Father knows (Belichick) best

By Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff, 2/1/2002

EW ORLEANS - Personality momentarily supplanted pigskin in what was at times an amusing topic here yesterday leading up to Super Bowl Sunday.

Work the room? Uh-uh. Not his son, not at age 49, and not ever. His boy, Bill, is all sideline, no Seinfeld. But by his father's account, Bill Belichick's personality, like his coaching ability, was misjudged during his five seasons as head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Steve Belichick, 83 years old and more than a decade removed from his 33 years as an assistant coach at Navy, made it clear he doesn't much care for the public perception that Bill, his only child, would be severely challenged in a Mr. Congeniality contest.

''That is completely the wrong perception,'' said the senior Belichick, talking with reporters in a downtown hotel, some 72 hours before his son's Patriots will face the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. ''Now, he's not going to come over and take over a crowd. He's not going to come in and tell jokes - I don't think I've ever heard him tell a joke in his life. He's never said, `Hey, Dad, I heard a good one last night ... '''

It's apparent to this parent, who first watched his son break down Navy game film as a grade-schooler, that Bill's personality is misunderstood, relating back to those Cleveland days.

''Well, they tabbed him - some of them - as not being very good,'' said the senior Belichick, referring to print and electronic reporters around the Browns at the time. ''His relationship with the media in Cleveland was not good.''

Earlier in the morning, during a 15-minute media briefing, Bill did elicit some chuckles - from the media and himself - when a reporter posed a question relating to Belichick not being a very personable coach. He was asked if he had worked to change that since his Cleveland days, and if that image bothered him.

''Uh, I don't know,'' said Belichick, a smile growing wider as he pondered his own personality, and perhaps the thought of now defending it before a group of some 500 media members. ''That's a good question ... ''

The laughs built in the crowd the longer he allowed his answer to remain in abeyance.

''Have I lightened up a little bit? I probably have,'' the coach said. ''In Cleveland, I might have been a little too rough on [the players] at times. In the end, my intent isn't to try to have conflict, or try to be iron-fisted, or tyrannical, or anything like that - but to just try to get it done, get through a message. However that's interpreted, I'll leave it up to [the media].''

For more than 30 minutes, the senior Belichick freely discussed a wide range of subjects, appearing to enjoy himself as he held court with many of the reporters who say his son is either a stuffed shirt, an SOB, or, at best, a difficult guy to get to know.

Whatever the perception, Steve Belichick made it clear no one should doubt his son's work ethic or his vision for achieving what he sets out to do.

Nantucket, said the senior Belichick, was the proof of that.

''He decided a long time ago that he wanted to have a house on Nantucket,'' said Steve, recalling how Bill first visited the island with friends in junior high school. ''So when he came with the Giants, my wife and I had never been to Nantucket. So he said, `Let's go.' We went up, and he decided he would have a house there, because he really loved the place - and does - and so he made a plan, and he bought a big lot.

''He had a house built for speculative reasons, lived in it a year in the summer, put it up for sale for $175,000. Someone offered him $171,000, and he didn't take it. The next summer he put it up for $260,000 and sold it. And then he built the house he has there now. He was determined he was going to build in Nantucket - and he did.

''Everything he does, he plans. It may take a couple of years, but he is not haphazard in his thinking. He gives it plenty of thought.''

It was the same cerebral Bill who first began to dissect film and game plans in those years his father was part of Wayne Hardin's highly successful staff at the US Naval Academy. Over the years, Hardin saw the likes of assistants Rick Forzano, J.D. Roberts, George Welsh, and Doug Scovil all get promoted to NFL jobs.

Ultimately, Belichick also moved to the top professional ranks, but it was Belichick junior rather than senior.

His son's passion for the game, recalled Steve, was in part acquired during late-summer days in Annapolis. Ernie George, the Midshipmen's offensive line coach, was a regular visitor to the Belichick household, and many was the time he would sit in the Belichicks' screened porch and devise strategy for the upcoming season.

''We would sit around and talk and have a beer, and Bill would just sit and listen,'' recalled Steve. ''We would talk. When the season would start, we would make up a game plan - we would call it a ready list - and every week that was made up. As soon as it was made up, Ernie would get it and put on the top of it: `TO BILL.' Then he would fold it, put it in an envelope, put his name on the envelope, and he would say to me, `You give this to Bill - this is Bill's ready list.'''

Bill Belichick was then in grammar school. But his heroes were the Middies football players, including Winchester, Mass.'s Joe Bellino, winner of the 1960 Heisman Trophy. He wouldn't just read the ready list. He would devour it. It began, a proud father figures, about the time Bill was in second grade.

''He would take it up to his room - and he may still have some of 'em,'' said Steve. ''He knew how we called plays. He knew 28 was a sweep, and 26 was off tackle, 30 and 31 were for the fullback. And all the pass plays - hook, Banana X, Banana Y - he knew 'em all.''

Hard to believe, better than 40 years later, the NFL's defensive genius was first schooled in the game's offensive subtleties.

''Let me tell you,'' said Steve, scoffing some at use of the word ''genius.'' ''You don't know defense unless you first learn offense.''

Just like maybe you don't know his son.