Tom E. Curran • E-mail

The NFL got a little duller in January when the Baltimore Ravens fired head coach Brian Billick. But Billick’s unique and bluntly delivered perspectives on the NFL and life in general won’t go unheard in 2008. The 54-year-old Billick will do games for Fox in the fall and is currently working on a book with Michael McCambridge, author of the seminal book on the NFL, “America’s Game.” Since January, he’s married off his older daughter, Aubree, and is spending time with his younger daughter, Keegan, and wife, Kim. He also worked the NFL Draft as an analyst for the NFL Network. When I approached him there, shook his hand and wished him well, he said, “Here’s my information. Call me anytime.” So I did.

Tom Curran: What does a firing do to a family?

Brian Billick: I don’t know what it does to a family as much as what it does to perceptions. With professional sports, we don’t like to think that they [coaches, players, teams] do what they do for the money. It’s a passion. But when you go through a firing, the real-world, business part of it comes crashing into you. And that brings you into the reality of the business. But it’s something you rebound from and bounce back from and you move on to the next thing.

TC: So you haven’t gone through a “grieving period” really?

BB: I haven’t dwelled on it since the day it happened. And that’s my nature. I do expect that once training camp starts and once the season starts I will have more of a sense of it, the sense of loss.

TC: Then there really hasn’t been a day or moment of introspection?

BB: Oh there’s the constant critique of looking back and saying, “When I do this again, what will I do differently?” You don’t want to get to the point where you say, “Well, the guy’s a (jerk), and there’s nothing I could have done differently.” You have to learn from it.

TC: Do you want to coach again?

BB: Yeah. It’s in your blood. But I don’t want to coach again because it’s simply all I can do. I want to challenge myself, and I relish this opportunity to broaden my horizons. That’s one of the reasons I’ll be working for Fox in the fall and doing a book with Michael MacCambrudge. None of these things are apt to replace my passion for coaching, but I want to give myself every opportunity to do different things.

TC: Did you ever think your “Dating Game” appearance would get so much airplay?

BB: Oh God no. And it was “Match Game.” Everyone says “Dating Game,” but it was “Match Game.” But not a month goes by since I’ve been a head coach where somebody doesn’t come up and say they just saw the rerun of that show. I believe they must run that SOB on a thousand different channels at a thousand different times. Amazing.

TC: What’s an NFL fact that the media and public doesn’t grasp the importance of?

BB: The fact that, from the very first whistle to open training camp to the very last practice – particularly if you’re in a playoff run – the job is 24-7. Now people say that in other occupations and believe it to be true, and they may go through a month or two or three weeks where it’s like that, but it is true from July through January for a head football coach. And if you go to the Super Bowl it’s until February where there will not be an hour of the day when you are not on call. Even when you have a bye week and you do get away for a day, you will still spend a couple of hours of that day doing things that only the head coach would be doing.

TC: And the media commitment is a major part?

BB: It is. And I will tell you this, whoever decided that, after three, gut-wrenching hours of coaching we’d come out after a few minutes in the locker room and talk to a room full of media? I would like to be locked in a room with that guy for a few minutes.

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