The Sports Truth

The Indianapolis Colts visit Foxboro, Mass., tonight boasting a perfect 7-0 record and a superhuman signal-caller in Peyton Manning. But everyone in New England, including the Sports Truth’s own NFL expert, believes the Patriots will win. It’s pure confidence, not hopefulness. The Pats are expected to win.

New Englanders go into tonight believing that their team will find some way to defeat the otherworldly Manning, Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne because of one man: Bill Belichick.

Like the late Red Auerbach (right), who presided over an incredible 16 Boston Celtics championships, Bill Belichick has become iconic. The Patriots exude success, and that begins with the man in the grey hooded sweatshirt.

The charismatic, exuberant and often-abrasive Auerbach always made his presence felt on and off the court. Belichick is expressionless as drywall. But that, according to a great piece in today’s Boston Globe, is where the differences between the two taskmasters end. It was never about individual stats with either guy, but rather being better prepared and able to outfox the opponent.

Auerbach won nine championships as coach of the Celtics, and helped guide the franchise to seven more as president and chairman. Belichick has won three with New England. He’s got a long way to go to catch Red, but Bill is within striking distance of legendary Steelers coach Chuck Noll and his NFL record four Super Bowls.

Especially in this salary cap world, Belichick has put together a resume that would impress even the late Celtics honcho — and done it in a way that Red would surely approve of. Both were geniuses when it came to the financial aspects of building and maintaining a winner. That included a merciless streak of dispatching key players who helped win titles if they believed the parts were interchangeable.

Both taught and inspired a dearth of coaching successes in their time, with Bill Sharman, Don Nelson, Paul Westphal, and Larry Bird learning the trade from Red, and former Belichick proteges Nick Saban, Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weis and Eric Mangini making names for themselves nowadays.

But perhaps most impressively (and importantly), both got players to buy into the concept of team above self, and earned reputations as masters of game strategy. Auerbach always found a way to acquire the best players for his team, then motivate them to exceed expectations and run through walls for him. He aided their drive to win by gaining every advantage possible through coaching. Sound like any NFL coach you know?

Here are some remarks about coaching Auerbach made in the midst of leading Boston to nine straight championships a half century ago:

• “The coach should run his team and not be influenced by spectators to make certain substitutions regardless of the score.”
• “It is wise to keep switching positions during practice so that all the players can appreciate the other fellow’s job.”
• “Keep friends and visitors off the bench. They will distract the players and interfere with your coaching procedure. The same applies in the dressing room before the game and during halftime.”
• “It is not advisable to announce your starting lineup until just before the game. When you are away from home it might be wise to see your opponents’ lineup before giving your own.”
• “No explanation should ever be given to any player when he is coming to the bench as to why he was taken out of the ballgame.”
• “Faking injuries is used for many reasons such as stalling for time and giving the impression that a player will not be at his best.”

While these observations are basketball-oriented, they might as well have been uttered by the man in grey last week. Belichick is concerned only with winning, and has mastered every facet of it, instilling in his Patriots a gold standard of excellence that the rest of the league can only marvel at. When New England knocks off the Colts tonight, perhaps one Boston coaching legend will be smiling down upon another.