| Title | : | The Education of a Coach |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1401301541 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781401301545 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 2005 |
The Education of a Coach Reviews
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If you decide to read this you're going to want to be a Patriots fan. If you're not, you run the risk of projectile vomiting.
In The Education of a Coach, Halberstam has crafted an excellent treatise on the coaching aspect of Bill Belichick's life and it's almost nothing but praise. It stops short of out-and-out sycophancy, citing Belichick's faults, most notably displayed in a rough five years with the troubled Cleveland Browns. But how can you blame Halberstam for showering praise upon the man? Belichick has created a dynasty (a team that remains dominant season after season) out of a ragged football team in an age where the league itself has intentionally twisted the rules in order to "level the playing field" which has essentially made it all-but-impossible to maintain a dynasty.
That's great and all if you're a New England fan, but there are 31 other teams in the league and even though I've been a Patriots fan since I was about 10, I do understand why people hate them. Heck, I hated the Cowboys back in the 90s when they were the dominate power and my team was the suck of sucks. But for the last decade and more it's been the Pats who have been one of the top dogs. That alone would make most fans of other teams want to puke, but also during that time not only have they gone to the Super Bowl five times and won three of them, but they were embroiled in the Spygate scandal, they were the beneficiaries of the highly contested/controversial "Tuck Rule", and they have a quarterback with movie star good looks and a supermodel wife...so you see, there is PLENTY to hate about them and their antisocial, genius, troll-under-the-bridge coach who created all this, god bless his cold, little heart!
However, if you can get passed that, and if you want to read about the kind of drive, ambition and determination it takes to rise to the top and be a successful coach in the NFL, this is a very worthwhile read indeed. -
let me start by saying that if youre looking for a biography of a public figure which reads like a novel OR has some sort of life-affirming message, this probably isnt going to be what youre looking for.
however, if youre interested in both the complicated history of football (as told mostly though coaching and front-office politics), and like to savor the technical aspects of organizing and executing at the highest level of football, then youll find this an enjoyable read.
im a pretty huge football fan, but as a relative latecomer - that is, i only got 'serious' about watching as an adult - i lack some of the context on the players from decades ago. tracking some of the players and coaches and names across universities and towns and teams was occasionally a little overwhelming, but it didnt (for me) diminish the enjoyment of following this coach's path to where he is now. i already respected belichick for his quite-obvious abilities and work ethic, and this well-organized and well-written book only added to it, for me. -
The book contained some interesting insights into Belichick's background and football strategy. The beginning suffered from a lack of chronology jumping back and forth between young Bill Belichick and his father Steve. It also felt like there wasn't enough about his most important time on the Patriots, in part because his early years on the Patriots were somewhat devoid of the bitter politics he encountered at his other jobs, and in part because this book came out in 2005, and since then Belichick has been coaching the Patriots an additional 12 years and won another 2 Super Bowls. I am a Patriot's fan via my Massachusetts-born husband, and I was disappointed that Belichick didn't pull out any defensive magic last night in Super Bowl LII.
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It's just in the last couple of years that I stopped disliking Bill Belichick and became a huge fan. This book goes a long way in explaining why. Having recently finished Michael Holley's book on Brady and Belichick, it was a delight to read something that wasn't driven by innuendo and crowd opinion. David Halberstram is a superior writer, he obviously did his research and wasn't just writing an opinion piece. This is a terrific book on how to do things right. Belichick went through some very tough times but was always focused. He just did his job, something he always tells his players. he worked harder than anyone, but was not a tyrant like Bill Parcells who he learned from. Halberstram, worked just as hard putting his book together. To do so, he must have watched as much game film as Belichick. He writes as well about football as he did about politics. Bill had the discipline, organizational skills, and was detailed and tough minded. Aspiring c.e.o.'s could use this book as a template for success. Halberstram was not afraid to quote the language used by the players and coaches( F bombs for example) but it was never for effect. I am now going to get some more of his books.
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Halberstam is one of those writers who could pen a grocery list and you'd still want to read it. He has classic books about US politics, Michael Jordan and the NBA and here, Bill Belichick and the NFL.
True to its title, this book is more about how Belichick came to be the Patriot's coach. There's no great mystery or single revealing anecdote. The aura is partly a reflection of authenticity. Someone who has always wanted to do what they do, cares only for what they do, and is very very good at it.
There's a Hemmingway-esq tone to the writing in this volume. 'Bill came from a hard town. Of hard men and dirty work. He knew what it meant to work'. And so on. Which is enjoyable, without being corny. This is a positive book, but not haigographic. Halberstam doesn't try and sell you on Belichick's lessons of leadership, or suggest he has tapped into some secret feel for the game. It's mainly just a story of a man who is smart and works really really hard. Thus, the book somewhat deflates the aura even if it reflects it as well.
An enjoyable read, and one that has me keen for the NFL season to start, even if we are over 5 months away. -
David Halberstam gets into the fraternity that is coaching well in his look at how Bill Belichick became the greatest coach of all time. Whether you're a New England Patriots fan or not, you should enjoy this one.
Sure, there are all the other Patriots books, including "The Dynasty" by Jeff Benedict, the Belichick bio by Ian O'Connor and the Michael Holley stuff, but Halberstam is.. well, Halberstam. This is not as much a sports book as a book on how time, education, being in the right place, knowing people and working hard creates what you are. Had Belichick been a police officer or nuclear physicist, I'm sure Halberstam would have written just as compelling a book as he has done with football.
Football fans know of Belichick's career with Baltimore and Cleveland and the one-day head coaching job with the Jets, but Halberstam does a nice job of compiling all that in a short, 277-page book. Parts are repetitive... plays in certain games, anecdotes with other coaches, his father's career are repeated a few times but it's to make a point again.
The book was published in 2005, so there's no Spygate stuff or Inflategate or the continuous Super Bowl victories and Tom Brady is only mentioned toward the end. If Halberstam was still alive, it'd be nice if he updated the book to include all the new stuff as Belichick moved on up into the stratosphere of great coaching. -
The nuggets of information about Ernie Adams were more valuable and interesting than the rest written about Coach Belichick.
"That year Agase was a little surprised when he received in the mail, unsolicited, an unusual document, beautifully bound as if it were a college thesis." (41) -
This book gave me more positive feelings about football than actually watching football ever did.
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I had the good fortune to have started this book only a week or two before the 'Spygate' scandal broke out, and it really provided some context into the whole situation for me. Belichick is a guy who will do anything to win, and it's not inconceivable that this is something he would do. That said, I do think he is an honorable man as well, and I don't think what he did was the dramatic mess it was made out to be. With great success comes the inevitable backlash, and that's what 'spygate' was, no different from Dane Cook being heckled all over the internet by the same folks who worshiped him a year earlier.
Halberstam was a great writer, and this book shows his dedication to the details. We're given a heretofore unseen glimpse into the life and mind of possibly the greatest coach in football history, and it's clear how he came to be such. As a huge Patriots fan for my whole life, I thought I'd evaluated the Belichick era from every possible angle, and for someone like me, it was refreshing to see it on display from a new, deeper one. Fans of the Patriots can read the book and see certain Belichick 'tricks of the trade' such as faking an injury to stop the clock or slow another team's momentum, described from his early days as a Defensive Coordinator with the Giants, and then smile, remembering games such as the one in Indianapolis against the Colts in the regular season a few years back, where the Patriots benefited from a Willie McGinest 'injury' to slow the Colts' approach to the goal line, and then McGinest was the one to make the final tackle against Edgerrin James on 4th and Goal from the 1, sprinting to mid-field to celebrate the victory.
In other words, Patriots fans will have a deeper appreciation for this book, but I think it can be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates a good character study. -
Between 2002-2005 the New England Patriots football team accomplished the improbable: winning three Super Bowls in four years. David Halberstam’s book details how the franchise’s remarkable success rests largely in the hands of their coach, Bill Belichick. In this engaging biography, Halberstam traces the Belichick family ancestry and chronicles the upbringing of young Belichick under his revered father, Steve, a lifetime coach and gifted scout. Steve taught his son at the age of nine how to become a studious disciple of the game by breaking down film and assembling a game plan to think like the other team. Halberstam probes Belichick’s uncharismatic coaching style to show how his scholarly intelligence of football have made him a great leader. Always an inscrutable figure, Belichick, however, prides himself on shunning the spotlight, trying to remain as anonymous and unadorned as possible. His passion for learning is matched only by his peerless work ethic, which has enabled him to create an atmosphere where players abandon their egos in favor of a role-playing system that produces championships teams. Proving that hard work and camaraderie surpass superior talent and strength, Belichick has assembled players committed to the very essence of team. This is a thoughtful book about a singularly driven and intensely devoted coach in an era where the limelight culture, the lucrative contracts, and the excessive egos of athletes too often pollute the team concept. Halberstam has captured Belichick’s life as a coach at the height of stardom. He is a leader who, nonetheless, values his privacy and wants no part of celebrity. The book’s storytelling is rich with insight, focusing throughout on Belichick’s growth as a champion.
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I have almost zero interest in football, but my faith in David Halberstam is so great that I got this. It’s an incredibly glowing biography of Patriots coach Bill Belichick that at time approaches hagiography. Part of that, no doubt, is because the Patriots’ Spygate scandal was only uncovered two years after the book was published. While well written and serious like all of Halberstam's works, it doesn’t come off as one of his best.
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I don't even watch football anymore, but Halberstam does such a great job of narrating the subtleties of being a professional coach, the strategies, the intrigues, that I was completely drawn into the narrative.
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This biography of Bill Belichik (whom, as I root for the Jets, I hate) is the best biography of a sports coach that I have ever read.
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EDUCATION OF A COACH
This was a difficult book to rate. I've read an enjoyed David Halberstam's books in the past and appreciated his writing. The literary world is not as full when one considers the books he might have written in the past ten years since his tragic death.
However, the subject of this book, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, is not one of my favorite sports personalities. Indeed, he is near the bottom of the list.
That being said, I have gained a bit more than a modicum of respect for Belichick. There is no question that he is a football genius and a great coach. He learned vital lessons from a myriad of sources. I particularly enjoyed the profiles of these friends, mentors, coaches, and his father. Halberstam focuses on people, not plays. In this book, that is a plus.
A couple of minuses:
The chapter on Belichick's tenure in Cleveland begins with some misinformation and a paragraph that does not give enough factual material. H... states that the Browns had not won a championship since the days of Paul Brown, over 30 years before B... In truth, they had won, under coach Blanton Collier, the 1964 NFL Championship, which was the last before the Super Bowl began. They reached the championship game the following year, losing to Green Bay, and in 1968 when the Baltimore Colts beat them 34-0.
As of this writing, June 2017, the Browns and the Detroit Lions are the only teams that existed before the Super Bowl era to have never played in it.
There was much furor when the Browns left for Baltimore before the 1996 season, contrasting Cleveland's support of the team against poor attendance at Colts games before their move to Indianapolis in March 1984. However, if Halberstam is correct, the fan base in Cleveland was a bit of smoke and mirrors. He wrote that season ticket sales were about 50% of stadium capacity. In the Colts heyday, theirs was close to 90%.
Halberstam twice demonstrates Belichick's analytical skills in a way which might throw negative light on the coach. After a victory over St. Louis in one Super Bowl and prior to their beating Carolina in another, Belichick commented about the shortcomings of his team. In my opinion, that is a backhanded way of denigrating the opposition.
The close of Chapter One sparks some dissent, twelve years after the publication of the book:
"The Patriots are not necessarily America's Team, as Dallas had so optimistically nicknamed itself in an earlier era, but they are an easy team for ordinary football fans to like in the new era of football."
It is hard to forget SPYGATE, which took place about half a year after Halberstam's death, or DEFLATEGATE, for which Tom Brady was suspended for four games. I wonder what Halberstam would think of Bill Belichick today.
Five stars slightly waning. -
As a big fan of NFL football and author David Halberstam, I decided to finally read this book primarily to see if I could mine any leadership secrets from Bill Belicheck, one of the most winning coaches in the League. What I found was the typical advice we get from successful coaches: work hard, work harder than the next guy, and focus your life exclusively on the game. I’m not sure that it is a secret or a recipe that we all want to follow.
Halberstam admits he is a fan of the Bills and Belichick, and Belichick is a fan of Halberstam. Both lived on a small island near Cape Cod. That’s how the book came together and probably why the author glosses over recent controversies, including an incident in which a Patriots assistant was caught taping defensive signals from the sidelines. Breaking that rule cost Belichick $500,000 in fines. It’s not mentioned in the book.
Despite this, we learn of the struggles the coach had to face to get to his current position. He works hard. He studies other teams and learns their weaknesses. “They were much more likely to force the other team into mistakes than to make mistakes themselves.” We learn about his legendary discipline and the infamous scowl on the sidelines.
Halberstam summarizes Belichick this way, “What a curious, complicated, contradictory man, a hard man to reach and to understand completely. He was completely dedicated to fighting off the virus caused by too much ego, all too aware of what it could do to his dominating purpose—playing championship-level team football. But a man like that, who was so driven to win, and who excelled again and again at such a high level, was hardly without ego. Instead, he had learned how to make his ego work for him, and to keep it from being a negative force. What he had excelled at was taking his ambition and talent and fusing it into something larger than himself. “
Bills fans and hardcore football fans will enjoy this book. Just don’t expect to find any unique leadership secrets. -
This is more than a book about the multiple Superbowl-winning coach of the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick. The lessons it contains can be applied to life in general and just about every field of endeavor.
As he always did, Halberstam digs deep into his subject matter while still framing it with important big-picture insights. He begins the story with Coach Bill Belichick's father because Steve Belichick was such an outstanding college scout (back when scouting was in its infancy) and because of the influence he had on Bill Belichick growing up. The origins of Belichick's success are easily traced to the years he spent helping his father, first breaking down tape of opposing teams to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and later assisting him as a coach on the practice field.
The themes of the book echo the lessons that Bill Belichick has taught generations of coaches and players. Know your job inside and out. Work harder than anyone else. The more you can do, the more you can do. It also follows Belichick through his career as he learned those lessons, and it's unsparing when it comes to Belichick's failures. Not surprisingly, Belichick himself is likewise unsparing when describing those times and places when things didn't work out.
The book was written soon after the Patriots won their third Superbowl, so their future championships under Belichick were still in the future. It's fascinating to read the names of the players from that era and note just how many of them have gone on to become coaches themselves and even to defeat Belichick's Patriots from time to time.
This is a book about the pursuit of excellence, and I highly strongly recommend it. -
*Listened on Audible*
This book was pretty good. I’ve read similar books about Belichick including Ian O’Connor’s book, Belichick, and Michael Holley’s book, War Room. I would recommend War Room first because of its deeper dive into the Belichick coaching tree and philosophies. O’Connor’s book and Halberstam’s books are quite similar and with slight nods going to one book over the other. O’Connor goes into more of Belichick’s personal life including his divorce, family, and friends, while Halberstam hardly touches on it. Halberstam goes into more detail regarding Steve Belichick and his influences on Bill Belichick which was also interesting. Altogether, I’m probably biased in my review because I learned information from O’Connor’s book, which then repeated itself in Halberstam’s work.
Now, if I REALLY had to narrow down a recommendation of one over the other, this would be my short list:
Why you should read “Belichick”
You’re interested in learning more about how an all-time great coaching career effected Bill’s personal life.
Why you should read “The Education of a Coach”:
You’re interested in learning about Bill’s early influences in coaching and their impacts in his early years.
I would recommend both books for someone curious about the life of a GOAT coach, but TEoaC will be more succinct for anyone more lightly interested or someone without much interest in football. -
Many reasons I enjoyed this book:
* David Halberstam writes brilliantly and masterfully crafts facts into a story. I love his thought process and connections that he makes.
* I have had an appetite for the science and history behind team football. I absolutely loved this year's past super bowl where ironically, the Pats played a hard, old school style to beat the Rams (2019). I am fascinated by the idea of Belickick creating a team first dynasty in a sports era surrounding individual performances, egos, and money.
* The parallel connections between Steve Belichick and his son Bill showed the connection and history that I thought was interesting. It reminded me of the way The Godfather story is told between Don Vito Corleone and Michael Corleone. (Not that I'm saying Bill Belicheck is Michael Corleone, but the Halberstam outlined the story in a very engaging way.
* Being a Browns fan (I know, it's rough!), the chapter on Bill's interaction with Art Modell gave me a better understanding of the history cursing poor Browns fans.
I admire Bill Belicheck's determination and hard working spirit. The old school style of play is something that I love. The David Halberstam style read is read. -
I started this book months ago! I was reading it as an ebook at night and would make it through three or four pages before I started nodding off. I made it to chapter 9 that way. I started listening to the audiobook at chapter 7 and it is going much quicker now.
I was able to listen to the rest of the book over two work days and it went much better! Once I got to Bill-in-Cleveland the book picked up for me. I was more familiar with the cast and had a base knowledge. It was still great to hear all of that glory again. I would love to see a postscript added for the 12 years since the book was published. Surely we'll get one once he retires. -
Love him or hate him, you have to respect what Bill Belichick has accomplished in his career. This book is an incredible account of where Coach Belichick came from, what drove him, and what it took to achieve success in the NFL. It's a fascinating read, from his early days studying film in Indianapolis, his successes with Bill Parcells in New York, and his failures in Cleveland, up until his third Super Bowl win in the 2004 season. Without a doubt, he's the greatest NFL coach of all time, and studying his story is a great lesson for all leaders.
