Belichick Gives Us a Little Dose of Why He's Never Going to Retire
Champ to champ. Belichick joins Coach K tonight on Basketball & Beyond. 7 p.m. on SiriusXM channel 84.
Preview: https://t.co/eSun0ydZ8e pic.twitter.com/qy99Cgdi5X
— Duke Basketball (@DukeMBB) March 22, 2017
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Bill Belichick on Mike Krzyzewski’s Sirius XM show:
“I really enjoy the different phases of the season. Right now we’re in a team-building phase with free agency and then next month the draft and then all the players will be in and we’ll start. As you know, you can’t pick up where you left off last year, you’ve got to start all over again, so the kind of starting all over again process has really already begun for us. …
“I enjoy working with young people, that certainly keeps me young, even though the gap’s widening. And I do my best to absolutely take on the whole social media thing, you know, head on, on a collision course. But other than that, being with young people certainly keeps you young, and that’s been important for me.”
I bring this up today not because Belichick said anything Earth-shattering. But because there are people among us who actually believe that once Brady retires, that Belichick will hang up the whistle too. That he still carries the scars of the grim, blood-soaked nightmare that was Cleveland and will to go back to coaching a quarterback who isn’t the GOAT because he remembers what life in the Hellmouth is like. And this is just further proof of what I’ve been saying for years. Those people need to be shunned by society for being so very, very wrong.
He’s not going anywhere, ever. It should be obvious to anyone, and not just me because Belichick and I practically blood brothers and each wear two halves of the same amulet on chains around our necks. The Hooded One loves what he does. He was born and raised for it. There is no part of the job that is drudgery for him. Or even work. You might make a case that he doesn’t like dealing with the press (that is, the part of the press that is not Coach K or me), but I think even that tedious task is fun for him. It’s a thrill kill. In the way that a lion would rather catch and kill a gazelle than get fed by a zookeeper. But the rest of it? He loves it.
You don’t need to take my word for it or even his. Just watch what he does. From being there at the Combine, calling player agents, working the phones for trades, personally going down to Vanderbilt to run Zach Cunningham through drills to brushing up on YouFace, MyFace and InstantChat so he can learn to relate to the Millennials he’s scouting and coaching. Or on game day, on his knee in front of the bench with a white board showing his defensive line what he wants them to do. Watch any of it and tell me there’s any part of him that would rather play 18 holes every day or sit on a panel show grabbassing with Jimmy, Terry and Howie. Not a chance.
He’s a man in full. Running the organization he wants for the owner he wants with the staff and players he wants and a fanbase that would gladly take a bullet for him and ask for seconds. He’s not leaving football until he’s dead. And since talking social media stuff with young players is basically like drinking unicorn blood for him, that’s not happening either.