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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (62587)	9/18/2009 11:54:06 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 149317

Unlikely influence By Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports July 30, 2007 If Bill Belichick were to loosen his cerebral grip, ever were going to empty out the folds of gray matter hidden under that gray hoody, he'd do it the way Bill Walsh did. He'd teach. He'd write a book explaining it all. He'd spin the game of football forward by giving it all away. He looks at how Walsh did it, and out of admiration, it has become one of Belichick's hidden desires, too. Walsh, who passed away Monday after a lengthy battle with leukemia, left an indelible impression on the man who has taken his place as the NFL's reigning genius. To this day, Belichick insists Bill Walsh: Finding the Winning Edge is the greatest piece of football literature regarding a franchise blueprint ever written. Belichick read the book in the nuclear winter of his own coaching career, between the disaster with the Cleveland Browns and resurrection with the New England Patriots. At a time in his life time when Belichick was forced to re-examine his basic truths about team building, he wrapped his hands around the second of several books by Walsh... ...Eventually, the days in Cleveland went bad, and Belichick was left in the years that followed to dissect what went wrong. He's not particularly fond of the topic even now but allows that when he read Finding the Winning Edge, it armed him with renewed conviction. Released in 1997 and written with the help of current Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick, the 550-page book is classic Walshian theory. While most coaches were penning lyrical accounts of players and teams and Super Bowl victories, Walsh enlisted Billick to help him write a how-to manual on building a franchise. And when it was finished, it was as complete as any outline ever has been. From how to hire and fire coaches and scouts to refining a quarterback's footwork, the book dissects every nook of an NFL team. Taking all his notes, thoughts, clinics and even vital portions of his playbook, Walsh laid bare all that amounted to San Francisco's greatness in the '80s. And with a touch of his own personal teachings, he laced it with nuggets on leadership from presidents, generals, coaches, philosophers and theologians. In the chapter on designing a winning game plan, Walsh draws from Sun-Tzu's The Art of War: "Rapidity is the essence of war; take advantage of the enemies' unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots." Boiled into offensive terms: Keep your opponents on their heels and throw the ball to the open spot. "If I were an owner, first of all, I would read that book," Belichick said. "Then I would make that book required reading for my head coach, general manager or any other key executive in my football operation." That's with the assumption an owner could find enough copies. The book sold out all of its 36,000 copies. Now, securing one at vintage bookstores or on the Internet costs anywhere from $90 to $180 (more than six times its original price of $29.99). There even is a leather-bound edition, autographed by Walsh and limited to 300 copies, that fetches anywhere from $600 to $1,000. And on the rare occasion that several copies pop up at a bookstore, they typically are scooped up in an instant by coaching staffs.