Tag: Super Bowl

🏈’A Giant Win: Inside the New York Giants’ Historic Upset over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII’ by Tom Coughlin with Greg Hanlon (2022)

If you’ve watched any NFL this year, you’ve heard plenty about the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins and their unsurpassed achievement of 50 years ago. That the 1972 Dolphins (which is covered brilliantly in this 2022 book) stand alone as the only undefeated team is thanks to the 2007 New York Giants and their surprise victory in Super Bowl XLII over the 18-0 New England Patriots of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Randy Moss and Junior Seau amongst others. Even an Eagles fan like myself can appreciate a division rival for saving all of us from 50+ years of New England boasting.

A Giant Win is a dissection of that Super Bowl game, series by series, by the team’s coach Tom Coughlin. The retelling of such a historic game from a coach’s perspective provides a really fascinating insight into both the technicalities of the sport and the emotional challenges of competing for championships. The broader context of the season, the players, and Coughlin’s career are interposed with Coughlin’s detailed analysis of the game resulting in a book that is part memoir, part football lesson and part celebration but is always interesting, insightful and entertaining.

Coughlin worked with Greg Hanlon (who also worked on Eric Dickerson’s excellent memoir) on the book, and together they have superbly captured Coughlin’s voice and tone. Coughlin’s personality as a coach – both of football and of men – and his passion for the game is apparent on every page.

The book also provides an interesting look at some of the key players in modern Giant’s history and allows Coughlin a platform to record his appreciation of, and respect for, many of the players he coached. There is no score settling – this is a book of celebration and reflection from a remove of 15 years by a man secure in his legacy. It’s a book that any Giant’s fan will love and any NFL fan would enjoy.

‘The Education of a Coach’ by David Halberstam (2005)

It is a very rare gift to turn your hand from being a defining voice on foreign policy to writing truly great sports books.  Possibly as difficult as winning 5 Super Bowls. In terms of achieving their own personal greatness, Halberstam and Belichick make a perfect match.

Written in 2005, The Education of a Coach is not a simple biography of Belichick.  It is first and foremost a Halberstam book – it jumps around in time and place, it digs deep into his family history and contains chapters that would stand alone as superb and insightful magazine profile pieces.

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The title is apt – Halberstam primarily seeks to understand how Belichick was formed as a coach.  Its a focus on a him as a person and coach with less discussion on the impact that Belichick had on the game of football than you might expect.

What emerges is a portrait of a singular man who wants to be the best coach he can be. He emerges very much as his father’s son, having begun his education at a young age at his father’s side. Steve Belichick was a legendary scout and coach who proved the perfect role-model for his son. As Halberstam himself notes, it is a book about two journeys; the Belichick family’s journey into the centre of American life after their arrival from Croatia and Belichick’s own journey to the top in the world of professional football.

Other key influences on Belichick were his friendships with fellow football obsessives, in particular his long time assistant coach Ernie Adams. Halberstam captures something that Belichick learned from each of the coaches he worked with. In particular, his complex relationship with Bill Parcells is analysed with the senior Bill emerging in my less favorable light.  The book only begins to look at his success at the Patriots in the final 2/3rd’s – as by then Belichick had learned the lessons that would help him achieve such great things.

It is a relatively short book – less ambitious in scope and length as Halberstam’s basketball masterpieces.  As with all of Halberstam’s books, it is superbly well written, incredibly easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable. It leaves with a real sense of a man  obsessed with his sport and destined to be successful.   Halberstam clearly likes his subject, but the book feels like a fair and honest telling of how Belichick became Belichick.

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It is hard to overstate the level of Belichick’s achievement.  Its rare the coach (or person) that merits a significant biography who then continues to achieve great things for more than 13 years after that biography was published.  In terms of seminal achievements, only Sir Alex Ferguson springs to mind.

There is another great book to be written capturing the greatness of what Belichick has ultimately achieved at the Patriots.  The Education of a Coach was published in 2005 after Belichick and the Patriots had won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years.  In an era where the sport was designed to prevent dynasties, the odds on the Patriots remaining at the top of their game post 2005 must have seemed low.  Yet, as we all know, Belichick would go on to reach 5 more Super Bowls (so far), winning 2 of them.  The Education of a Coach is a highly recommend starting point for anyone seeking to understand Belichick and the Patriots.

Any recommendations on later books on Belichick would be greatly appreciated. And if you enjoy this, do seek out all of Halberstram’s other great books.

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