Bill Belichick strode through the sponsored, inflatable tunnel entrance to the Patriots’ practice earlier this week toward a podium at the bottom of a small grassy hill. It was a distance of, roughly, 15 yards.
Wearing a sliced-up, fire-engine-red Patriots sweatshirt and jogging shorts, he talked for a few minutes beginning at 9:27 a.m., before starting a journey that brought him to the goalpost of one nearby field, then to the end zone, then across a practice field behind a phalanx of Gatorade coolers, a twirling whistle in his hand.
The scene was rather innocuous until I was reminded that he just turned 71 and, in a matter of just a few minutes, had already traveled more than some people his age do in a day. Bill Belichick still looks, sounds and moves like Bill Belichick. When milling about on a series of grassy fields with far younger counterparts, he doesn’t stick out like some retiree ambling about Latitude Margaritaville. Perhaps the compounding benefits of a workday full of sun, exercise and social time really does keep someone young (outside of walking almost the entirety of Tuesday’s practice, Belichick also spent the remainder of his free time locked in several long conversations).
