Chansky's Notebook: Building DNA - Chapelboro.com

Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.

Preparation is more important than the games. That’s the Bill Belichick way.

“Nutrition matters,” Belichick says. “Your strength matters. Your playbook matters. Everything matters or we wouldn’t do it. But the most important thing we do is practice, to get the most out of practice. We want to be prepared. We want to be in condition. We want you to know what we’re doing. We want to be ready to go, and we want to go out here and do our best to compete at the highest level so we can get better as a team. Everything matters. But practice is the most important thing we do.”

Strength coach Moses Cabrera puts it this way:

“You can be anything you wanna be this year, but it ain’t going to be if it’s not in here,” he said, tapping next to his heart. “If you like what you’re doing, if you like playing this game, you’ll do all the little things that it takes to get it done. Anybody looking for a shortcut in this game has just screwed you. He screwed you and screwed himself because there are no shortcuts and no chance if you don’t love it together.

“If you try to find the quickest way in and out of everything you do, you cut everybody off; your abilities and what you could be and what you could do to succeed somewhere along the line. You’re gonna make that big mistake in the game that’s gonna cost you if you do. We don’t have to. We don’t have to worry about you being at the meeting on time. We don’t have to worry about what you’re doing and how you’re preparing to get ready to play the game. Most of all, I know you on game day as a partner. I can depend on you to be ready.

“I’ve been with Bill for 10 years. He went to nine Super Bowls in 20 years, six times he won. That is not all. There are a lot of players in that class. Most groups that had it here.”

One more heart tap.

Andrew Jones from Tar Heel 247 put it this way:

“When you look at the remaining players, the ones who are still in the program from a year ago, they survived it. Belichick’s way’s a little bit different. And it requires a lot of weeding out. But the way they weed it out is you’re either a Belichick guy or you’re not. And they do that with recruiting. The recruiting director has been in recruiting offices at Michigan, Georgia Tech and Carolina. He knows exactly what it’s like on that side of things.

“So he’s gonna offer a very unique perspective to this, that he understands if he has a certain kind of guy. And it’s something that you just can’t flip a switch on. It has to slowly accrue over time and become the norm and the DNA of the building.”

https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081525%20-%20FINAL.mp3

Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward

Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.

Chansky’s Notebook: Building DNA – Chapelboro.com

Tags: