Hub fans won’t see a more perfect union
Who says history doesn’t repeat itself?
That’s what’s now happening for the second time in this fairy tale town.
What we and the rest of the world, including the newest Mudville known as Atlanta, are bearing witness to is analogous to Scripture’s description of the perfect marriage in which the two shall become as one.
In this instance it’s the union of a coach and a star.
There can no longer be any doubt Tom Brady was ordained by fate to become pro football’s greatest quarterback, impervious to pressure, guided by instincts that are uncannily correct.
Nor can there be any disagreement over the match-lessness of Bill Belichick when it comes to handling players and devising game plans. What is there to say? He was given a gift.
They have now brought out the best in each other for 17 years, which almost defies human nature in terms of ego and submission.
One title, two titles: fine. But these two remain hungry even with bellies that have been stuffed with success.
Old-timers in this town saw it once before with a coach named Red Auerbach and his transcendent star, Bill Russell.
During Russell’s last two seasons at the University of San Francisco, his Dons won 55 games in a row, including two NCAA championships. Then he went to Melbourne, where he led the U.S. Olympic team to an 8-0 gold medal record, trouncing opponents by an average of 53 points.
Finally he joined the Celtics, with whom he won 11 championships in 13 seasons, missing a 12th when he injured his ankle in 1958.
Together he and Auerbach, who made Belichick look like a barrel of laughs, fashioned the quintessential Celtics dynasty.
Russell was fiercely independent, while Red was notoriously autocratic.
“A top sergeant with corns has a better outlook on life than Auerbach,” the late Los Angeles columnist Jim Murray insisted.
And Russell? Back in the day the joke was that he planned to open a string of ice cream shops called “Unfriendly’s.” How did they coexist? “I live in a democracy and I believe in democracy, but in sports there can be no democracy because there isn’t time for one,” Red explained. “So my word is law.” That was fine with Russell. “In order to lead, you must know how to follow,” he reasoned. “When I joined the Celtics I stepped into a tailormade situation and Red was the tailor. In my mind, he was the best coach who ever lived, and we shared the most essential ingredient in any relationship: mutual respect. So why would I challenge him?”
Auerbach had in Russell what Belichick has in Brady, which is a star who models what a coach wants from the rest of the team.
“We played like children and quarreled like men,” Russell said. “In sports, as in a lot of other professions, you have to be childlike without being childish; there’s a world of difference.”
After upsetting the Lakers in 1969, he announced his retirement in a Sports Illustrated piece, placing his heart upon his sleeve.
“To me, one of the most beautiful things to see is a group of men coordinating their efforts toward a common goal, alternately subordinating and asserting themselves to achieve real teamwork. We tried to do that on the Celtics and I think we succeeded.”
Oh, did they ever, just like these Super Bowl champions who’ll be parading through town on duck boats again today.
If you’re from around here, consider yourself twice blessed.