What I Learned From Watching Football With My Dad

Today’s news conference with Patriots owner Bob Kraft and outgoing legend Bill Belichick stirred up some memories, if you’ll permit me.

As an aside, this thing was pure class: the respect between these two men, and their respect for the fans, were on display.

Belichick was funny ( haven’t seen this many cameras since we signed Tebow), gracious to the reporters and grateful for the run in Foxborough.

Everyone knows there’s been a lot of disappointment with this year’s team, leading to an exit that once seemed unthinkable. Today, though, made me wistful.

If you think Coach is taciturn, you never met my dad. He was a man of (very) few words, preferring action and example to talk.

As I thought about the end of the Patriots-Brady-Belichick era, I remembered (so many) Sunday afternoons in our suburban living room, sitting on Sears, Roebuck furniture, and watching the Pats (losing more often than winning, pre-Tom Brady) on the old Zenith TV.

My dad had his Schlitz, the volume was up for his “bad ear” and little else was said.

It was what he said that I later realized was…kind of educational.

Tom Landry was a “gentleman”. He didn’t dress “like a bum”.

Roger Staubach was “a Navy man”—which mattered more than whose uniform he was now wearing.

My dad had an eye for the working-in-the-trenches roles played by guards and tackles—and not much use for receivers’ end zone dances. “Showboats”.

He would not have known who the players’ current girlfriends were, but he knew that Rocky Bleier only had part of his foot because of a grenade in Vietnam. Always pointed that out to me when we saw Bleier.

Many years later, when my dad wasn’t around for me to watch football with, it hit me that his occasional asides were really like signposts.

Sports can be fun, but here are the things that matter to a man. Make sure you notice what matters.

I was listening, Dad.