Opinion: Bill Belichick and Nick Saban were the kind of coaches I tell my therapist about

Editor’s Note: Jeff Pearlman is the author of 10 books. You can read his journalism substack here Pearlman.substack.com The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.

Back, oh, 25 years ago, when I was a young baseball writer for Sports Illustrated, I had a question for Jim Fregosi, then the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays.

We were standing inside the team’s clubhouse roughly two hours before the start of that night’s game — the legendary baseball lifer, a bunch of journalists, some players. Fregosi was loud and brash, the owner of a roadmapped face that told the story of too many Marlboros mixed with too many afternoons in the sun. And after clenching my sweat-coated palms and taking a deep breath, I turned to him and said: “Skip, my name is Jeff Pearlman. I write the Inside Baseball column for Sports Illustrated, and I just wanted to …”

He cut me off.

“John,” he said, “I don’t know what the f–k that is. Just ask your goddamn question.”

Fregosi proceeded to fire a large wad of tobacco juice into a Styrofoam 7-Eleven cup and ignore me.

My therapist knows the story well. I mention it now because, as I’m writing, the news has crossed my desk that, after 24 seasons and six Super Bowl championships, Bill Belichick will no longer be coaching the New England Patriots. This comes less than 24 hours after Nick Saban, Alabama’s unparalleled head coach for 17 magnificent years and multiple national titles, announced his retirement from the sport.

Together, the two men go down as inarguably the greatest pro (Belichick) and college (Saban) football coaches in the history of modern sports. Under his leadership, Belichick took an organization that never sniffed a Super Bowl title and made it a regular occurrence. He’s the man who brought you Tom Brady’s quarterback brilliance, who brought you the second (magnificent) act of wide receiver Randy Moss. Saban, meanwhile, did the impossible. Before his arrival in Tuscaloosa, Alabama football was all about Bear Bryant, the late coach whose name and likeness personified Crimson Tide football. Now, after bringing the program six national championships, Saban has set the Bear aside. He is Bama.

And while we in the punditry business will use the occasions to evoke glorious Saturday and Sunday nights on the gridiron, and debate whether so-and-so coach is greater than so-and-so coach, I am struck by what — to journalists nationwide, at least — this surely must represent.

Namely, the demise of the grump coach.

Yes, the grump coach. Belichick is a grump. Saban is a grump. One-word answers. Dismissive shrugs. Indifferent brush offs. Pointed stares. That look—that dreaded, nightmarish, awful look — that screams one of the following:

• “What type of stupid question is that?” 
• “Who let you in here?”
• “You are a millimeter of lint on my sweater.”

If one gazes around professional and college sports these days, the vast majority of coaching hires are made with public relations in mind. In many ways, the introductory press conference is what matters. A fresh new face beneath a crisp hat. Reheated talk of hopes and dreams and aspirations of hometown glory. The young whippersnapper with an Einsteinian knack for the game.

Teams aren’t mere teams — they’re brands, to be sold and marketed and peddled on Twitter and TikTok like warped Hasbro toys. When the University of Colorado hired Deion Sanders to coach its football team last year, he was really being hired to be “Coach Prime,” to exude confidence and excitement and convince hundreds of thousands of young American men and women to plunk down $75 on an application to attend school in Boulder (Plus, why not throw in $100 for a Buffs sweatshirt!).

When the Detroit Lions trot out coach Dan Campbell to address the media, he’s not merely a football coach talking Xs and Os. He’s a flashing billboard—This is how we do in Motown! This is who we are! Grrr! Bark! Snarl! 

Not all that long ago, coaches and managers were coaches and managers. Their jobs were in the titles — coach, manage. And when they addressed the media, it was usually done in a dark and dank office, a cracked-open Schlitz in one hand, a smoldering Camel in the other.

Legendary Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka enjoyed growling at people as cigar smoke oozed from his lips. George Allen, coach of the then-Washington Redskins, took pleasure in deflecting criticisms with a swat of his wrist.

Steve Rushin, one of my old SI colleagues, loves telling the story of Doug Rader, former manager of the then-California Angels, throwing his pants (literally, his pants) at him after an unwelcomed inquiry. Why, I once interviewed Lou Piniella, manager of the Seattle Mariners, as he (simultaneously) peed at a urinal, smoked a cigarette and ate and turkey-and-Swiss hoagie. “Ask me what you wanna know,” he said, “then leave.”

On the one hand, it’s not always fun dealing with the grump. Actually, it’s rarely fun dealing with the grump. But at least grumps are sincere and straightforward and generally incapable of posting a video to Instagram (without a grandchild’s assistance).

Through all the miserable years of observing Belichick and Saban host toast-dry press conferences, I never once thought they were trying to impress, or make a mark or work on their Q rating. The men were straightforward football coaches, who lived for the games and died with every loss and craved attention as one might a yeast infection. They desperately wanted to win—and did so. Without bells and whistles. Without marketing sidekicks. Without (a la Coach Prime) a team of digital minions chronicling their every step.

Yes, we, the sports journalists, hated dealing with the grumps. They were difficult and ornery and indifferent to our plights. And yet, they offered something all of us crave.

Sincerity.

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