A Sentimental Bill Belichick Returns From an Emotional Weekend with His Heart on His Cutoff Sleeve
Bill Belichick on Hall of Famer Randy Moss:
“Randy was a very special relationship. Just logistically, you just can’t have that kind of relationship with everybody. There’s just so many players. So many hours in the day. That was one, through a variety of circumstances, and probably more in the way that Randy came onto the team and again, other circumstances were involved there that just kind of evolved that way. I don’t think any of us necessarily planned it, it just worked out.
“I learned a lot from Randy. Randy had a big impact on me as a coach. He taught me the game from a perspective that I had never really seen before or understood before. I’ll always be grateful to him for doing that.
He’s a great person to have on the team. He did a lot, in his own way, team-building events like the Halloween party. Things like that, that a lot of times went below the radar. He didn’t do them for publicity. He didn’t want to be recognized for it. He did it because he wanted to do it and it was the right thing to do.
“He brought a lot of kids up to games every week. Bused kids up from West Virginia, bought them tickets so that they could come to the games here at Gillette Stadium. Things like that that a lot of people don’t know about but that was just how generous and what a big heart Randy had.”
Wow. Get a load of a wistful, reflective Bill Belichick after an emotional weekend of watching one of his favorites get inducted into Canton and bearing witness to the best Red Sox moment since they placed the World Series trophy on the finish line across Boylston five years ago. He’s practically gushing. He takes a couple of days off to give his team a break during camp, and his heart grows three sizes. Now he’s got the strength of 10 coaches, plus two.
Never let it be said he is a man without emotion. Believe me, as someone who’s seen first hand the twinkle in his eye when I ask him a perfectly phrased question, underneath that hard candy shell is layer upon layer of sweet, gooey caramel. But even as close as he and I are, I had no idea he and Randy Moss were so tight. When you consider that Rand University was only hear for 3 1/4 seasons before he couldn’t keep his craziness bottled up any longer. When the screw cap burst off in 2010 after a 41-14 win over Miami when Moss went off the rails about not having any touches so they traded him, I think we all thought, “Welp. That burns yet another bridge.” But, nope. We were wrong. The whole time since they’ve been teaching each life’s lessons about the game and perspective and the team-building bonding experience that is a Halloween party:
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“Candy and costumes. What could be better?” Nothing, if you’re a softhearted, sentimental fool like The Hooded One. Nothing, that is, except a weekend of feeling all the feelings in Canton and at Fenway. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking this was a couple of his best days ever. Belichick has the bar set on what constitutes a “great weekend” higher than anyone: