Book Review: The Art of Winning by Bill Belichick
Coach Belichick's first book is better than the advertising
You wouldn’t know it to read social media (which feels like an oxymoron, lumping reading and social media together is like pairing filet mignon up with Yoo-Hoo (not a sponsor.) I guess we don’t read social media, we merely consume it like we’re Kirby floating through Dream Land: hoovering it up one second, only to regurgitate it the next.)
Let’s start this again, if you have been consuming the gossip rags that occupy most of the internet (full disclosure, this Notebook is on the internet) you have seen the name Bill Belichick a lot but lost amongst the mems about inheritance, you’ve likely forgotten why Bill originally sat down with CBS Sunday Morning. The Sunday morning puff piece was designed to promote his first book, The Art of Winning.
However on his way to tell us his motivations for writing a book now and perhaps giving us a verbal snippet of the book (imagine Bill doing a book reading at your local BAM! (not a sponsor)) Things got off track as soon as his girlfriend/fiancé/publicist Jordon Hudson interrupted the interviewer and then social media did what social media does. Unbeknownst to all involved at the moment, but instead of cruising through the publication week media car wash, the Belichick Book Mobile veered off the tracks.
But guess what? In spite of the general public discourse about age, engagement and whether or not Bill’s girlfriend is allowed on the grounds of Chapel Hill or the Little White Chapel, The Art of Winning was released anyway, though to far less fanfare than should have been bestowed upon the first tome of the greatest coach in the history of pro football. I devoured the book in its first week of public existence and believe it or not, I have some thoughts. Here is what stood out to me in reading The Art of Winning for the first time.
- My favorite term that Coach described was: The Drawer. “The Drawer is not a trash can, this is a toolbox for your distractions.” Like Billy Chapel’s “clear the mechanism” in For Love of The Game, I like this as an illustration for decluttering your mind and eliminating distractions, but knowing that they aren’t gone forever, just temporarily placed aside while you “Do Your Job”. (Side note, there wasn’t a lot of “Do Your Job” and “No Days Off” type monikers in the book, which I liked, it would have felt too “I’m a football coach and I’m marketing myself with these terms that I’ve created. But my 36-week program to self improvement now! Operators are standing by!”)
- Perhaps the most eye opening passage from The Art of Winning (TAOW) was pages 38 and 39 (now we’re gonna quote chapter and verse like this is a New Testament of coaching and it might prove to be) but in the chapter called “Motivation” sub-header “Shame as Motivation” the Coach has this to say:
“I can’t talk to everyone in the organization every day. There’s just no way I can constantly connect with each player, coach and staff member to make sure they are feeling motivated. It’s impossible. That’s why to win and win big, you need motivators throughout your organization. One of mine was New England Hall of Fame linebacker (and excellent coach) Mike Vrabel. Mike was tough, a playmaker and culture builder who came through in the clutch during the biggest games. He played several position and played them all well. He was highly intelligent, on and off the field and everything he did was done with purpose and an edginess. Even joking. When he did that, nobody was exempt. Coaches and teammates were both fair game. Mike’s knife was always sharp, but it was never malicious, if anything it made people feel like they were important to the organization if he targeted them. It also helped that he could take it as good as he gave it. If another played responded to his jabs or jokes, they’d be better off and so would the team.”
What makes this so eye opening is that Coach starts this out with “you need motivators throughout your organization” and then literally the only person (player or coach) that he describes is Mike Vrabel and it goes on for two pages. It wasn’t the only time that the new Patriots coach was mentioned in high regard, but conversely Jerod Mayo’s name only appears in the acknowledgements at the end. (FYI, he also acknowledged Jordon Hudson as “Thank you to my idea mill and creative muse, Jordon Hudson.”) Needless to say that I feel better about the Patriots head coach right now than I did 12 months ago.
- “If you used AI to summarize this book into 3 words, I want “Don’t commit penalties”. I think this works for life too. We can’t take penalties folks. Can’t have it, eliminate the yellow flags in your own life! (I’m so freakin’ inspired right now!)
- Something I enjoyed was that the author would honor important people in the book on the page number that would best represent them. So at page 56, the book pauses and Bill pays tribute to Lawrence Taylor. Page 106 for his father Steve, who would be 106 years old today. 172 was for Bill Parcells for the 172 games he won. 199 for the spot that Tom Brady was drafted. It really puts to bed the whole “Bill and Bill don’t get along” and “Tom and Bill hate each other, that’s why it ended in New England” myths, when he dedicates 4 pages to individuals in his first book and he chooses, his father, LT, TB12 and the Tuna. That’s a pretty good Mount Rushmore of Belichickian Appreciation.
- Bill used the 1963 Navy team (nicknamed “The President’s Team”) as his model for every team he’s ever coached.
- Two pop culture references Bill made were to The Godfather and The Last Dance. I find this fascinating, because outside of football, reading about football, history, reading about history and Bon Jovi, we really don’t know that much about the media that Bill Belichick actually enjoys. The Godfather reference also made way for the funniest line in the book:
“There’s a scene in The Godfather in which Michael Corleone is preparing for a meeting to straighten out the differences between the rival mob families, and his father Vito, gives him some advice: “Whoever proposes that meeting would be the traitor.” And, sure enough, Salvatore Tessio, one of the don’s oldest associates and friends, is the one who speaks to Michael about arranging the sit down…and then must pay the ultimate price for his betrayal. The lesson is clear. Sometimes when you start a new position, the people who voluntarily insert themselves into your life are the ones who are working their own agenda. I hope you are not involved in organized crime. Either way, there’s much to learn from the old man’s warning.”
(First-runner up for the best one-liner “Disciplined workers don’t fall asleep in meetings because they stayed up all night playing Capture the Flag on their Sony War Hero in their hotel room.” Bill Belichick trying to think of a video game and coming up with Capture the Flag is genuinely hilarious and Sony War Hero is better than his previous SnapFace/Instabook’s, which always felt a little forced after getting laughs the first few dozen times he dropped them.
Second Runner up for best one-liner “And remember: that Bentley looks good on the lot, but the average NFL career lasts less than four years, and that rookie signing bonus isn’t nearly as big after taxes, especially in Massachusetts.” I feel like he has said that to a few players over the years.)
- I found interesting that chapter 4 is about handling success and he leads off by lauding Patrick Mahomes and teasing that he was going to break down a comparison between Brady and Mahomes. Sadly he does not, but he is highly complementary of both Mahomes and of Andy Reid. Though also very interesting on page 126 in chapter on “Preparation” Bill lists 4 players in his example of “Tom Brady wasn’t always Tom Brady.” And the four players that he lists are: Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski and Patrick Mahomes. (Which one of these is not like the other?)
- Biggest understatement of the book goes to page 113 where Bill reveals details of the Antonio Brown signing saying “The two of them (AB and Tom Brady) established a close relationship very quickly, sharing a similarly intense commitment to training, and bonding over idiosyncrasies. (Oh, there were idiosyncrasies.)” This is an interesting passage as the Coach talks about coaching “Star Players”. The story about $500 bottles of bison milk and Brown’s 13 days in Foxborough, gives you a glimpse into the insane levels that AB had reached as he rushed off the deep end.
- There is very little hubris in TAOW and Bill Belichick is not prone to hyperbole, but the 28-3 comeback deserves some of both:
“In approximately five billion years, we are all cooked. That is when scientists predict the sun will run out hydrogen and start to collapse in on itself at its core, even as the outermost surface will be pushed outward and engulf several planets in our solar system, including the one that you and I currently occupy. At that point, any remaining trace of human life will be washed away in some kind of cosmic tidal wave. No more quarterly earnings, no more P&L statements, no more Thursday-night games on short rest, no more combine scouting reports. Perhaps by then we’ll have fired off some more of those Voyager gold records like we did back in the seventies so that if any aliens are out there they’ll be able to see what life was like back on earth. That, for a moment of time in the history of the universe, we played football. I hope NFL Films gets a copy of the Super Bowl in 2017 on one of those records. There won’t be another comeback like that, even in five billion more years.”
This shows that 1. The Coach is very well read (though I’m not exactly sure what he’s reading) and 2. As he should be, he is proud of his accomplishments. Throughout the book, a lot of the Coach’s examples and kudos are for players and teams from the first dynasty. Guys like Rodney Harrison, Troy Brown and Tedy Bruschi get a lot of ink, compared to stars from the 2010’s. You get the feeling reading TAOW that Super Bowl 36 vs the St. Louis Rams means the most to him, but Super Bowl 51 is the one he’s most impressed with. It’s his Jordan-shrug moment, like even he didn’t know how we’re doing this anymore.
- There are short stories in the TAOW, but you always wish he’d tell more. Sort of how I wished The Four Seasons on Netflix was more than 8 episodes. (I’m glad there will be a season two, I’m sad they killed Nick. Spoiler alert.) He touches on his two biggest regrets, one involves Lamar Jackson and one involves Dan Klecko, (no spoilers.) Perhaps his best story is about getting snowed in in Buffalo right after Christmas and the team making the best out of it at Dinosaur BBQ in Rochester. I’ve heard Edelman and Gronk talk about this before, but it was neat to hear that this sitcom like happenstance meant so much to the old coach as it did to the players.
- One of the reasons that the media and fans alike have speculated and read so much into what Bill Belichick doesn’t say, is that for a quarter century in New England, he left so much unsaid. So when rumors came out that he was going to trade Rob Gronkowski, people jumped to “Bill hates Rob, he’s never liked his shtick.” But the best thing about Bill Belichick putting his own words out there for the world is that you get his unvarnished opinions, because say what you want about him, but I can’t imagine the Coach saying things in his book, just to pacify egos. So quotes like this, from chapter 8 “Improvement”, are to me, incredibly telling:
“Gronk isn’t a perfect model for improvement because Gronk is one of a kind. Whatever fire burns within Gronk is something that is not necessarily known to science. Lawrence Taylor is a rare, rare human being. Gronk is an alien.”
I apologize if it feels like I quoted half the book in this space, but rest assured there is a lot more meat on the bones of this book. I didn’t even get to half of the notes I made reading the 284-pages of The Art of Winning. Bill is a natural writer and why wouldn’t he be, he was raised by a school teacher mother and a father, whose football library was donated and dedicated at the United States Naval Academy. A good book is one that leaves you wanting more and TAOW is as good a book about coaching and leadership as you’ll find. If you want all the salacious details of the Patriots Dynasty, there is some insights but nothing that would pass for “dirt”. The more that this book makes you yearn for more of an autobiographical tome. The Art of Winning shows that Bill Belichick has a lot to say and can not only say it well, can be entertaining at the same time.
The Coach might be one and done as a media personality, after his one season away from the sidelines, but I would be willing to bet that we will see more from Bill Belichick: The Author.