Forget Annapolis.
If any town wanted to honor New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick with the key to the city it should be Yerevan.
Yerevan, population 1.1 million, is the capitol of Armenia. Although quite modern, it is one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world.
And while it has nothing to do with Thursday night’s NFL draft, Armenia owes Belichick.
Belichick, who grew up in Annapolis, and who played lacrosse at Annapolis High School, was honored last week at an Army-Navy lacrosse game. He was presented the award by Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley.
In accepting the key, Belichick, who earlier turned down former President Donald Trump’s offer to grant him the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, said it was “an incredible honor. There’s nothing bigger than that.”
Well, there might be something bigger. And that is the normally reticent Belichick’s outspoken support of the decades-long campaign to get the United States to officially recognize the genocide committed against the Armenian people by Turkey during World War I.
That was when some 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children were systematically and horrifically murdered in a campaign of ethnic extermination by the Ottoman Empire, at the time an ally of Germany.
Hitler was reportedly inspired by the Armenian Genocide in launching the Holocaust that took the lives of six million Jews and others during World War II. “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’ Hitler asked upon invading the Soviet Union.
Many of those who survived the Armenian Genocide fled to the United States, and for years sought recognition, as well as accountability, for the atrocity.
The Turkish government, despite the historical record, has consistently denied the genocide, arguing that the Armenians revolted and sided with the invading Russians during the chaos of the war.
Many Armenian Americans, ranging from the late playwright William Saroyan to Cher, have long campaigned for such official recognition.
And while president after president has promised to officially recognize the genocide, even at the risk of alienating Turkey, a NATO ally, President Biden is the first president to come through.
Last week, on Armenian Remembrance Day, Biden fulfilled a campaign promise by officially declaring the Armenian massacres to be genocide.
“Over the decades Armenian immigrants have enriched the United States in countless ways, but they have never forgotten the tragic history that brought so many of their ancestors to our shores. We honor their story. We see their pain. We affirm the history. We do not cast blame but ensure that what happened is never repeated,” he said.
Turkey, whose relations with the U.S. has declined over the years, rejected Biden’s statement. Biden is expected to meet with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in June at the NATO summit in the U.K.
What does this have to do with Belichick?
Last year the normally wordless Belichick raised the issue of Turkish actions against Armenia, not only for the Armenian Genocide but for Turkish support of the attack on Armenia by neighboring Azerbaijan.
“I hope that our country will take action against Turkey and Azerbaijan for their unprovoked and deadly attacks on Armenians,” Belichick said.
He added, “We’ve seen when humanitarian crises and things like ethnic cleansing go unpunished, they just continue to happen. I hope we can put a stop to that.”
Belichick’s remarks were not widely reported. After all, while he is a great football coach, he is not a diplomat or a politician.
So, why would anyone pay attention to Belichick outside of football? Probably because Belichick knows something about ethnic cleansing.
Belichick is of Croatian descent and has visited Croatia, where he has relatives, many times.
If you are from Croatia, you know about ethnic cleansing. It was there where countless thousands of innocent Serbs and Croats fell victim to the ethnic cleansing madness that swept over the region upon the fractious breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Belichick knows football all right. He also knows about ethnic cleansing. Somebody listened.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Boston political reporter and columnist.
