In Chapel Hill, the past few days have been mostly not about graduation, but about Bill Belichick, the new Carolina football coach, his multi-million-dollar contract, his success as coach of the New England Patriots football team, and his new book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football,” which came out on May 6. There is even more talk about Belichick‘s 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson. Belichick writes about his players, including stars such as Tom Brady.
North Carolina coach Bill Belichick speaks during an NCAA college football press conference, Wednesday, March 5, 2025, in Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)
But I thought he was better when he showed how good players can get better with hard work and a supportive coach.
For instance, he writes about a surprisingly successful Patriot running back.
“Looking at James White — barely two hundred pounds — you wouldn’t say, ‘This is the guy we want protecting the franchise,’ mainly because it wasn’t something that he’d never been asked to do before. But we saw traits in James that gave us confidence we could work with him. No running back was more diligent or accountable in protection than James White. However complex the defense, James knew who to look out for — and knew how to get in his way.
You may be surprised that someone without any elite physical traits could be the best at anything in a professional sport, but James proved that to be possible. He wasn’t big, he wasn’t fast, and he had relatively small hands. But he had elite personal traits. His character was the best we could have ever asked for — unselfish, tough, rarely hurt. He knew what he needed to do to transform himself into the type of player we could use, and he worked his butt off to do it.
I don’t think I’ve ever coached someone who worked harder or who paid more attention to the people in front of him. He was a sponge. He listened to every single thing that was said in meeting rooms and during every drill. He thought about the game like a coach trying to see the entire field.
As a receiver, James learned how to set up defenders, how to come back to the ball when it was in the air. As a blocker he learned how to read defenses. As a runner he learned how to make people miss. He wasn’t an elite runner, but he was good at everything we asked him to do, and that itself is an elite characteristic. It does not come easy, and it is not common. It takes mental fortitude, and it takes elite character. The kind of person who can be honest about what his skills really are, and confident enough in his gifts that he can accept multiple roles. Development is a two-way street. The coach and the player. The teacher and the student. Coaches can instruct, talk, meet, do drills, watch tape until our eyes are bleary. But someone on the other end has to work in concert with us to create the improvement — and work more to make it stick.”
In a chapter called “Roster Construction,” Belichick tells how and why he chooses players for his team. He says that although he wants a team of elite prospects, he doesn’t just ask, “who is the best?”
Instead, he says he asks, “who’s the best for us?”
Acknowledging Tom Brady’s many strengths, he writes, “And what I wish would get more attention is his ability to make decisions. To me, that was the greatest of all his great strengths. To process the movements of twenty-one bodies moving at peak speed, to gather information from them, and to make a judgement based on that information — while massive, ferocious men are in hot pursuit — is truly demanding work. … An example of elite football intelligence.”
At the end of 284 pages of stories about his teams, players, and what he taught and what he learned, Belichick concludes his book with the following:
“After 49 years in the NFL, and one year in the media, I am… on to Chapel Hill.”
D.G. Martin, a lawyer, retired as UNC system vice president for public affairs in 1997. He hosted PBC-NC’s “North Carolina Bookwatch,” for more than 20 years.
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