Book Review: "The Education of a Coach" by David Halberstam

This summer I was able to enjoy some reading. Unfortunately, the days are a little shorter once school started back up but finally getting around to accumulating my notes from each of the books. I strongly recommend "The Education of a Coach" by David Halberstam. He's a phenomenal writer and you get a good understanding of Bill Belichick. I found "The Inside Game. Race, Power, and Politics in the NBA" by Wayne Embry very interesting. His career is fascinating and you really get a feel for the changing landscape from the view of the front office throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s in the NBA. "The GM" by Tom Callahan chronicled the story of Ernie Accorsi who retired as the New York Giants GM. It steared clear of pretty much anything controversial but it was a good read. Last in this bundle was "The Draft" by Pete Williams. "The Draft" was a year inside the NFL's search for talent. Here are some of my notes from "The Education of a Coach."

"The Education of a Coach" by David Halberstam

-Halberstam really got into painting a picture of each of the coaches that influenced Belichick. His coach at Andover was Steve Sorota. Several interesting descriptions include:

"his power came from his intelligence, his subtlety, and his kindness, not from his position in hierarchy."

His headmaster hired him and gave him marching orders: "Your job is to teachnot to win a lot of football games." Sorota would say that was the perfect message.

Sorota loved coaching high school because "it was more important than college, because it took place at a more formative time in the boys' lives."

"The job of a good coach was to encourage a boy's better self, to let his confidence grow, but to do it ever so gently."

-Talking about Belichicks early days, they stressed how into film and learning he was. His friend Ernie Adams said Belichick "had the gift for it and he had the discipline, and he understood from the beginning the one great truth about fillm, that the more you ran it, the more you saw."

-This passage is classic Belichick. He changes game plans weekly and he adapts better than anyone. In 2003, he started 42 different players, which was a record for a division winner and won the superbowl. He broke that record in 2005 when he started 45 different players and won the division.

"A lot of players come in, and they've played at a high level, and so they think they know everything, because they've played at big time schools. But the truth is they don't know very much at all, because the game is always changing and because the systems are always changing. But Billy knew that already and that you had to adapt game by game; he knew that everything was always changing. That was one of the things that set him apart. And anothing thing was work ethic. It was always a great work ethic. You could always give him more - he always wanted more. He always wanted to get better. A lot of young wannabe coaches, they always want the stuff that has the glory to it - you can spot guys like that a mile away- but he was different, probably because of the way he had been raised, the way Steve had taught him, and because of the value system of the Naval Academy."

Maxie Baughan who was the first defensive coordinator Belichick worked under said he had a "great cognitive instinct." Outside of understanding facts, he understood what things meant. He could put himself in the other coaches shoes.

Ernie Adams describer being a coach in the NFL "it is a little like being in a high-wire act, with no net underneath you."

Al Groh described the divide between players and coaches in football as OOU and OO, one of us or one of them.

The describe a situation where Ron Meyer was fired in New England in the middle of the 1984 season after a player revolt. It was described this way:
"Formidabe, strong football players had landed at a franchise where the traditional sense of purpose, of winning, had long ago been lost, and in the struggle that ensued, the players had somehow taken power, not because they wanted to do anything with it, but because it was there and because it was easier to do things their way and to be in charge, rather than do the difficult things a series of coaches asked them to do."

"If you couldn't deal with the school bully when you were back in high school, its going to be very hard in the NFL"

Belichick mentions about a player that needs all kinds of personal attention is easier to get rid of because theres always an undertow there.

In New York they had two sets of rules, one of for the team and a different set for Lawrence Taylor. They were aware that Taylor played with such recklessness and free spirit that he couldn't turn it off. They didn't want to him to lose his edge or his love for the game. Once Taylor said in protest you "either get me on thursday or sunday". When Belichick would get his turn he wanted one set of rules and to surround himself with guys with character and talent.

At Cleveland, Belichick had to bring all of his own people in and couldn't bring anyone from the New York Giants where he was defensive coordinator. He started what the author called "Belichick University" which was a group of young men he spotted and would tutor. Most were like him, not great players from less than famous schools, but hungry to be part of the game that eluded them as boys. Rule number one was to put ego aside.

In evaluating Tom Brady out of college, they made an interesting character judgment. As he was sharing time with an underclassmen despite being 20-5 as a starter they noted that he handled the situation with savvy and maturity beyond his years. Rather than crack under the pressure of the media, fans, and some coaches wanting Drew Henson, he rose to meet the challenge.

Book Review: Meat Market by Bruce Feldman

As the summer ends, i wanted to add some notes on books on my summer reading list. The book Meat Market by Bruce Feldman followed Ed Orgeron's college footballl recruiting and attempt to rebuild Ole Miss a few years back. Considering how quickly it ended it doesn't appear to be a success story for whatever reason and the book ended with the end of the recruiting season well before the end of his road. It was interesting to see how fragile the footing of a head position is and how intense the hot seat got in a hurry.

A couple of items of note:

First, Orgeron, who is considered one of the best recruiters in all of football, was an extremist on the recruiting front. He had dreamers on his staff that were not afraid to wrestle with the powerhouses and their belief in what they were doing sold several recruits. People thought they were crazy but they had an extreme enthusiasm.

It was interesting to see Orgeron's road through the profession. He's a classic case of you-just-never-know. He had been let go, beat himself down, screwed up, survived a staff change, got a few players, won games and rose to the top.

The reliance on video in college football recruiting is much more intense than college basketball. In general i think college footbal requires perhaps the most work of any of the major sports at either the pro or college level. Football by nature requires so much more personnel management. Throw in recruiting which is so
competitive, it is a multi-faceted 365 day job.

Orgeron would challenge his assistants and wanted guys that would not fear the big schools in working for a kid.

Unlike basketball which requires much less player mapping, Ole Miss had huge boards dividing players into in-state offense and defense and out-of-state offense and defense.

All broken down into positions, orange names meant they were committed, blue meant there was an offer, green means the kid is a prospect requiring more evaluations.

Per unit, they had a clear priority.

The coaches had large recruiting room and while on calls occasionally a coach would hold a phone up and the entire staff give their go rebels yell.

The dynamic of picking and choosing when to try to sell the boss on their kid of choice was something of a political lobbying session.

Often brought up in the book is the battle with their own compliance department for getting kids in. The average fan doesn't realize how crucial the support and flexibiliy of being able to get kids into school is. Many schools pool of candidates is much bigger than others. The playing field is absolutely not level. Some schools are set up to win. Those are the jobs to find.

I think there is lessons to be learned by basketball teams in the way camps are a tool for recruiting. Now with elite camps, many teams have figured it out but
the ability to get kids on campus and their non-diverted attention for a span is worth 50 phone calls, 1000 letters, a flashy website and media guide, and watching every other game.

It was amazing how much weight the 40 yard dash holds. Blows my mind that it matters that much. Cannot figure out why it is weighted so highly when kids have no pads on and rarely run a straight forty ever in the game.

The philosophy toward work and recruiting was always have a great attitude. Be organized and rock and roll. He also had several key points:

Be Choosey- they were 4-8 but dont recruit like they were 4-8
Get Transcripts-always be correct on their academic standing
Do Not Break Rules
Know your juniors - they wanted to get in their first thing
Show the Ole Miss Flag - wear Ole Miss everything
Make Friends- use first names
Be Thorough - "best compliment you can get is for the recruit to tell coach 'your assistant already covered that'"

At the end of their shoot for the stars campaign to reel in players, their recruiting class had some misses and ended with 2 open spots to fill. In a twist of irony, the book ends with the master recruiter considering a former walk on for challenging for his QB spot.