Vocab

Vocab

My father had two terms I struggled mightily not to be tagged with—clown and mope. That he loved the circus, which tends to go heavy on clowns, is a mystery I can’t explain.  Anyway, he would call Donald Trump a clown and Bill Belichick a mope.

The Patriots’ coach is nothing if not unpleasant, sort of like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Roger Chillingworth of Scarlet Letter fame come to life to wander the New England sideline every Sunday afternoon.  Bill-Chill was on full display yesterday at Soldier Field during the Patriots’ 38-31 win over the Bears.  Belichick appears incapable of expressing joy, compassion or humor in amounts enough for the camera to capture.  The man may as well be artificial intelligence wrapped in a bad meat suit.

Oh, I know, New England fans love their coach, which is to say the love the eight Super Bowl appearances Belichick teams have made and, especially, the five championships they’ve won.  So what if he cheats or runs players into the ground or can’t see anything wrong with the monster formerly known as Aaron Hernandez?  Man, he’s got five rings.

If I’m on a desert island with room for one more person to keep me company for the indefinite future, I’ll take the clown over the mope, Joe Maddon over Belichick, any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.