The pads of paper are like little cobblestones that form the path to one of the greatest football minds of his day. New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick always has those notebooks with him, waiting for something as mundane as a practice schedule or as complex as an offensive system to be revealed, to spark his interest and demand to be remembered.When New England plays host to the Indianapolis Colts tonight, the game will be viewed by many as a chess match between the most cerebral quarterback in the N.F.L., Peyton Manning, and the 53-year-old coaching mastermind whose game plans have launched the Patriots to three Super Bowl titles in the past four seasons.
But even as Belichick flourishes at the highest level of his profession, he is engaged in the equivalent of a postgraduate education program, an independent study tour that has taken him from Annapolis, Md., to Gainesville, Fla., from a cot in Ted Marchibroda's hotel room to Jimmy Johnson's boat.
At each stop, usually in the off-season and sometimes involving intensive film study, Belichick has picked the brain of his host, gleaning bits of wisdom about everything from Navy's run offense to Johnson's philosophies on drafting and contract negotiations.
Such sessions are common among college coaches, who freely share information about their schemes with coaches whose teams are not on their schedule.
Bear Bryant, the legendary Alabama coach, went to Texas one spring to study the wishbone. Current college coaches frequently visit Virginia Tech to learn some of Frank Beamer's special-teams techniques. But Belichick's forays are unusual in the N.F.L.; limited time in the off-season and heightened paranoia result in most coaches avoiding anything more than the most informal sharing of information.
"He's a perfect example of what we've let slip away in the image of a coach - the job is a teaching job," said Giants General Manager Ernie Accorsi, who was the general manager of the Cleveland Browns when Belichick became the head coach there in 1991. "Bill certainly has a great deal of self-confidence, but he's got the humility to know that he can always learn from somebody that's successful. To me, the smarter you are, the more you want to learn."
"It's just an exchange of information with somebody that you have common ground with," Belichick said in an interview during training camp. "You talk about things that are successful, and sometimes that has an application to what you're doing."
When Belichick took his first job as a head coach in Cleveland, he made an unusual request when he and his staff members went to the scouting combine in Indianapolis. Each assistant was assigned three other teams; they were to ask members of those coaching staffs what their practice routines were. The point was to see if anybody else had good ideas about how to run practices.
Another summer, Belichick put a pile of books on a table in a meeting room. Each book had something to do with sports or great athletes. Belichick and his father have enormous libraries of football and sports books, about 500 volumes each, some historical, some technical. He assigned two books to each of his coaches, and when they returned to work for the start of training camp, he asked them what they had gotten out of their summer reading. Book reports for the shoulder-pad set.
"He said, 'I think you can learn from others,' " said Pat Hill, who was a member of Belichick's staff in Cleveland. He is now in his ninth season as head coach at Fresno State.
He added: "Bill is a very good listener. He wanted your opinions. He didn't want yes guys. There's a big difference between listening for what you want to hear and listening to learn. When he listens, he has a reason for the questions."
The questions have helped Belichick evolve - from the failed Cleveland coach who seemed so inept that other executives thought Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, was crazy to hire him.
Even in recent years, as Belichick and the Patriots have established a dynasty and a franchise model that is the envy of the N.F.L., he has continued to seek advice. Just weeks after the Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers for their second Super Bowl title, Belichick was in Baton Rouge, La.
There, he talked defense with Nick Saban, his former defensive coordinator in Cleveland, who was
the coach at Louisiana State at the time. Saban now coaches the Miami Dolphins.By Judy Batista - New York Times (November 7, 2005)