Lit starts with a simple truth: Bill Belichick is a damn good football coach. Let’s take it further: after leading the New England Patriots to nine Super Bowls and winning six, Belichick built a very strong cause to be the greatest head coach in NFL history. Here’s another inevitable truth: Belichick has also earned incredible amount of criticism in his 46-year career. Then he did Monday what was thought very unthinkable. Belichick, a tacit old-school newspaper that seemed the opposite of the progressive movement opposed by Donald Trump, turned down the presidential medal of freedom after a Maga mob’s violent assault on the Capitol.
On Monday night, Belichick issued a statement in which he said he would pass on the honor. “Recently, I have been given the opportunity to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” the statement said, “for which I am flattered out of respect for what honor represents and admiration for previous recipients. Thereafter, the tragic events of last week took place and it was decided not to proceed with the award. ”
Pat Beletter’s HC Bill Belichick will not travel to Washington nor accept the presidential medal of freedom, he announced today. pic.twitter.com/uvLLigFlHU
– Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) 12 January 2021
The passive voice of the statement, ‘the decision was made’, suggests that it was not just Belichick’s call, but still he should be praised for finally doing the right thing. By rejecting Trump, Belichick is doing something that many of the president’s friends and allies refuse to do despite the events of the past week.
And make no mistake, to this day, Belichick has fully established himself as Trump’s corner. When Trump was on the campaign in 2016, he proudly shared a writing letter apparently written by Belichick. “Congratulations on a tremendous campaign,” it began in a language that sounded suspicious as Trump himself wrote it. ‘You handled an incredibly slanted and negative media and came out beautifully. Beautiful. “Considering Trump’s history of storytelling, there was a fair amount of skepticism that Belichick actually wrote the letter.
However, Belichick quickly declared his support for Trump. “Our friendship goes back many years,” he said, “and I think anyone who has spent more than five minutes with me knows that I am not a political person.” For someone like Trump, who judges people for how lavishly they praise him, it was probably enough for Belichick to gain America’s highest civilian honor. Given how easily Trump is given to the lights, there is a good chance that Belichick’s decision, no matter how finely worded in this statement, ended their friendship.
In addition to the personal consequences, Belichick turned down what in most circumstances would be the country’s most coveted honor. It’s not something one does lightly, and it’s an action that may well surprise Belichick’s critics, who have criticized the head coach for his “win at all costs” mentality.
After all, Belichick’s Patriots were at the center of two high-profile fraud scandals. The best known was that in 2007 there was the Spygate in which the Patriots were penalized for illegally recording opponents’ signals, followed by Deflategate of 2015. The latter was a decidedly silly case, which Belichick claimed was completely ignorant, but it added the fuel to those who would place an asterisk next to the whole of the Brady-Belichick-era Pats. How much the Patriots benefited from these incidents remains an open question, but Belichick’s coaching strategy clearly – to some extent – involved playing quickly and loosely with the rules. When I think about it, it is possible that Trump also regarded him as a kind spirit.
Either way, even if he had not had these stains in his coaching career, Belichick’s personality that confronted him in public would also secure a place among the league’s least beloved figures. In addition to acting as head coach, Belichick is also involved in compiling the product on the field. There is little sentimentality in Patriots country. Belichick the GM does not hesitate to move away from even beloved players, whether he thinks they are due to a decline or simply be too much of a salary barrier. He also gained the reputation of being a taskmaster on the field.
The rest of the NFL landscape has teamed up this season to celebrate the Patriots’ first losing record since 2000. Some of this was because sports fans hate teams that win too often. Just look at the Golden State Warriors in the NBA as an example for a franchise that has transitioned from a bunch of sweet scrapers to a despised superteam in a handful of seasons. The truth, however, is that the biggest reason the Patriots did not like it, especially now that Tom Brady was out of the picture, was because of their head coach. Not only did the Patriots keep winning, it was also as if Belichick enjoyed no joy in the process.
The private Belichick is in all likelihood a different person than any of these different versions of Belichick: whether it’s the showdown that pops up in the press conference, the accompanying rule bender that haunts the imagination of his opponent, or the cool-hearted businessman who will trade with your favorite player if it will save him a nickel tomorrow. There are many stories out there about Belichick off the field that present him as far more pleasing than any of the faces he reveals to the general public. Heck, there’s even a rumor that he has a bad sense of humor.
We may not really know someone’s inner life, not for sure, but we can judge them by their actions. In this case, Belichick did the right thing. According to reports, Belichick would receive the medal on Thursday in a private ceremony, which would have been just over a week since a pro-Trump mob, beaten by the president himself, assaulted the Capitol led to the deaths of five people. The rally led to a backlog of how radical and dangerous the president’s more hardcore supporters became.
Right now, the House of Representatives is starting to respond to accusations against the president. It is under these circumstances that Trump, while his tenure was waning, essentially intended to use the country’s highest honor to repay one of his rich, famous friends for saying nice things about him.
If Belichick had accepted the medal from a disgraceful prospective dictator days after an attempted coup, he would have confirmed the worst accusations of his fiercest critics. During an era in which the NFL’s black-black corps assumed white rule, Belichick would have forever sided with a man who did much to promote it.
Instead, Belichick took a stand that did not involve a small amount of personal sacrifice. At least Belichick has proven his critics wrong at least once. The head coach concludes his statement commenting on the Patriots’ commitment to social justice: ‘to continue these efforts while remaining true to the people, the team and the country I love outweigh the benefits of’ an individual award. ‘ Sometimes, it seems, it’s not about winning at all.