Bill Belichick had legendary success with the New England Patriots

It's hard to make an impression, and even harder to make history in a place as old and important as New England. The measuring stick is too high.

But Bill Belichick, who departed Thursday as coach of the New England Patriots after 24 years of unparalleled dominance in America's most popular sport, will be remembered alongside New England legends like Ted Williams, Bill Russell and Paul Revere.

Well, Paul Revere is overrated. Only Tom Brady will be around forever alongside Paul Revere.

However, Belichick, whose teams have won six NFL Super Bowls with Brady as their quarterback, is big enough in the Boston area that he could qualify for an honorary Kennedy.

Belichick exits Patriots coaching staff, after back-to-back years of losing that included a 4-13 record this season, is the end of an era in a place where sporting champions can outshine almost any senator, civic leader or entertainer. Belichick, known as Its wrinkled appearance, with an unsmiling face and a monotone voice, was celebrated as a scholar, savior, and sage. He also became an influential and popular role model in New England.

Even moving to New England from New York wasn't against him.

Ben Rafelson, a lifelong Patriots fan who lives in Boston, believes Belichick's influence on the region has become almost mystical.

“Any move he made, even if we as fans had doubts at first, we were accustomed to knowing that this man, Bill Belichick, was informed and wise,” Rafelson, 34, said Thursday, referring to one of Belichick's nicknames. He is Yoda.

“We never questioned him.”

This is not the success story anyone expected. On January 27, 2000, nothing about Belichick's arrival from the planes as the Patriots' new field general suggested that the region's cultural identity was about to undergo a major transformation. The Patriots, frequent losers, were ignored. Brady was still an obscure, former college quarterback with no concrete job prospect in the near future.

And yet, Belichick's Patriots became an omnipresent source of pride, one that was emblematic of the way New Englanders like to be perceived: conservative but efficient, innovative, prosperous, hard-working, and secretive about their ways.

(When it comes to the Patriots, some might call the last trait a smokescreen for cheating, but more on that later.)

Under Belichick, whose regular-season Patriots coaching record was 266-121, the influence of the triumphant Boston-based athletic team has swelled. For nearly a century, the importance or influence of New England teams was largely limited. But with Belichick at the helm, the Patriots have become a recognized national phenomenon. If only because fans in the 44 states outside of New England hated them.

The almost wordless Belichick was the perfect poker face for the emerging Patriots movement that would dominate the previously staid NFL for nearly two decades. Belichick was no New Englander, though he spent summers on Nantucket as a teenager and his formative years at prep school in Andover, Massachusetts, and at Wesleyan University, but he naturally embodied the character traits of the region's residents, especially the working-class population. New England, you may find it familiar.

Born in Nashville and raised largely in Annapolis, Maryland, Belichick had no birthright in New England, yet he was just that.

It rewarded performance over potential and undervalued ratios. Belichick, who generally served as his own boss when it came to roster assembly and college draft picks, had a developed knack and desire for finding the versatile, undiscovered player others overlooked.

Nobody fits the bill like Brady (who was drafted with the 199th pick out of 254), unless it's wide receiver Julian Edelman, who Belichick also selected late with the 232nd pick of the 2009 NFL draft. “Bill wants winners, and he doesn't care what happens,” he said of Belichick, whose 333 NFL victories are 14 shy of Don Shula's coaching record. These look like winners.”

If that was a bold slogan for the team, tens of thousands of Patriots fans would have nodded their heads in agreement as they huddled against the wintry winds in the stands of Foxboro Stadium, the forlorn edifice that Belichick's New England teams were forced to play in but that nonetheless built the foundation of a dynasty.

“Bill became one of New England's adopted sons very quickly, perhaps because he accepted the challenge of coming here,” said Richard Johnson, a curator at the Boston Sports Museum, who attended his first Patriots game in the 1960s. “It's a difficult area to work in in sport because there are high expectations and people tend to be a bit critical. You sink or swim very quickly, but he didn't shy away from that and people appreciated that.”

“He's certainly one of us in many ways,” added Johnson, co-author of “The Pats: An Illustrated History of the New England Patriots.”

Belichick's teams-against-all-odds ethos became a rallying cry in New England, as did his reputation as a taciturn and rock-solid leader, most notably in team practices. For Patriots fans, tired of decades of losing, their coach had good reason to frown.

Fans wanted someone grumpy, like an old man trying to “send chowder” to a Boston chowder (borrowing a line from “Seinfeld”). The fans understood, and they were angry, too.

Over time, as the Patriots began hoarding Super Bowl trophies, Belichick, 71, became the avatar of a new kind of elegance in New England. Fans came to games wearing the coach's signature jacket with the sleeves cut off above the elbow. New stores sold Belichick Halloween costumes, complete with shapeless sweatpants and a faded ski hat. As always, the key to making an impression on Belichick was to never smile.

The Patriots' successes became the impetus for what became the golden age of professional sports organizations in New England. From their first NFL title in 2001 to their last in 2018, the Boston Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins have combined for the Patriots' six Super Bowl victories.

However, in the case of the Patriots, there has sometimes been nationwide backlash to the team's continued success centered around the cheating scandals associated with the team and Brady. The cheating accusations, some of which were presented in court, seemed legitimate to many, including NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who ordered the team to pay a hefty fine, forfeit draft picks and play four games in the 2016 season without Brady. In a separate incident of apparent cheating in 2007, Belichick was fined the league maximum $500,000.

Outside the New England Six States, the Patriots' shenanigans will never be forgotten, but within the region they only served to revive an already familiar “us versus them” mentality. The scandals, with fashionable names like Deflategate and Spygate, made the Patriots stand their ground and fight back. The social media response was like a modern-day version of the Boston Tea Party.

In New England, Belichick and Brady had the last laugh and then some. After Brady returned from his four-game suspension in 2016, the Patriots advanced to the Super Bowl, and despite trailing in the game by 25 points, rallied to win. Then they won another Super Bowl two seasons later.

It was Belichick's latest crowning achievement in New England. In his last five seasons, he lost more games than he won.

But that's not how Belichick will be remembered. He left behind a transformed New England landscape. At the start of a new century, Belichick's unexpected revival of a downtrodden sports franchise has infused new energy into an old field.

What's even more fitting is that Belichick can take solace in the fact that his legacy in the region will, like the man, be understated.

This legacy is perhaps most evident on the streets of hundreds of villages throughout New England on afternoons and evenings when the Patriots play their games. They are like ghost towns.