I have always loved CBS Sunday Mornings. Rare is the week that goes by when I don’t learn something about someone and something.
I also really enjoy the features that run tied to sports, from the youth level to the professional and everything in between. Even if I feel I know the story, I always watch because there is usually something I didn’t know that I take away.
So, there I was at 9 AM on Sunday when I saw Tony Dokoupil’s tease with Bill Belichick on his new book. I couldn’t wait to watch and see what The Coach was bringing forth, a leadership book that was coming out this week I would be getting soon.
And then, after some fun learnings about the why for the book, the grungy Navy sweatshirt and the like, we got the clickable moment that has taken what was an easy sit down and a one day story and propelled it into a narrative of distraction, “he said, she said, they said,” and questions about entourages, relationships, protocol, ethics and the like.
A simple feature became a tangled mess.
I am not here to know what was promised, what was provided, what was asked, and how this situation became so tangled. Mike McCarthy on Front Office Sports had a pretty in-depth piece worth reading here and Peter King chimed in as well. However, after being asked, after more reading, after following the back and forth, it’s worth a few thoughts.
Here goes.
First and foremost, if you know anything about Bill Belichick and the people around him during his time with the Patriots, it was always about focusing on the field and minimizing distractions. Reading best sellers on his background, his preparation, his quest for an edge, and his success…books like David Halberstam’s “The Education of a Coach,” and Ian O’Connor “Belichick”… you get a full sense of the sole focus the man has, and how he became successful. Control. Maniacal attention to detail. Loyalty to those around him. Finding a way to win. Driven. Focused, rarely off message, and rarely giving out any messages other than what was the minimum.
If you watched the great “30 For 30,” “The Two Bills,” about the careers and relationship between Coach Belichick and Coach Bill Parcells, even though it was done a few years ago, you SAW the guarded nature, the careful answers, and even the non-answers for the questions presented. Pretty simple and straightforward. Don’t answer a question you don’t want to, be prepared going into the interview, pick your spots, and survive and advance with doing the minimum and keeping the “state secrets” inside. He was also, as pointed out in the FOS piece, surrounded by the best on and off the field, especially on the communications side, most notably Berj Najarian, who always had the coach’s back, and maintained cordial and smart relationships with the media.
You knew what you were getting into, if you got the chance to sit down and talk to the coach, and the answer was usually just enough but not a great deal. Understood.
It was his authentic self.
Fast forward to the past few months, the insertion of Jordan Hudson on the professional image making side, the social posts, the back and forth of whether Hard Knocks was happening or not, the perceived lack of communication over what was asked or not about CBS Sunday and on and on, which included Hudson becoming part of the story, and it seems like almost a culture clash of what worked with the Patriots vs. the world Team Belichick is now adapting to, which is what a younger audience may be interested in and how it fit into building a successful culture in the very fluid world of college football today.
Even the interrupting of the interview by Hudson, which “traditional” communications people chimed in on by saying it was a violation of one of the cores of the business… don’t make yourself part of the story…seemed off base for someone who was watching from a distance. (I firmly agree btw…the interruptions are usually a way for the interrupter to assert power to the client and usually don’t accomplish month. The best at managing situations have relationships on both sides that can navigate, prepare and get things done to avoid the cringeworthy moments.)
But if you look at the lens of where “media” and “communications” is today, was it really that off base? We see everywhere from Hollywood to the White House communications people who enjoy toying and confronting those trying to do a story, using the pulpit and the power to coerce and control a narrative. We see people who are in the “influence” space morphing into advisory roles with high level politicians, celebrities and leadership types as a new way of handling communications and reshaping images not for the audience maybe older people would think, but for a generation that likes the buzz, the short video, the Avant-garde , and the disruptive. Whether it is right or wrong is maybe up for debate, but it is what we see today in many places.
That’s all well and good, and having a blend of traditional and a newer point of view is always important to keep growing and redefining oneself, but is it what even a younger audience asks for…
Is it authentic?
Also, the question maybe to ask…what was the goal going in and did we achieve it…whether that is a social post, a personal appearance or a media interview. It would be interesting to know how the Belichick remake, at least off the field, is jibing with the relaunch on the field, where things seem to be status quo with the model of success that has been in the past.
Can they fit together? Should they?
What does a win look like overall for this newer look of a successful coach, a personality, an athlete, even a brand?
Maybe there is no plan, maybe it’s well thought out and like any relaunch, there will be fits and starts. It looks like we saw a bit of a hiccup last Sunday, but…maybe in the upside-down world of communications today, we didn’t. Sometimes we are looking at such things through a lens that is older and needs to be refreshed. Sometimes upon further review, the clearer lens that was older…the one that has delivered time and again…may be the right one. Is that being asked in Chapel Hill? Don’t know.
Coming out of this there are a few other aspects of note.
One winner was probably CBS, who, by getting the access they had, took what may have been a one-day story and got attention for an elongated period. Did the publisher win by drawing more attention to the book? That maybe is now in question, but it’s doubtful that people who watched or heard about the back and forth this week between camps are rushing out to buy a leadership book if they weren’t going to do so before.
Also, whether you agree with the brash style or approach to this whole thing, it is clear that one thing that is very much missing is larger, better communication…between the publisher, Team Belichick, The University, and CBS in this case. Something went awry somewhere, and for a leader who was averse to attention to himself, who was all about football, who prided himself on solid communication around him while at the Patriots, and who according to most people, hated distractions from the task at hand, something is amiss, or at least is in need of clarity and a unified front going forward.
Or maybe not. It’s hard to know from the outside what a win looked like for this.
One last point on this tangled web. Sports are a bottom-line business on the field. A zero-sum game. As the other Bill, Parcells, like to say, “You are what your record says you are,” and for an elite football coach doing a restart on the college level, if he is successful on the field, if UNC rolls in cash, if players transferring in to play for the legendary coach are happy, these seemingly missteps can be forgotten, adjusted to and maybe even overlooked.
If the Tar Heels don’t win, the remake, no matter how unique, how perceived authentic or inauthentic it is, doesn’t work.
From the outside, lessons learned, and hard to find a winner here.
Let’s see what’s next, training camp is still a few months off.
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