Grief channeled to higher goals

By Jackie MacMullan, Globe Staff, 2/5/2002

EW ORLEANS - It was an uncommon Patriots season before one single football had been officially snapped. The most daunting task facing any NFL coach is how to motivate a full roster of varying personalities to play together, for the common good, regardless of the sacrifices required by the individual.

Head coach Bill Belichick was never much for phony fire and brimstone speeches, or cheap psychological ploys to spur his players on. As it happened, he would not need to consider resorting to such tactics.

The New England Patriots would be presented with all the motivation they needed on Aug. 6, the day quarterbacks coach Dick Rehbein had collapsed and died at Massachusetts General Hospital, a victim of a heart condition called cardiomyopathy.

It was devastating news for the players and the coaches, who had watched Rehbein rise before dawn each morning and stay well into the night, with the goal of preparing his flamethrowers.

The team quietly dedicated its season to the 45-year-old father of two, who never lived to see his young student, Tom Brady, blossom into a star, and will never see either daughter graduate from high school.

''It was kind of an unspoken thing all year,'' said quarterback Damon Huard. ''Dick was never far from anyone's thoughts.''

Yet that was only the first in a series of unusual events that spurred on this team of destiny, which defied odds at every turn, and encountered a string of challenges that only made its Super Bowl XXXVI victory over the St. Louis Rams that much more satisfying.

''I sort of snubbed the whole destiny thing all year,'' exulted linebacker Tedy Bruschi, just moments after the Super Bowl win was official, ''but I can tell you now that it was always in the back of my mind.

''So many things happened to this team, you had to wonder. After a while, we just started to believe this was our season. Everything seemed to break the right way when we needed it most.''

But first, the Patriots would endure a season of terrible personal blows. Still raw from the death of Rehbein, New England held its collective breath with the rest of America as the tragic events of Sept. 11 unfolded. Some Patriots were directly affected by the terrorists attacks, none more profoundly than offensive lineman Joe Andruzzi, whose two brothers, both New York City firefighters, rushed to the World Trade Center.

Andruzzi's family emerged unscathed, yet so many of his brothers' colleagues did not. No wonder, then, shortly after the Patriots had won their first Super Bowl in its bizarre (but never boring) history, Andruzzi said softly, ''This is for my brothers. Nobody else.'' His brothers, decked out in their No. 63 Andruzzi jerseys, bawled like little children.

The unspeakable horrors caused an unprecedented break in the NFL season, giving the nation time to heal, and, as it turned out, the Patriots an extra week to work on becoming more comfortable with the free agents that had come aboard during the offseason.

The turning point of the season appeared to be Week 4, when New England upended San Diego in overtime, and began buying into Belichick's system of rotating players. Who would have believed Drew Bledsoe would go down, and never have to get up again? Who would have thunk David Patten, a little-known free agent, would haul in a Brady pass in the corner of the end zone to stake the Patriots to a 14-3 Super Bowl halftime lead?

By Super Sunday, the Patriots had become accustomed to the idea that anything was possible. After Bruschi's father died in December, he dedicated the season to him, and became hellbent on ensuring that dedication was worth something. The stakes for winning had become more than a simple won-loss record. That feeling permeated the locker room.

The chemistry of New England's roster became a league-wide topic, with impatient owners everywhere asking their general managers, ''I've never heard of half those guys. And they're not costing that team any money. How come we don't have players like that?''

But even as the Patriots outlasted Oakland in overtime, and punished Pittsburgh in its own stadium, few were buying into New England as legitimate challengers to St. Louis.

The Patriots ignored the skeptics and continued to operate with an almost eerie calm. Brady, the youngest quarterback to win the Super Bowl, was so relaxed before the start of Sunday's game, he actually took a catnap about an hour before kickoff.

And, as the Patriots staked themselves to a 17-3 lead, the words ''improbable'' and ''destiny'' were again being attached to this tightknit band of no-name performers.

Even after Willie McGinest was called for a holding penalty, negating a 98-yard run for a touchdown by Tebucky Jones, and eventually turning into a Kurt Warner TD, New England was undaunted.

''That was a 14-point swing,'' pointed out owner Bob Kraft. ''But you know what? The way the game was going, the way our season was going, I believed God was at work.''

The owner was not alone in feeling the presence of a higher power. Numerous Patriots tearfully acknowledged Rehbein after the Super Bowl victory was finally in hand. Belichick thanked his QB coach in his postgame speech for ''looking over us all year.''

It was yet another example of a ''special feeling'' that followed these underdogs from coast to coast, through snow and rain and the perfect weather inside the Superdome.

''Nobody believed in us,'' said center Damien Woody. ''Nobody. No matter what we did, they weren't buying we were for real.

''That brings a team together. That creates something that only we can understand. All I know is it took us winning the Super Bowl for people to finally say, `Hey, maybe those Patriots are pretty good.'''

Perhaps it was fitting during a year in which patriotism surged in America, and the colors of red, white, and blue became important again, that New England would rule the day.

After all, even if St. Louis had won, the confetti that was set to come raining down from the Superdome roof was the colors of the American flag - and the colors of your New England Patriots.

Break down the X's and O's of this Patriot season and you will be left scratching your head. On paper, New England shouldn't have accomplished half that it did. But that's not what this team has been about, not since the day they attached their grief to a higher goal, of winning for reasons that really matter.