What were you thinking?

Bill, you have let us down. We believe that our team can win without cheating! Come clean, fess up, purge your conscience if you expect us to drop it and move on.

From Brian William's blog this afternoon: (sent to me by Joan Chapman)

'Today a close friend of mine who is a devout Patriots fan offered Bill Belichick the following advice:'

"Buy some clothing other than a torn sweatshirt. Put on a shirt. And for goodness' sake, try a tie. Shower, shave, comb your hair. You're on national television now, 24 hours a day. And as to WHY you're on national television non-stop? Stop the stonewalling -- it's insulting. If you really want us all to move on and pay attention to the next Patriots game, as you keep saying, cop to what you did. Your answers sound like Watergate. Speaking of which, tell us: What did you know, and when did you know it, coach?"

To The Patriot In All Of Us

This is the story I told you about where Bill Belichick inspired the Patriots to win the Superbowl by showing them footage of Tiznow overcoming adversity to win his 2nd Breeder's Cup Classic. I have the hat except mine is black and purple!

"When head coach Bill Belichick was looking for something to wake up his team and instill the fighting spirit in them, he turned to a tape of this year's Breeders' Cup Classic. So, instead of watching game films and being mesmerized by X's and O's, the Patriots found themselves watching a Thoroughbred racehorse named Tiznow battle back to turn certain defeat into victory. The Patriots haven't looked back since," according to Steve Haskin of The Blood - Horse.
When Taylor Made and WinStar caught wind of this they ran an ad in Sports Illustrated recounting the incident of Tiznow inspiring the Patriots. Before the Miami game the Taylor Made/WinStar crew had 100 Tiznow hats embroidered with the slogan "To the Patriot in All of Us" which was stitched underneath the Tiznow logo. The hats along with an inspirational framed poster of Tiznow were Federal Expressed to the team. Coach Belichick distributed the hats in the locker room before the game and read the inspirational poster to the team as well. Before the Oakland game the Taylor Made/WinStar crew was at it again. They pulled two of Tiznow's hind horse shoes and placed them in a frame with the New England logo etched into the glass of the frame. The framed horse shoes were placed into a red, white, and blue shadow box that contained a To the Patriot in All of Us/Tiznow hat, which was signed by Tiznow's jockey, fellow New Englander Chris McCarron. The inscription on the bill of the hat read, "Coach Belichick, best of luck in pursuit of the Super Bowl. Team Tiznow is rooting for the Pats." At the bottom of the frame on the shadow box was a brass halter plate with the inscription Kick A_ _. In a replay of Horse of the Year Tiznow's story book ending, the Patriots find themselves possessed of Tiznow's magic. The ultimate inspiration for Coach Belichick's Patriots may come in the form of the farm's final inspirational salvo - a poster of the Vince Lombardi trophy with the reflection of Tiznow's winning stretch drive on the football of the trophy. The poster itself read "Super Bowl XXXVI - it's the race in the horse, not the horse in the race - to the patriot in all of us," etched into the trophy is the inscription "the fight is to the finish."
The story of Tiznow's inspiration has been reported by ESPN, The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, The Blood Horse, Newsday, etc.

Gator Basketball

I thought the NE Patriot/Secretariat angle in this article was pretty cool. Bill Belichick spreading the love!

Gators use Secretariat as motivation to defend NCAA basketball title

If the Florida Gators win their second straight NCAA basketball title, they can thank New England Patriots football coach Bill Belichick and Secretariat.
According to a story in the Florida Times-Union, University of Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan asked Belichick to speak to his team in Gainesville earlier this month to keep the squad motivated for a possible run through the NCAA basketball tournament.
Belichick showed the team a film of Secretariat.
“At the beginning of the race, it's all close," forward Joakim Noah told the Times-Union. "Toward the end of the race, he wins the race by like a quarter of a mile. It was just like an unbelievable race, and he [Belichick] was just saying, 'Never looking back.' And that's going to be our motto."
Donovan, who also has had St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa and former NBA star Jerry West among others speak to his team, said the lectures are a tool to make sure the players do not become content with what they already have achieved.
“There's a human element all these guys have where you can have a level of complacency or being unmotivated or overconfident," Donovan told the newspaper. “You've got to guard against those things. There's a way—motivation or inspiring—to bring them back into the truth, to try to get them to handle those things.”