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 Belichicks are different than many of us thought.
Bill Belichick was known in New England for his short but not-so-sweet press conferences.
In his first week of training camp, the new UNC head coach and his defensive coordinator are father and son, but they are definitely their own people with jobs to do as they were trained but do so in their own ways.
Watching their first press conference, if you closed your eyes and just listened, it was hard to tell them apart. They sound almost exactly alike, but what they say reflects their independence.
Bill spent a good 30-plus minutes with the media and was informative with every answer, almost like he wanted to assure a new group of writers, bloggers and broadcasters that football is football on any level.
And although he has been in the NFL for his entire coaching career, he seemed excited about the challenge of grooming both college veterans and recent high school graduates on how to succeed. He said there are techniques that all players need to learn but seems to understand that he will be coaching 70 players who were not at UNC last year, 40 transfers and 30 freshmen. He sounded, in two words, patient and confident.
Belichick told us more about the mechanics of football than Mack Brown did in a season. He used words like leverage and to either take control in the first contact or how to be in recovery mode if your opponent gains the advantage.
He said the game is played from the inside out and he wants his team to control the middle of the field on offense and defense. Although the players will determine if they win or lose games, he will find Tar Heels who truly want to play.
Being a head coach allows him to talk and interact with any player on the practice field who needs some help improving his technique. This is 180 degrees from Brown, who stayed on the sideline, taking notes from afar.
So Belichick may be earning $10 million a season, he sounds like his favorite place is in the trenches with his guys and readily admits general manager Mike Lombardi runs every other aspect of the program from evaluating players and deciding what to pay them from revenue share to appearing on radio shows for the head coach.
After having won eight super Bowls in the NFL, Belichick is still a football coach, and his son Steve is what his dad is today and has always been, just loving to coach football.
The defensive coordinator says he may have learned football from being around his dad’s teams, but he is “his own man” in coaching and relating to his players. He says there are no fences to his defense; he prepares them how he learned from his famous father.
His staff gets them ready and lets them go, saying mistakes are a part of learning.
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.
