When the New England Patriots rallied to pull off what has widely been heralded as the most exciting come-from-behind victory in the 51-year history of the Super Bowl, sports astrologer Courtney Roberts was wildly elated but not overly surprised by the outcome.Roberts is a huge fan of the New England football dynasty and a super fan of the team’s successful and enigmatic coach Bill Belicheck. For those who don’t follow the sport, the Pats were able to erase a 28-3 third quarter deficit by scoring 25 unanswered points to tie the game at the end of regulation at 28-28. The NFL champs kept their momentum rolling with a 75-yard touchdown drive in the overtime period to win 34-28 and secure the team’s record-breaking fifth NFL title. In the contest, quarterback Tom Brady passed for more yards on more attempts than any player in Super Bowl history and, for the fourth time, walked away with the Game’s Most Valuable player award. But it was clearly a team victory that reflected positively on the organizational skills and managerial grit of the Patriots’ coaching staff.Like Brady, Head Coach Bill Belichick has the five Super Bowl titles the duo has won together. In all, he has 26 NFL playoff wins, or six more than former Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry, the runner-up in this category. Counting games when he was an assistant, Belichick has coached in 10 Super Bowls, or more than any other coach in NFL history.No one can say for sure why this intensely serious, no-nonsense coach was destined to have so much success in the NFL’s Super Bowl era. But Roberts believes she’s found some important clues.
“Everything about the NFL is big, and that popularity and concentration of public focus is part of the reason why the league is a good subject for research on planetary influences. While some coaches reach the pinnacle of success for their sport multiple times most never make it to an NFL title game,” she explained.At a recent Kepler Conference for research astrologers in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Roberts described a study she designed that compares the natal planetary positions (where the planets were at birth) for all NFL head coaches in the Super Bowl era. The era dates to January 1967 when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers thrashed Hank Stram’s Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in neutral Los Angeles. Today’s NFL was created by the eventual merger of the old American Football League and National Football League in 1971. The old NFL and AFL were renamed the National Football Conference and American Football Conference (AFC).Following regular season play each conference crowns a champion in the playoffs and the conference champions meet in the Super Bowl.Roberts says her research sought to determine if planetary positions influence the personality, character and destiny of NFL coaches. “If this is not the case, we should not see any significant differences between the 53 NFL head coaches who have won a conference title and the 166 NFL head coaches who have not. (Active coaches who have yet to win a conference title were not included in the study).
“In our study no particular patterns should emerge other than those due to seasonal birth rates or chance. And we certainly should not expect to see an opposite or complementary difference between the two groups,” she said. But this is exactly what happened. Very distinct patterns emerged in both sets of data, and the patterns are remarkably complementary. “What the data seems to suggest is that NFC and AFC championship head coaches are born with certain planetary placements that non-champions lack, and vice versa,” she said. For the study, Roberts says she only charted the placement of the Sun, Mars and Jupiter in the coaches’ charts. These are the three most “masculine” planets which, in accordance with traditional astrological theory, would conceivably have the most relevance to professional football. Timing and other technical considerations also came into play. Although accurate birth times for all of the coaches weren’t known, Roberts is relatively sure she has the right positions for the Sun, Mars and Jupiter in the coaches’ charts. But, she says, the same cannot be said for placements of the Moon, Mercury and Venus, which zip through the zodiac signs more swiftly. Saturn, on the other hand, moves too slowly to be included in this particular study, but a follow-up test of its influence is planned for a future date.
According to Roberts, NFL coaches who have won at least one NFC or AFC conference championship were born with a larger number of the signature planets (Sun, Mars or Jupiter) in the Tropical Zodiacal sign of Capricorn. The sign with the lowest number of these planets was Gemini. In contrast, among the 166 NFL head coaches who have never won an NFC or AFC championship, the exact opposite was true. The highest number of planets was in the sign of Gemini and the lowest in Capricorn. For championship coaches, after Capricorn the pecking order for signs with the most signature planets has Aries ranked second ahead of Virgo and Leo. For the non-championship coaches, Aquarius, Cancer, and Libra/Scorpio followed Gemini as signs with the most planets. Roberts explains that each of the astrological signs are associated with or linked to one of the four astrological elements astrologers consider when delineating a birth chart: fire, earth, air and water. “When we look at the totals for the elements we find championship coaches score high on earth signs like Capricorn and Virgo, and low on air signs like Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Conversely, non-championship coaches score high on air signs (Gemini, Libra and Aquarius) and low on earth signs (Capricorn, Virgo and Taurus).
Roberts says Finish mathematician and astrologer Kyosti Tarvainen, PhD, reviewed the data and calculated the odds at 9,000 to one against the likelihood this result occurred by chance. From an astrological perspective, Roberts says earth signs “are the practical, down-to-earth doers of the zodiac and have a knack for getting valuable results. The air signs are sociable and popular. They may talk a good game but don’t necessarily deliver the goods.” So what’s astrologically up with the man who now boasts the best professional football record in the Super Bowl era? Belicheck’s chart reveals both the Sun and Jupiter were in Aries, the second ranked sign after Capricorn in the planet count totals for NFL championship coaches. Roberts didn’t have an accurate time for his birth, but at noon on the day of his birth the moon was at 18 degrees of Capricorn. “What this tells us is that the fast-moving Moon was in the sign of Capricorn all day on his birthday, no matter when he took his first breath. Astrologically, these placements indicate an individual who is incredibly competitive (Sun/Jupiter in Aries) and exceptionally well organized (Moon in Capricorn). On the football field this combination aligns a committed warrior with the requisite executive management skills needed to survive and succeed in the super-sized business enterprise that professional football has become in America today, Roberts says.