HOUSTON \u2013 Deep in the woods of the Sequoia National Forest in central California, there is a tree named the General Grant Tree.<\/p>\n
Sequoia trees are among the tallest and oldest in the nation.\u00a0 The General Grant stands tall among the tallest.\u00a0 It even has a nickname, \u201cthe nation\u2019s Christmas tree\u201d.\u00a0 It is in a grove of giant sequoias that are staggering to look at, a collection of national treasures in the shadow of Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48.<\/p>\n
It seems only proper that the Department of the Interior should look for another giant sequoia and name it the Bill Belichick Tree.<\/p>\n
There are lots of proverbial \u201ccoaching trees\u201d out there.\u00a0 They spawn all over the place.\u00a0 Some of them are very old, some very young.\u00a0 Belichick is part of a coaching tree himself, a branch of the Bill Parcells tree.\u00a0 You as a head coach strive to win Super Bowls, but to get a coaching tree named for you is perhaps tantamount to winning titles and being selected for the Hall of Fame.\u00a0 To differentiate, a \u201ccoaching tree\u201d is clearly defined as lots of great to very good coaches who trace their roots back to an immortal head coach, not two or three guys who coached for Joe Nobody ten years ago.<\/p>\n
Belichick has seen several of his disciples on the other side of the field in this NFL postseason.\u00a0 The Houston Texans and Atlanta Falcons have many coaches and front office people who trace their roots to Belichick.\u00a0 Most of them cut their coaching teeth with Belichick, and while none of them have spawned their own coaching tree, the fact that they are all out there speaks volumes for Belichick and his teaching of coaches as well as players.<\/p>\n
The Texans featured a head coach (Bill O\u2019Brien), an offensive coordinator (George Godsey, who has since been relieved of his duties at that position), a defensive coordinator (Romeo Crennel, who is also a branch of the Parcells tree as is Belichick), and a linebackers coach (Mike Vrabel).\u00a0 O\u2019Brien did some time as head coach of Penn State before coming to Houston, while Crennel had head coaching jobs in Cleveland and Kansas City with mixed results.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to Atlanta.\u00a0 The Falcons have two guys in the front office who have strong ties to Belichick, going back to his days as Cleveland head coach.\u00a0 General Manager Thomas Dimitroff and his assistant Scott Pioli, began their careers in Cleveland under Belichick, then followed him to Foxborough for long stints in the Patriot organization before moving on.<\/p>\n
Dimitroff and Pioli were with Belichick in the early 1990s in Cleveland.\u00a0 They were part of a group called \u201cslappies\u201d.\u00a0 Other members of that group included Alabama head coach Nick Saban, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, former Detroit head coach Jim Schwartz, and former Jet head coach Eric Mangini.\u00a0 They worked long hours, were paid very little money, and did all of the crummy behind the scene support jobs.\u00a0 In other words, they learned the business from the bottom up.<\/p>\n
But every one of those \u201cslappies\u201d appreciated Belichick and what he taught them.\u00a0 Despite Cleveland only having one playoff season (1994) and having to leave town the following year, those men have nothing but good memories of their years in Cleveland.\u00a0 Ferentz probably said it best when he said \u201cPeople wondered how we could put up with all that, but no, how fortunate we were to have had that experience!\u201d<\/p>\n
Dimitroff came to Foxborough in 2003 as the director of college scouting.\u00a0 He left in 2008 to become the general manager of the Falcons.\u00a0 In nine seasons he now finally has a conference champion. \u00a0While he was at Cleveland in 1993, he worked under both Belichick and Pioli.\u00a0 Pioli came to Foxborough in 2000 with Belichick, left in 2009 to become the general manager at Kansas City, then came to Atlanta in 2014 to work under Dimitroff as assistant GM.\u00a0 So in reality, Pioli has worked over, alongside, and now under Dimitroff during his career.<\/p>\n
Pioli was widely hailed as one of the best young administrative minds in the NFL during his time in New England.\u00a0 He and Belichick worked together to build the Patriot dynasty that it has now become.\u00a0 Belichick retained final say, but Pioli had lots of input during his nine years in Foxborough.\u00a0 The feeling that he would get a GM job someday seemed like a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n
Pioli summed up his career beginnings with Belichick during the NFL Network A Football Life<\/em> segment on Cleveland \u201995.<\/em>\u00a0 He mentioned that Belichick was going to offer him a job, with parameters, job description and hours not clearly defined, at a salary of about $15,000.\u00a0 Pioli was asked if he still wanted the job and he said yes, eagerly.\u00a0 Pioli said thanks and Belichick answered with \u201cThank me by doing a good job!\u201d<\/p>\n That Pioli did.\u00a0 Despite his lasting only three seasons in Kansas City before being dismissed after the 2012 season, Pioli did win executive of the year in 2010.\u00a0 Both Crennel and Charlie Weis, former Patriot offensive coordinator, worked with Pioli in Kansas City.\u00a0 Pioli\u2019s best work remains in New England, but in his current role as subordinate to Dimitroff, the football world will get to see how well these two \u201cslappies\u201d have built a championship team.<\/p>\n Belichick won\u2019t have a lot of sentiment next Sunday, of course.\u00a0 He\u2019ll say nice things about them this week if asked.\u00a0 The task at hand is to beat the Falcons, not to sit back and fawn all over former subordinates and how well they are doing.\u00a0 Coaching trees are mostly for fans and observers to look at as if it were a painting in a museum.\u00a0 Belichick won\u2019t be pleased if Dimitroff and Pioli wound up building a team that denied he and Brady a fifth Super Bowl win, especially if for some reason this winds up being the last real shot for both of them to get a fifth.\u00a0 That\u2019s not likely, but not impossible.<\/p>\n For those of us who do sit back and admire, it really says something that so many men who owe their coaching and admin careers to Belichick are opponents over these last three weeks.\u00a0 Belichick admittedly loves to teach, and that love extends above the player level as well.<\/p>\n So if you ever get to see that grove of tall sequoia trees way out west, and if you do find the General Grant, go look for another one and name it after the head slappie himself.\u00a0 Chances are you\u2019ll find it near the one named for Parcells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It seems only proper that the Department of the Interior should look for another giant sequoia and name it the Bill Belichick Tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n