Not easy following a coaching legend

When an all-time great coach leaves a job, even the most delicate exit strategy leaves room for celebration. Whether Bill Belichick left the Patriots by his choice or by his bosses’ force, the words that authored his exit were rightfully written in superlatives.

“Coach Belichick will always be celebrated as a legendary sports icon here in New England who I believe will go in as a Hall of Famer on the first ballot,” team owner Robert Kraft declared. “Why? Because I think he’s the greatest coach of all time.”

Plaudits for Belichick rolled in from all corners, from current and former players to fellow Boston coaches, from the local high school coaching community to the national coaching fraternity. All of it well earned and well deserved, appreciation that even the notoriously hardened

Belichick should take time to absorb.

But one person who would be wise plugging his ears to those bouquets?

Jerod Mayo.

There’s no challenge in coaching quite like following a GOAT, with examples proving how the successor to a historically great coach can range from flameout failures to mildly relative successes. For Mayo, the former Patriots linebacker turned assistant coach turned head coach (as of Friday morning), succeeding in his first head coaching job means doing it in the shadow of the six-time Super Bowl champion Belichick, a man for whom he played and worked, a fixture whose presence won’t easily be erased.

Not that it needs to be ignored, but it most definitely should not be imitated. That’s the lesson that Joe Girardi, the former Yankees manager whose path in following four-time champion Joe Torre, his former boss as a bench coach and a player, remembered from his transition to the manager’s seat.

“It is a challenge, because you’re always going to be somewhat compared to them in the beginning. You feel that weight of bringing success to an organization that’s used to having that success,” Girardi said. “I think the greatest advice I ever got was actually from Joe Torre. He said, ‘You have to be yourself. Don’t try to be me.’

“[Mayo] can’t try to be Bill Belichick. There’s only one Bill Belichick. Just be yourself. That’s what I tried to do. It wasn’t always so easy, remember in 2008 [my first year] we didn’t make the playoffs. I’m thinking, ‘Great, how’s this going to turn out?’ We ended up winning the World Series the next year. But it’s hard. It’s a weight that you feel.”

Girardi, who’d been Torre’s bench coach in 2005, remembered Torre paving his way by encouraging his fellow former catcher to be free with ideas and suggestions, frequently quizzing him on alternate managing decisions. In Mayo, a man whom Belichick consistently praised for his understanding of the game as a player or assistant coach, the GOAT also found a willing protégé. He might be known as an all-time control freak, but Belichick delighted in sharing knowledge with others.

On one of the Yankees’ trips to Boston in ’05, Torre invited Girardi (along with Don Mattingly) to join him and Belichick for lunch in the North End.

“I don’t want to divulge what he said, but I remember him being so candid, sharing so much about coaching, that I was shocked. It was a day I’ll never forget,” Girardi said.

“I respect greatness, so I never get tired of a team winning, because it just shows you their process is really working. I think Bill Belichick was a genius in the way he coached, the way he got the most out of people. I remember thinking, ‘Man, I’m having lunch with the GOAT when it comes to football.’ ”

Plenty has been said about Belichick’s underwhelming coaching tree, former assistants such as Josh McDaniels, Matt Patricia, Charlie Weis, Al Groh, Eric Mangini, Romeo Crennel, and Joe Judge, to name a few, staggeringly unable to mimic his success. Clearly, the job is hard enough. For Mayo, it’s made harder by doing it directly in his predecessor’s prodigious shadow.

Think of John Phillip Bengtson, whose 20-21-1 record leading the post-Vince Lombardi Packers sent him packing after three seasons. (Bengtson would become the interim head coach of the Patriots in late 1972 and was named the team’s director of pro scouting, staying through the 1974 season.) Or think Gene Bartow, who resigned after two years of post-John Wooden life at UCLA, citing the extreme pressure. Think of Bobby Valentine’s disastrous Red Sox year succeeding Terry Francona, a 69-93 record after which he couldn’t run out of town fast enough.

Some have done better — Bill Guthridge provided quite a nice post-Dean Smith bridge for North Carolina hoops until the next great era under Roy Williams. The incomparable Bill Russell won his 10th and 11th NBA titles as Red Auerbach’s successor. Doug Williams went from a standout playing career at Grambling State to competently succeeding the great Eddie Robinson. Former Tennessee hoops standout Holly Warlick took the Lady Vols to three Elite Eight appearances in seven seasons following Pat Summitt’s historic reign. Alabama alum Ray Perkins won three bowl games in succeeding Bear Bryant. Bill O’Brien, Penn State’s head coach between Patriots offensive coordinator stints, won multiple coach of the year awards in succeeding Joe Paterno.

As Girardi sees it, the key is relatively simple. “When you’ve done it as long as a Bill

Belichick, a Nick Saban, a Joe Torre, the one thing you think about with those guys is that it was never about them,” he said. “It was always about the players and about winning. I think their perspective was correct. I think they wanted what was best for their players, just not on the field but off the field. It wasn’t about Joe Torre. He didn’t make it about himself.

“The other thing is the team took on the characteristics of the head coach, like you never saw the Patriots beating their chest all the time. It was, ‘This is what we expect, the standard we set.’ That’s the important thing. If you can create that standard and that expectation of winning it all, that’s when it’s great to go to work every day.”

For 24 years, Belichick made it abundantly clear that’s what he was about. Mayo, stepping out of that shadow, will try to do the same.