Perspective | Trump offered Bill Belichick an honor. Duty compelled him to refuse.
Coaches all the time go to the tape. And the tape, that hideous tape, doesn’t lie. Had Belichick stood by his acceptance, he would have risked handing a propaganda victory to militia terrorists, white supremacists, cop killers, avowed would-be assassins, the neckbearded scum who chased a Capitol Police officer up those Capitol stairs. The reverse of patriots — traitors.
Belichick’s attendance on the White House ceremony on this local weather and context may by no means have been banal. There was no means to one way or the other separate himself from the article of impeachment against Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” or from the oath-profaning bizarros who beat officers with their pikes and flagsticks, injuring greater than 58 of them. To have accepted a medal from Trump underneath these circumstances would have been to normalize if not tacitly affirm them, to counsel that what occurred wasn’t so dangerous that it prevents a visit to Washington to decide up a ribbon.
Belichick, son of a veteran and Naval Academy instructor, is a well-known nonconformist, however he’s additionally an institutionalist. That’s indeniable. It is why he apparently concluded that, prefer it or not, pretty or not, deliberately or not, he can be perceived by his fellow residents and extra importantly his gamers as giving a patina of harmlessness to insurrectionist thugs who did such violence within the Capitol halls, flailing with their sticks as they demanded executions and inquisitions. He isn’t any odd sports activities determine, not some long-retired golfer or college coach. He is the energetic coach of a revered NFL staff named the “Patriots.” And the winningest man in a recreation the president has relentlessly used for political cowl and convenient distraction.
“Above all I am an American citizen with great reverence for our nation’s values, freedom and democracy,” Belichick wrote in an announcement Monday night time asserting he would decline to settle for the medal.
Belichick often holds his personal ideas so carefully that it’s unattainable to know his convictions. An exception got here throughout the 2016 election, when he was sufficient of a Trump supporter that he wrote him an admiring letter and wasn’t embarrassed to have it publicized. On Monday, he acknowledged he was “flattered” by the supply of the medal when Trump first prolonged it final week.
But Belichick has additionally been demonstrably supportive of his gamers throughout the NFL’s spring and summer season of protests over racial injustice, and he made a degree to say in his Monday night time assertion, “One of the most rewarding things in my professional career took place in 2020 when, through the great leadership within our team, conversations about social justice, equality and human rights moved to the forefront and become actions.”
Belichick has by no means gone in for hole gestures, or specious patriotism, both. Asked as soon as why he didn’t put on the NFL’s “Salute to Service” mock camo and patchwork with which the league has fundraised for and aligned itself with navy causes, he replied, “I don’t think what sweatshirt I wear is that important,” and added that he doesn’t care about “whatever the theme of the week is.”
Instead, he has spent a part of an offseason narrating a World War II documentary about D-Day, made common visits to Walter Reed and talked meaningfully about Veterans Day as a day that makes all different American holidays even attainable. He was reared on the Naval Academy campus, and to at the present time he helps veterans’ causes by means of his favourite restaurant, Mission BBQ, the place the nationwide anthem is sung each noonday, and which ships ribs to troops abroad by the ton.
Among different issues, Belichick is alleged to be a critical scholar of navy historical past. He is aware of, then, that these howlers of superstition and spite who beat their means into the Capitol weren’t patriots or revolutionaries, wronged and ill-used by authority. They’re an age-old American kind, all proper, simply not that one. You’ve met the kind again and again within the darkest American durations: They’re the Know Nothings who persecuted Catholic immigrants, the fire-eaters who referred to as slavery a optimistic good for society, the George Wallacers who venomously railed that the one four-letter phrases hippies didn’t use had been work and cleaning soap, the redbaiters who chased their fellow residents for invisible ethical crimes. Belichick clearly additionally is aware of that historical past typically presents inflection factors for ordinarily apolitical individuals, who will be outlined as a lot by what they gained’t condemn as what they do.
Trump has habitually used athletes to cloak himself in their aura and claim a piece of their popularity and sway. He put Belichick in a profoundly unfair place and undoubtedly meant to use him as a lot as honor him. It’s unlucky as a result of Belichick deserves excessive honor from a president. But Belichick clearly noticed he couldn’t declare this one with out ruining himself, defacing his place within the recreation’s historical past and destroying his standing with gamers he respects and even loves — sure, loves.
As inscrutable and calculating as Belichick will be, anybody who observes him in any respect carefully can’t fail to miss his affection for his longtime staff leaders, males similar to Devin McCourty and Matthew Slater who’ve spearheaded the Patriots’ social justice initiatives. An affection that brought about Belichick to do what he so seldom does: clarify himself.
“Continuing those efforts while remaining true to the people, team and country I love outweigh the benefits of any individual award,” Belichick stated.
This shouldn’t be a time for honors. It’s a time for responsibility. And when accepting a ribbon around the neck indicators an off-the-cuff tolerance, if not outright endorsement, of these violent blast-furnace fanatics, the one responsibility is to refuse. Belichick did his responsibility. It’s his best second as a pacesetter.
