I am pretty excited about this article, and the subject, as an English professor who, despite a lack of training for it, has an avocational interest in sports reporting, so many kudos to soxfan for tackling it.
Borges is one of the most interesting cases, to my mind; unlike Shaughnessy, who really does seem to enjoy a story of failure over even a modicum of success, and who disdains many of the players, not to mention the fans, about whom he writes and whom he writes for, Borges has a strong affection for players/athletes, especially the good ones (he has disdain in plenty for weakness of any stripe). My impression, however, has been that he has always viewed football through the prism of boxing; in other words, he views football as a series of mano-à-mano battles, combat between gladiators in pads and helmets, and has little interest in, or patience for, notions of group effort and success. Despite the fact that football seems to be one of the ultimate team sports, his columns have almost always focused on individual heroics, whether the hero be Bledsoe, or Seymour, or Mankins, or Brady. He is very quick to laud individual effort on behalf of players. This runs parallel with his relative disdain for praise of coaching, at least for coaches who would seek (or be given) praise for contributing to the success of their players more than boxing trainers do...thus, anyone who follows boxing knows that trainers are important, even essential, for individual boxer's success, but many casual fans of the sport could not name even two (perhaps I overstate this? I don't think so...), and fewer attribute even a tenth of praise to the boxing trainer as tends to accrue to the football coach.
One of Borges' 'goals' over the years has seemed to be to puncture Belichick's reputation, for RB believes that football coaches contribute less to a team's success in any given game than might seem to be conventional wisdom...certainly, he is offended by the label of 'genius' that gets applied to very successful football minds--this was, I think, most offensively in evidence when, during the same week that Steve Belichick dies (November 1926, 2005), Borges used a quote from him to attack Bill's reputation as a 'football genius'. Distasteful, but in keeping with Borges' general attitude toward coaches and toward BB in particular...
In this sense, he and BB would seem to be at odds. Obviously, Belichick knows that some players are better than others, and that supreme individual efforts often sway the outcome of a play, a series, even an entire game...but his mantra of 'do your job', his request for all players to put the team first (which is the real 'Patriot Way', unrelated to character concerns), and his apparent desire for them to take less money for the pleasure and privilege of winning *as a team*, are all opposed to the idea that a single individual effort should be praised, singled out, and illuminated to the detriment of the team as a whole. While he is happy to praise specific individuals at times, these very players are often the ones who are likely to be overlooked by the public (e.g., Matthew Slater), or who are being attacked by the media (e.g., Randy Moss), and whose team contributions might be ignored or overshadowed.
Edited to assign proper authorship! Mea culpa
