Consummate Coaches: Bill Belichick and Jesus Christ | Reviewed by Anthony Aycock for IndieReader

Author Tracy Emerick compares the leadership skills of two people at the top of their fields: Bill Belichick and Jesus Christ.

Before publishing his first book, Extreme Entrepreneurs: Steve Jobs and Jesus Christ, Tracy Emerick held leadership roles in churches, government, and business development. He draws on this eclectic background for his second book, CONSUMMATE COACHES: Bill Belichick and Jesus Christ, in which he finds another unlikely compeer for the Son of God: Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots. There is no question both men were at the top of their professions. Belichick has won six Super Bowls with the Patriots–more than any head coach in NFL history. As for Jesus, billions of Christians worship him (though he was not, as Emerick keeps saying, the founder of Christianity; Jesus came to fulfill the prophecies of Judaism, not supplant it with something else).

The farther time moves from Jesus’ world, the harder that world becomes to understand. Viewing him through a coaching lens is an enticing premise. Sports are an accessible metaphor, and though coaching is a specific type of leadership, it is still leadership, which has a lot of generalizable traits. Emerick breaks these down into three categories: Hand, Head, and Heart. Hand refers to hard work, Head to strategy, and Heart to that ineffable third ingredient, the je ne sais quoi that turns the Very Good into the Great. Discussing Jesus in this way emphasizes his humanity, which most evangelical texts don’t do. Yet he was, as every Christian knows, both fully God and fully man. It is refreshing to see more attention paid to Jesus’ human side.

Where Emerick comes up short is his analysis of Belichick. He includes some quotes from the football coach, but he cites sources for none of them. Moreover, he misses opportunities to drop in a little Belichickian biography where it would have maximum impact. For instance, in one section, he cites two stories about Jesus–when he healed a leper but told him not to tell anyone; and when he left town to preach in the desert–to illustrate his point that a “consummate coach” is humble, that he “needs no fame.” This would have been the perfect place to discuss Belichick’s famously terse press conferences. As a man of few words, Belichick prefers his actions to speak for him, which is the essence of humility. Yet Emerick does not make this connection making the good idea one that doesn’t go far enough. The book is less than 100 pages, meaning there is plenty of room to expand it with more insight, more analysis, and more discussion of football coaching in general and Bill Belichick in particular. Such expansion would propel Emerick’s book from disappointing playoff contender to future Hall of Famer.

Tracy Emerick’s CONSUMMATE COACHES: Bill Belichick and Jesus Christ, is a promising but incomplete analysis of how two men–Bill Belichick and Jesus Christ–measured up as coaches, teachers, and decision-makers.