Bill Belichick is bad for sports.
His badness is not helped if he is not the worst.
His badness is not helped if he an otherwise decent guy. I do not know Mr. Belichick so he might be terrific in the other roles he holds, but that does not make him good for sports.
His badness is made worse when he wins.
Why?
Professional sports has few redeeming values. The outcome of the Super Bowl matters, but only because we have decided it matters. It has no intrinsic value. The Republic could exist without football, just as the Republic was created without football.
Professional sports is not good excercise. The atheletes become so specialized they are out of balance and endure blows that cripple them later in life. The rest of us watch the professionals perform while we bloat on couches and in arm chairs.
Bill Belichick is bad for professional sports because he destroys one of its few values: he wins like a cad and not a gentleman. He has taught a generation of fans to do whatever it takes to win, not within the rules, but by bending the rules, breaking the rules, and ignoring the rules.
Professional sports is not war, despite the metaphors used. As a result, the playing field of the Super Bowl is the easiest time to inculcate the ethics of a gentleman, the man who would rather lose with virtue than win with vice.
In wartime, the temptation is great to produce officers and ignore the gentlemen because losing a war is so devastating. Society can forget that the officers we produce today will return to civilian life as leaders and citizens. If we brutalize them to win, then we brutalize our future.
Torture to save the city destroys the moral fiber of part of the city which can “save” the city. Christians came to the conclusion long ago (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant ethics) that the cost is too high. A minority might debate this in some extreme circumstances, but in general, ethical cheating never comes out well.
The press ignored JFK’s objectification of women, thinking his private behavior was not our concern, but his private behavior left us all at risk to blackmail in the short term and the eventual revelations that would tarnish the office in the long term.
Sports are a game and so an excellent training ground. The more a man wishes to win, the more he should restrain himself from “doing whatever it takes.” If winning the Super Bowl required a man to ignore his wife and children, then the game is not worth it. If winning the Super Bowl required playing men who should not participate due to injuries, then winning the Super Bowl is not worth it.
The NFL could be a very good thing if it stood as a bastion for doing the right thing. No coach has ever been perfect, but Landry and Lombardi strove toward this ideal. Honor mattered to Lomboardi. The imperfections of the gentlemen do not justify the modern coach who does not even try to emulate their moral goals.
On the field, Belichick has left fans believing he will do anything to win. He does win, often. And that is the shame of the NFL and sport: they allow the values of the cad to dominate the playing fields where there can be no justification for such a thing.
The NFL did well when it banned coaches and players who put a bounty on other players. The NFL does well whenever it penalizes “unsportsmanlike conduct,” but it does badly when it refuses to discipline an unsportsmanlike coach.
Bill Belichick is not sporting and so damages sports.
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