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Editorial Review Product Description
Now in paperback, Pulitzer Prize-winner David Halberstam’s bestseller takes you inside the football genius of Bill Belichick for an insightful profile in leadership With a new afterword by the authorBill Belichick’s thirty-one years in the NFL have been marked by amazing success -- most recently with the New England Patriots. In this groundbreaking new book, David Halberstam explores the nuances of both the game and the man behind it. He uncovers what makes Bill Belichick tick both on and off the field. ... Read more Customer Reviews (68) 
A Borderline Ok Read
I bought this book primarily because it was on sale. I like reading books about NFL coaches in general because their stories are extremely interesting and often hold some interesting life lessons. One of my previous reviews was a brilliant biography on Vince Lombardi. This was not that.
I had the feeling that David Halberstam wrote this book to fulfill a publishing contract. It seemed at times scattered and uninteresting. I know that Bill Belichick is considered to be a personal and not so exciting guy, unless maybe you engage him in a discussion about football. This book embodied that for sure.
It took a while to finish this book and in fact I dropped it to finish another more interesting book then picked this guy up and struggled through. There are some points of interest but frankly that is what squeaks it out a 3 stars, really it should be 2.5. I recommend this only to hard core Patriots and Belichick fans and maybe to people who like to read stories about the NFL but be warned it's not well written.
Saint Belichick?
Reading David Halberstam's acknowledgements in the book "The Education of A Coach" before acutally reading the book, will give the reader a good idea of what he's in for; Bill Belichick hero-worship.I was looking for a book on Belichick because I know he was a student of the game, with no real playing experience, and he became tremendously successful in his industry.I was looking for something tangible to take from the book; an opportunity to learn from Belichick's methods and his way of creating and running a winning organization.Instead, Halberstam, who admittedly idolized Belichick before writing the book (before even meeting him personally), offers only a brief summary of Bill Belichick's life from birth until the latest Pats Super Bowl.Bill Belichick's flaws and mistakes are excused away, or blamed on others, and his successes are credited to him unconditionally.Two examples of this are Halberstam's excusing away Belichick's failure in Cleveland by blaming the media, the fans, and the ownership, and not by fully examining the way Belichick dealt with LT as a defensive coordinator with the Giants.
The second case, with LT, has a few pages of text devoted to it, but it reads like a Dick and Jane book.The problem is explained, but the solution is not, as a reader this bothers me to no end.In summary the author only states that if a similar problem with a player arose in the future, Belichick would address it immediately, how is not explained.
Unfortunately, a good author misses a chance to write a great book on a very interesting man.Dissappointing at best.Why David Halberstam?Why!?!
An In-Depth and Fascinating Analysis of a Winning Football Coach
David Halberstam is best known for his award-winning history narratives on the Viet Nam war
(Best and the Brightest) and Korean War (The Coldest Winter).However,Halberstam
has written some eminently readable books on sports.His writing is characterized by in depth
analyses of the key personalities of his topic be it history, politics, or sports.
Education of a Coach is only 270 pages. It is about Bill Belichik and pro football.
And, in the Halberstam style of writing, it starts with an engrossing story about Belichik's
grandfather, an impoverished, illiterate Croatian immigrant who leaves his wife and
family to find work in America.The immigrant becomes a coal miner and his son
becomes a respected college football scout. The grandson, Bill, is a good football player,
high on intelligence and passion for the game, but low on talent and speed. Football
injuries at a small college (Wesleyan) prevent him from going any further as a player.
But he loves football, and persuades Ted Marchibroda to take him on as an unpaid
assistant to review football film for the Baltimore Colts.
.
This book is really about the football coaching fraternity and Bill Belichik's extraordinary
persistence in learning the game. Low pay, humiliation, failures are an essential part of his
education as he slowly ascends each level of the football hierarchy.You see how hard he works
and you are silently rooting for him to succeed.The core of this book is Halberstam's depiction
of Belichik's uncanny ability to analyze the opponent's offensive weakness. His patient
absorption of football knowledge comes from established coaches and teachers. He learns what
set George Allen and Paul Brown apart from their contemporaries - their exceptional attention
to detail. And then he is shaped by his own experiences and failures. These insights would be
overlooked by most sports writers. After all, Belichik is a colorless, low-key and unlikeable
introvert and any book about him alone would be boring.But Halberstam's book is far from boring.
Personal glimpses of his stormy relation with Bill Parcells, Lawrence Taylor's impact on football
strategy, and the rise of an unheralded Tom Brady are well-known to most pro football fans.
Football junkies are attracted by the glitz and glamor of pro football.However, there is little
glitz and no glamor either in this book or in Bill Belichik. Yet it remains an absorbing book for
those who want to understand why some football teams are consistent winners.The average fan is
fascinated by the outrageous personalities of the player celebrities and the intoxicating elixir
of following a winning team.The complex mechanics of the game, the arduous preparation in game
strategy,and the system that is devised that leads to a winning team will be too deep for
impatient fans. The missing ingredient that I wish Halberstam would have discussed in more detail
is the chemistry between Belichik and his players.
When Belichik finally gets his chance as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, he fails, and he fails
badly.He returns to the New York Jets under his last previous head coach, the volatile Bill Parcells.
Parcells became furious when Belichick, his defensive assistant, overruleshim andcalls a blitz that
Parcells opposes. When the blitz works, Parcells lets go. He yells at Belichik over an open microphone,
shocking everyone who hears it."You're a genius -everyone knows it,a goddamned genius. But, that's
why you failed as a head coach - that's why you'll never be a head coach --- some genius."
But, Belichik gets one last chance when the New England Patriots give the head coaching
job to him in 2000.. At age 47, he hand-builds a team with no obvious stars, but whose players
are intelligent, teachable, and can function in the Belichik system in which the individual
is subservient to the team.The under-appreciated part of the book are the young assistants that he
grooms (and who are now emerging into the upper echelon of coaches and general managers
in pro football.)Two years later, to everyone's surprise including Belichik's, the New England Patriots
win the Super Bowl - their first ever - by upsetting the St Louis Rams who were heavily favored by 2
touchdowns. And he knows and his coaches know that his team wasn't that good.
As the game ends, Belichik hugs his longtime friend and assistant coach Ernie Adams and blurts
"Can you believe that we won the Super Bowlwith this team?"
Ron Jaworski who analyzed the film after the game, called it the greatest coaching job that he had ever seen.
By 2007, after 3 Super Bowls and one 16-0 season, Belichik's reign in New England has been labeled a Dynasty
You have a front row seat as Halberstam lays out the Education of a Coach.
Great Book!
Books talks more about his life and not so much as how he breaks down X's and O's.
Shines a light on coaching in the NFL
As a biography of Belichick this book is a decent read. As a vehicle for showing the often unseen world of NFL coaching and its pressures is what I believe sets this book apart from a simple biography of the man.
Halberstam shows how critical it is for aspiring coaches to build and keep relationships with others in the football business. Jobs are often gotten, perhaps most often, due to connections made early in ones career. Belichick had a huge advantage over many in that his father was already a successful coach well thought of by football insiders. This inside connection to the game allowed Bill to be given a chance when many others would not have gotten the opportunity.
Bill made the most of his chance with hard work and intelligence but his rise faced many obstacles, especially spending several years working for Bill Parcells and enduring that mans immense ego and sarcastic and often insulting and bullying behavior.
Belichicks rise to the pinnacle of his profession is a wonderful study of an intelligent mans rise to the top. Halberstam exposes, warts and all, a coaches nomadic and pressure filled life.
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