IT is America's most popular, and paradoxical, spectator sport. The average National Football League game is seen by more people on television than the combined audience for an average professional baseball and basketball game, yet most NFL fans have little knowledge of what is really going on.
The intricacies of the playbooks are such that, when a team scores a touchdown, it is difficult to know who is really responsible, and when a team allows a touchdown, it is impossible to place exact blame. We cheer for players whose faces are hidden under helmets. We attempt to understand plays devised in huddles or on headphones. Jim Mora, who coached the New Orleans Saints from 1986 to 1996, once grew angry at a group of reporters attempting to second-guess his play selection, telling them: "You don't understand the game. You will never understand the game. You don't see the same things we do."
Nowhere is the unknown more unnerving than in the persona of one of the game's greatest coaches, the New England Patriots' Bill Belichick. His teams have won three of the last four NFL championships, yet we've never seen him smile. He is known as the smartest man in football, yet we've rarely heard him share. Even walking the sidelines in front of millions of viewers on a Sunday afternoon, he is a portrait of secrecy, his body buried beneath a baggy gray sweatshirt, his face an unchanging bit of rock. Tackling the soul of Belichick, then, is like tackling the legs of his star running back, Corey Dillon. At best, you will be left with bruises; at worst, you will be left with nothing.
So at least give David Halberstam points for trying. Taking his first look at pro football, the acclaimed author examines the inner workings of Belichick in "The Education of a Coach." What Halberstam did for pro basketball in "The Breaks of the Game" and for major league baseball in "Summer of '49," he attempts to re-create here, delving into the seemingly impenetrable world of a coach who never lets us see him sweat. It is a difficult task, turning a lump of gray flannel and a handful of Super Bowl rings into a human being, turning Xs and O's into whys. Halberstam attacks it with the grace and confidence of a veteran quarterback, interviewing former coaches and players, tracing Belichick's life story from the nerdy son of a legendary assistant college football coach to the NFL guru who hugged his dad on the sideline after his three Super Bowl victories.
