“Daddy, why did the New England coach leave the field before the game ended?” asked my seven and a half-year-old son, Jaxon.

No kidding - one year ago, Jax didn’t know if a football was blown up or stuffed, but during this past Steeler season he learned that he could grab great handfuls of my time simply by taking an interest in the game. Just as I had done with my grandfather.

I thought to myself, “Do I tell him the truth … that Bill Belichick is pretty much a classless jerk? That he is a front-runner who loves to torment reporters (who are after all, simply doing their job) when he is winning, but who avoids them like typhoid fever when he loses?

In case you missed it, when Tom Brady threw his final, futile pass with approximately seven seconds remaining on the clock in Super Bowl 42 (sorry, Super Bowl XLII) bedlam ensued. The clock had actually run down to zero, but the officials quickly amended it back to “00:01” second to go.

In other words, there was one play to go, and according to the strict rules of the game, the victorious Giant offense was officially obligated to return eleven men to the field so that the game’s final snap could be executed. As two combatants were required, the Patriots were duly obligated to also put eleven men on the field --- even if their only official function was to observe this one final snap.

All well and good, and within the spirit of great sportsmanship except for one small detail … the esteemed coach of the Patsies, Mr. William Belichick, was nowhere to be seen. Unless, of course, one had the kind of x-ray vision that could detect his life form from inside of the New England locker room.

Classy, eh? But that’s pretty much what we’ve come to know about Mr. Belichick during his years in the NFL. If things are going his way he will begrudgingly acquiesce to the rules and conduct of the game.

But if things are not to his liking, well …

• Remember when he accepted, then resigned from the head coaching job in New York?
• Or when he refused to even shake hands with his ex-protégé, Eric Mangini, once he had left the Patriot's for the head coaching position of the team he resigned from.
• What about the league’s injury list. To underscore his imperious nature, he refuses to ‘play ball’, and instead lists each and every member of his team as being “injured” each and every week of the regular season. (Note: The injury status notification is a means by which coaches are obligated to notify their opposition regarding the health of their players each week. It’s similar to discovery in a lawsuit.)
• And who can forget ”Spygate” … when the Pats actually and surreptitiously filmed the signals of the upcoming opponent’s coaches … again, in an effort to gain a tactical edge. “Everybody does this”, said Belichick and his supporters. But the thing is, only Belichick was ever caught!

So, he walks off the field, leaving the job of explaining his behavior to all of the fathers of this country. (So actually, I guess I should be thanking this spoiled brat of a coach  ... after all, he did give me a “teachable minute”.)

Class. It’s something that everyone claims to have and yet many so-called ‘leaders’ sometimes fail to display. Coach Belichick will no doubt find some reason to rationalize his behavior (I’m guessing he will say something along the lines of, “Well, I thought the game was over.” Or, “Hell, the game had but one second to play … what can be done in one second?”), but we all know the truth.

Because the truth of this matter is as plain as Billy Boy’s hoodie … he was beaten at his own game on the world’s grandest stage. To stick around and watch (and hear) the other team and its coaches get credit for their remarkable accomplishment (remember, they beat a team whose last loss was more than one year ago) would have been impossible for the irrepressible ego-maniac that he is.

Remember that old saying, “A man’s character is his fate”? (Heraclitus, methinks.) Maybe that’s why the twelve points looked so good to this ex-gambler. I have just witnessed too much hubris, too much ego, from the Patriots coach. Take away the greatest quarterback who ever played the game and what do you really have? (You see, I’m old enough to remember when B.B. coached the Cleveland Browns.)

Character is how you act when no one is watching. But sometimes that ‘you’ simply cannot be constrained … as was the case in the final seconds of the game.

I used up my “Teachable Minute” by reminding Jaxon of the time that he refused to swim after he and his team had been eliminated in a competition last summer. “Remember me asking you to go out there and swim for your team even though you guys had already lost,” I asked.

“And remember how proud your coach was when you did go out there and swam even though the meet was over and no one was watching,” I reminded him.

When he admitted all of this, I told him, “That’s why you are a better man than the New England coach. You showed us all your character and your class.”

Now if I could only get this message to Bill Belichick. Trouble is, he’d probably deny that he ever even left the field!