Bill Belichick is one of the greatest football coaches of all-time, leading the New England Patriots to six Super Bowls in the 2000s and adding another two rings with the New York Giants as defensive coordinator.
Now, the historic head coach brings his talents to North Carolina, where he’ll follow in the footsteps of his father, Steve Belichick. Steve was the backfield coach for the Tar Heels from 1953-55, where he worked under George Barclay.
Bill Belichick Proud to Follow in Father’s Footsteps
Belichick opened up about following in his father’s footsteps as he takes his first college job, saying his father’s time coaching college impacted him greatly.
“It feels great,” Belichick said on “Good Morning America.” “I grew up around college football at the Naval Academy and some of the great teams there, especially the ’63 team, the ’60 team. Great teams and great players there, you know. [Roger] Staubach, [Thomas] Lynch, Pat Donnelly, and those guys.”
“They were great leaders, great people, and great inspirations to me, and I learned a lot from watching them. So, I’ve always tried to make my team look like those teams. The kind of teamwork, camaraderie, communication, toughness, and resilience that those guys had.”
Steve was the head coach at Vanderbilt in 1952 when Belichick was born and moved to Navy in 1956 after his time with the Tar Heels, where he stayed until 1989. Hanging around the Midshipmen was where Belichick learned about coaching in his childhood.
“Of course, those were the days where you had two-way players. So, you only had half as much practice time,” Belichick said. “So, the efficiency that the coaches had in practice to get a full practice in, offense, defense, and the kicking game with the same guys was pretty good. I learned a lot there. It’s great to be in college working with young kids.”
White many coaches struggle to shift from the pros to college, Belichick thinks he’s set up for success.
“Not too much. They’re so eager. They’re hungry. They have dreams. They want to be good. I want to help make them good, and I want to help make them good on a good team. So, it’s really been exciting to work with these guys. Some of them don’t have bad habits either, and you can start to mold them up.”
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“Now, some of them don’t have good experienced habits that a great player has,” Belichick said. “But it’s great to work with them. They’ve been very enthusiastic and we’ve made a lot of progress. We have a long way to go, of course.”
The Tar Heels finished 6-7 in 2024, expectations will be much higher than that this year.
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