four Super Bowl titles for the New England Patriots, donated them to the Naval Academy for safekeeping and “for the enjoyment and education of the Brigade of Midshipmen.” Along with being football’s greatest current coach, Bill Belichick may also be its preeminent historian. He reveres and relies on football history while he carves and understands his own place in it.
The first three weeks of the Patriots’ season have further burnished Belichick’s already formidable legacy. With Tom Brady suspended four games, the Patriots have won three games behind backup Jimmy Garoppolo and, when he suffered a shoulder injury, rookie third-stringer Jacoby Brissett. Belichick embraced the challenge as more of an opportunity than a burden, another chance to make a mark on the game he loves.
Belichick’s boorishness at press conferences give the impression he does not care what people think about him. To an extent, he does not. He finds day-to-day storylines and faux-controversies tiresome and distracting and refuses to comply with questioners interested in either. Little is known about his personal universe away from football, and that is his choice.
Still, his actions suggest a man who deeply wishes to leave a record behind. He rejects immediate fame, but he covets long-term recognition. He does not celebrate himself or his achievements, but he is a willing accomplice for others in service of posterity. He does not want to be known, but he quite clearly wishes to be remembered.
The documentation of football history matters to him, and he views himself as worthy of documentation. He told the story of his life in football to author David Halberstam. He allowed journalist Michael Holley, then a sports columnist at The Boston Globe, to embed with the Patriots for two years in order to write a book, “Patriot Reign,” about the Patriots and their methods. An NFL Films crew followed him for a season to produce a documentary, with his approval, for its “A Football Life” series.
“He’s proud of what [the Patriots have] done, in addition to being a guy who loves football history,” said Holley, whose latest book, “Belichick and Brady,” comes out Tuesday. “I think 35 percent of [allowing his career to be chronicled] is, ‘I got to do my part. I got to add something to the canon as well. The only reason I know about Paul Brown is Paul Brown allowed people to write books about him.’ The other 65 percent is, the guy’s done alright. ‘Check it out. I’ve done pretty well for myself.’ It’s okay to tell people about it in a historical way.”
At NFL owners meetings, Belichick used to sit with Steve Sabol, the late historian and president of NFL Films, to discuss historical books they had read in the previous year. When NFL Films approached Belichick to film a documentary about the 2009 season, he agreed without hesitation to wear a wire for every game. It was not only unprecedented access for Belichick. It was unprecedented for any NFL coach.
“The sell for the film was not about making television,” said Ken Rodgers, the NFL Films coordinating producer and director. “It was about recording history. It’s something Coach Belichick appreciates fully. He not only loves and appreciates football history. He’s cognizant of his place in it. Coach Belichick has given us more access than any coach of his stature in the history of the league.”
Early in “The Education of a Coach,” Halberstam’s biography, Halberstam writes about how Belichick loathed celebrity and feared how individual expression and personal acclaim could undermine a team. For that reason, he selected players least likely to succumb to ego.
“This did not mean Bill Belichick was without ego – far from it,” Halberstam wrote. “His ego was exceptional, and it was reflected by his almost unique determination. He liked being the best and wanted credit for being the best, a quiet kind of credit. But his ego was about the doing; it was fused into a larger purpose, that of his team winning. It was never about the narcissistic celebration of self that television loved to amplify.”
Belichick wants people to remember what he did, and winning without Brady – or, in the case of last Thursday, without Brady’s backup – will be part of that. In New England, fans have long debated whether Brady or Belichick is more responsible for the Patriots’ success. With a victory Sunday over the Buffalo Bills, Belichick’s record without Brady since the sixth-round draft pick became the starting quarterback will be 15-5, a .750 winning percentage. His winning percentage with Brady as the starter is .771.
“When his career is over, he’ll very much enjoy being remembered, as opposed to being heralded today,” Rodgers said. “Being in the pantheon with Paul Brown is something one day he’ll humbly accept and embrace. Today, you might get a scoff if you were to bring that up with him.
“His lack of ego is directed towards winning football games, not for his own legacy’s sake. He’s almost the ultimate team player. He very easily could embrace this genius, mastermind personality and be out doing commercials and being feted at awards ceremonies. Yet the only way he addresses his growing stature is to concentrate even more on the thing that got him that stature, which is coaching football.”
In a victory last Thursday over the Houston Texans, Belichick unearthed blocking schemes from the 1960s and borrowed formations from the Navy teams for which his father scouted. On page 89 of “Winning Football Plays,” a part of the Belichick Collection first published in 1954, Nebraska’s Quarterback Sneak Off Trap is diagrammed. With a fake handoff to the left, two pulling linemen and the quarterback running around right end, it closely resembles the play on which Brissett scored a 27-yard touchdown last Thursday.
Belichick, though, is less interested in the division of credit than the validation of his methods. When Holley observed Belichick, his biggest takeaway was Belichick’s preoccupation with the seemingly mundane. He constantly thought about all 53 roster spots and devoted hours to finding and developing special teamers – punters, gunners, long snappers. Sure enough, the Patriots beat the Texans less on what Brissett did than how punter Ryan Allen pinned Houston deep and New England’s kickoff coverage forced and recovered two fumbles.
For Belichick, it’s not that he proved he could win without Brady. It’s that he proved he has been right about the way to build a team all along.
“I think the satisfaction is, ‘I told you guys this is important,’” Holley said. “It’s not like, ‘Aren’t I beautiful?’ He loves team-building. He loves the entire operation. He’s crazy about the minutia. He’s just really obsessed with complete teams. Some people feel that it’s a little bit of an ego trip – ‘I’m Bill Belichick, and I’m awesome.’ It is, but it’s more from a team-building sense.”
Belichick has coached since the early 1970s, which makes him something close to living NFL history. In 2010, Belichick had a chance to tie Brown on the all-time win’s list. As he walked into Heinz Field, he wore a fedora – Brown’s signature hat – in tribute.
When Rodgers first came to know Belichick, he asked him about particular rushing performances. He asked Belichick if he knew O.J. Simpson had once run for 273 yards on Thanksgiving. “Yup,” Belichick replied. “I was there.” He was a low-level Detroit Lions assistant coach.
Belichick, 64, may have only so many more games left. He told NFL Films in 2009 during an interview for “A Football Life” he will not overstay on the sideline. “I won’t be like Marv Levy and coaching in my 70s,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about that.” Close friends could see him coaching football at a small college or high school, or even trying his hand at coaching lacrosse, a sport he played at a higher level than football.
Sooner than later, perhaps, Belichick will permanently become part of the history he so cherishes. He sometimes visits the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, to browse the collection of books kept there.
He also has his own, in Ricketts Hall. There are odes to the sport, dense team histories, player biographies and ancient coaching guides. “Football Scouting Methods,” Steve Belichick’s seminal manual, is there. “Football’s Multiple Spread T Offense” resides a shelf away from a Jim McMahon tell-all.
And in one corner, a reminder that a part of the Belichick Collection is about Belichick himself, is “Patriot Reign.”