18-0

So, the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl, again. Sports fans in New England are really in danger of getting spoiled, what with the Patriots, Red Sox and even Celtics having so much success. During most of the games this season, I always felt that victory was assured, even when the Pats were down in the fourth quarter. You just know that they will always come back. I’m trying hard not to take this for granted and become one of those annoying, entitled fans—I just need to think back to the early '90s when their usual record was 1-15 or 2-14, not 18-0.

Anyway, to get myself ready for the playoff run, instead of watching a lot of TV hype, I read David Halberstam’s book on Patriots coach Bill Belichick, “The Education of a Coach.” It was pretty interesting to see how Belichick became the somewhat mysterious figure he is now: brilliant defensive coach, grim workaholic, uncharismatic hater of the media, icon of unfashionable sideline wear.

As the son of a longtime assistant coach at Army, Belichick started analyzing game film around age 9. When he entered the NFL as a coach, he felt he had to work harder than anyone else to prove he belonged, since he never played in the NFL and went to college at Wesleyan, not exactly a football powerhouse. He spent long days and nights studying film and was generally considered, even early in his career, to be one of the best at breaking down a game and figuring out how to stop other teams.

Belichick later tried to instill that same work ethic in his players. To him, being the one of the best players on the team also means that you work the hardest, not relax because you’ve reached the top. That, to me, that is the most impressive aspect of Belichick’s amazing run—he has somehow convinced players who are among the best at their positions to subordinate their egos to what is best for the team. He even gets them to believe they are underdogs, a ludicrous proposition.

The book was written after the 2005 season, so it doesn’t make any mention of the recent scandals that have plagued Belichick—the “Spygate” incident, where the team was caught videotaping the Jets’ defensive signals, the ongoing hostility with Eric Mangini, former Patriots assistant and head coach of the Jets, running up the score against terrible teams, and the bizarre tabloid allegations of “wife-stealing.”

In spite of all this recent dirt, Belichick seems to have gotten pretty much a free pass from the New England fans and media (a little less so from the rest of the country, who now revile New England with the kind of venom formerly reserved for the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys). This just goes to show the accuracy of one of Halberstam’s assessments of life in the NFL, which goes something like “as long as you win, people don't care what else you do."

Myths

My book group met last week to talk about "The Myth of You and Me," by Leah Stewart. Compared to the other two books we have read, this was kind of a disappointment. It's the story of two women who were best friends in high school and college, until something happens (exactly what is not revealed until the end) to end the friendship. Several years later, one of them reaches out to try to repair things. The book follows two plot lines: Will they reunite, and what drove them apart in the first place? The book was well-written enough to keep my attention as events unfolded, but there was not much originality to the story. (Turns out one of them slept with the other's boyfriend—yawn.) Anyway, it was an OK book, but I wouldn't recommend it very enthusiastically.

Our next book will be about myths of a different kind—Greek myths. We are reading "The Penelopiad," by Margaret Atwood, a retelling of the Odyssey from the point of view of Odysseus' wife, Penelope. Hopefully I will like that one better :)

Wow

I just sat down and tried to write something about “Middlesex,” but words are failing me. I stayed home sick today and blasted through the last 200 pages of it, and I feel like I have just returned from immersion in another world. So mesmerizing, so original. It touches on so many interesting subjects (immigration, race relations, Prohibition), woven into a multi-generational story of a Greek-American family. The story is narrated by Calliope/Cal, who was raised as a girl but discovered at age 14 that she was genetically male. Sounds weird, but I promise you, it is worth reading.