Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The latest Bill Belichick story is more like a novella.
When Paige Williams arrived in Chapel Hill to shine a light and dig up some dirt on Bill Belichick, the veteran journalist turned into a gossip columnist. Her story in the New Yorker was way too long to hold the attention of most readers and wandered far off the track.
Williams is no cub reporter, mind you, as she has written for the New Yorker for at least 12 years, pens a regular column online and is a freelance author of note. She has a best-selling book – about dinosaurs.
A coincidence that she came to cover UNC’s new 73-year-old football coach? Williams wanted to find out if the Hoodie is a relic or for real.
Williams spent the first week in June talking to all kinds of people (including me). Her piece for the New Yorker is titled “Bill Belichick Goes Back To School.” In the printed magazine, it’s called Money Ball.
Williams talked to lots of people around town, some closer to Carolina football than others. Belichick turned down her interview request and Jordon Hudson doesn’t show up until halfway through the feature (she, too, didn’t respond to messages left for her).
“That Jordon person” draws stronger attention from women than men, Williams says.
The thousand-plus word article begins with how and why UNC hired Belichick, which Williams says was done by athletic director Bubba Cunningham when we know he was one only of several people – and not the first – involved in creating what became a worldwide story.
It is really a self-help endeavor to write something so big about which she knew little. I think she told me it was her first sports assignment. She also queried a faculty member in a coffee shop and Scott Maitland at Top of the Hill and the barflies at Mike Benson’s Lapin Bleu in Chapel Hill.
The reactions were what we all expect, but she writes as being generally surprised as she boned up on a school that has never won a national championship in football and is 45 years removed from its last ACC title.
Williams has been and worked all over the place. She was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard and is a well-known crime-writer, including about those who steal apparently very valuable dinosaur fossils. And she’s a graduate of Ole Miss, which has had some pretty good football teams.
She worked hard observing and learning, but much of it is old news for die-hard Tar Heels who can’t wait for the actual football to commence. The New Yorker is a national magazine that is turning 100 this year, so assuredly there are readers who learned a lot about UNC and Chapel Hill.
Did she quote me? Yes. I told her that Belichick could be “the greatest hire that any school has ever made or the biggest embarrassment that UNC will ever have.”
That’s MY story and I’m sticking to it.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
