John Nieman
As regular readers of this space can attest, I have spent the past several years distancing myself from American football. While I was once an avid devotee, the constant stoppage and long breaks that pass for “action” were more than my aging attention span could handle.
But at the behest of son Jeff, I have decided to make a concerted effort to at least follow UNC football.
Which of course brings us to the question:
Whither Bill Belichick?
I have, in this space, written about the many questions Coach Belichick’s hiring raised. My opinion was and remains that he should be judged by the performance on the field.
So what is the performance on the field? It appears to me that the team has lost to teams to whom they would be expected to lose and beaten teams that they would be expected to defeat. I know I haven’t been following the sport for the past few years, but did UNC become a football powerhouse while I wasn’t looking? And wouldn’t it be expected that a new coach who is coaching college football for the first time might need some leeway?
But now I read there are many who are calling for the coach’s firing.
Upon what basis?
Nothing really new is being put forward. We knew about the girlfriend before he was hired. We knew he had a losing record as a coach without Tom Brady before he was hired. We knew he was an arrogant grump with the press before he was hired.
Some are now bringing up that there is dissension in the locker room. Welcome to sports. You have a group of players—in football, a very large group of players—who were all stars on their high school teams. Some of them are not going to start. Some of them are going to play more than others. And with all the new rules, thanks to the intransigency of the NCAA, some are being paid a lot more than others.
Quite frankly, it appears to me that most of the problems being reported about this coach have more to do with the fact that he is not very media friendly. The fact that he has houses on Nantucket Island rather than Bald Head Island. He may not even know who Art Chansky is!
Give him a break, I think he’s close to selling one of the Nantucket homes. And he and the girlfriend seem to be wearing Carolina blue in every picture I see of them. It appears to me that—for him—he’s really making an effort.
And then I read something about some assistant coach giving a player something. I thought under the present rules that it was impossible to violate. What could an assistant coach possibly give a player when players are making seven-figure bonuses in college?
And whoever’s idea it was to cancel the Hulu show is an idiot. The struggle trying to find success and perhaps failing is so much more entertaining than the story of an NFL coach with a young girlfriend coming to college and right off the bat knocking it out of the park.
On a brighter, happier note, US Men’s National Team played pretty well to tie Ecuador. While Ecuador didn’t play all of their best players, they are still second in COMNEBOL qualifying and have an incredibly strong defense, allowing just 5 goals in 18 qualifying matches against the likes of Argentina and Brazil. Hope springs eternal!
And I just received word that Kip Ward and Vicky Ward are going to be inducted into the North Carolina Soccer Hall of Fame. The two of them, along with Anson Dorrance–who nominated them for the Hall—started Rainbow Soccer in the early ’70s, when there was no soccer to be had in the area. Kip and Vicky were the heart and soul of this unique program for decades and their induction is most well-deserved. In a future column, I plan a deep dive into this amazing venture.
I am resisting family members’ urging that I try GLP-1. Martha and I still believe I can fight the index without PED. I took one steroid pill in college and threw up.
Fat Boy Index: 288