Belichick’s star firmly on the wane after disastrous NCAA debut

Open this photo in gallery: North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick has taken over a team that went 6-7 last season.Chris Seward/The Associated Press

There were two huge, pointless stories of the last few months – the CEO who got outed at the Coldplay concert and Bill Belichick’s turn into Liz Taylor territory.

What they had in common was powerful people of a certain age and sexual hijinks. This is the last combo you’re allowed to come down hard on without someone invoking trauma.

CEO man had the luxury of going away. Belichick doesn’t have that option, and now he’s in real trouble.

Five years ago, you’d have said pretty confidently that Belichick was the greatest football coach of all time. Since football coaches do so much actual coaching (as opposed to, say, baseball managers) that might have made him the greatest coach, period.

His magic was twofold – seeing greatness in the greatest player ever before anyone else did, and an ability to get championship-calibre play out of a rotating cast of relative nobodies.

His mistake appears to be onefold – thinking the formula is repeatable.

On Monday, the University of North Carolina football team played its first game under Belichick. It wasn’t a great team last year (6-7), but miracles were expected.

That’s what happens when a public institution pays US$10-million a year to a 73-year-old with baggage. It expects miracles.

Opinion: Outside of the pro sports cocoon, Bill Belichick is making bad decisions on his own

Belichick’s college debut attracted a hall of fame’s worth of UNC alumni, Michael Jordan prime among them. ESPN covered it like a Super Bowl. The Monday night time slot was meant to evoke a collision of football’s two great leagues.

Belichick was reminded ahead of the game that his NFL debut had been 34 years ago to the day. How was he feeling?

“I hope it goes a lot better than that [1991] game against Dallas and [then coach] Jimmy Johnson. They crushed us.”

He smiled as he said it. It looked painful. Foreshadowing.

Belichick’s team scored first on Texas Christian University. Then it was scored on seven consecutive times. Midway through the third quarter it was 41-7 and Michael Jordan was a distant memory. It ended 48-14.

That NFL debut against Dallas that Belichick remembered as a “crushing” loss was 26-14. So what’s worse than a crushing? A compacting?

At the NFL level, Belichick’s response to any loss was a wordless shrug. He had eight reasons not to feel bad about any particular defeat, and kept them in a safety deposit box.

No such luck on Monday night. Belichick kept saying they’d been “outplayed” and “outcoached,” like that’s a great excuse for why the Second Coming didn’t arrive. Any sense that, using brain power alone, Belichick can turn UNC into a football power is already gone.

He’s got five days until his next game against the lightweights of UNC Charlotte.

“They came off a disappointing game themselves, so we’re both in the same boat here,” Belichick said.

No, no, no. You’re in completely different boats. Theirs is a rowboat and you’re captain of the Titanic.

Until Belichick said their name, I doubt many people had had a single thought about the Charlotte … (/checks Google) … 49ers. But everybody has a thought about him.

If Belichick loses on Saturday, his five-year deal won’t last five games, and he can kiss “the greatest ever” farewell. From that point on, he’s just another guy who won some things. He’s a mumbling Tom Landry.

The advantage players have over coaches is that the decision about when to leave is taken out of their hands. Eventually, you are done, and there is no returning. A few try, and it always ends in disappointment.

Jordan is a case in point. His postretirement return to basketball was so disastrous that most people have forgotten that it happened.

Coaches never have to leave. If they’ve reached a certain level, there is always someone willing to leverage their name. They could be rolling you onto the sideline inside an iron lung.

A player gets a pass on the basis of aging. No such thing for a coach. You either had it the whole time, or you fluked it part of the time.

Think of where Mike Babcock’s reputation stood before he got to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and where it sank to right after. He’s already in the process of being written out of history. But had he not insisted on sticking with his authoritarian tricks, he’d still be coaching now. If he’s willing to drop down a level, someone would hire him tomorrow.

Belichick is accomplishing only one thing at North Carolina – polishing Tom Brady’s star.

People used to wonder if it was the coach or the quarterback. It was the quarterback.

Without Brady, it isn’t just that Belichick loses. It’s that he seems to have forgotten how to function in the public sphere. He’s out there making one terrible decision after another, and getting roasted for it.

People will now remember his girlfriend’s incursion on his CBS interview (“We’re not talking about this”) as much as or more than any particular Super Bowl victory.

This is the peril of the aging athletic celebrity. It’s okay to lose. Everybody does that. But to be considered great, one can never look ridiculous. Once you start slipping, ridiculousness is a constant threat. Belichick is now right in the middle of that forbidden zone.

The only way he can right the boat is by winning. If he can’t manage that, it’s the drop.

You’d say Belichick is becoming a cautionary tale, but no one heeds that caution. Everybody who’s climbed to the top of sports’ greasy pole thinks they always can. It’s how they managed it in the first place.

The most-cited example of someone who knew when to quit is Rocky Marciano. He left boxing aged 32, undefeated as a pro. Less advertised is the fact that Marciano considered a comeback 12 years later. He spent a month training to fight before realizing that it was more likely he would get himself killed than it was he’d win.

That is the ruthless logic of competition inside the ropes. But outside them, where there is no physical danger? In the ways that count, that may be the most dangerous spot of all.

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