“Learned a Lot from Him”: Bill Belichick’s Emotional Admission About Father’s Coaching Legacy as He Gets Honest on UNC Future

Like father, like son. As cliche as that sounds, it has transpired into reality for the Belichick clan.  Bill Belichick is firmly on the Mount Rushmore of football head coaches and probably the greatest defensive mind in the history of the sport. But his acumen, prowess and resultant success are no fluke if you’re aware of his lineage.

Bill Belichick’s dad, the late Steve Belichick, was a football powerhouse in his own right. It’s almost as if there was an osmosis-like permeation and transfer of footballing enterprise between the pair. Bill has actually passed on both his skill and his father’s name to his son, too, who’s now his defensive coordinator at UNC. Steve Belichick’s indirect imprint on football is very big and very impactful. And Bill isn’t averse to admitting how vital his old man was in moulding his own career. 

On “The Pivot” podcast, Retired NFL vet Ryan Clark asked Bill Belichick about his father’s influence on him and his love for the game. “My dad grew up in a steel town. [There was] no way out for him except for football,” began Belichick. Steve is from Monessen, Pennsylvania. A small town that spans about 3 square miles. This really contextualizes how, at least back in the 1930s, football really was the only way out for a life of prosperity. “He was a good football player, so he got an opportunity to go to college, got a college education. Played professionally for a year before World War Two, started serving the Navy and then became a coach,” proceeded Belichick. Having vocalized the background of his father, he then went on to speak on how his coaching was an influence on a young Bill.

“Football has been great to [my dad], great to my family and provided great opportunities for me and my kids.” he said. “[My dad] was the ultimate team player. He was a coach that they said to, ‘Steve, we need you to go on the road and scout the next opponent that we play’…Back in those days, you only got one look at the play. There were no replay boards, there was no TV, there was no nothing. So he became very good at it. Wrote a book about it, and then I went with him.” Accompanying Steve Belichick on his scouting escapades is when Bill Belichick got a taste for the sidelines. Both consciously and subconsciously falling in love with the sport and his tryst with becoming the proverbial GOAT. 

“I learned a lot from him in terms of how to watch the game, how to study, how to prepare for the game…I started to process some of that together. And look, if you love the game- which I do- and you’re not a good player- which I wasn’t- then you’re a coach! So that worked out!” remarked Belichick. Who’ll continue adding to his, and by extension his father’s, legacy with the Tar Heels now. There’s been a ton of discourse around Bill Belichick’s foray into college football. But one of the plotlines that has somewhat been lost is that Steve Belichick also had a stint with UNC as an assistant coach. Which segues into a different segment of the aforementioned podcast, where Bill was asked about this move to CFB. Which, on the surface level, comes across as a step down from the NFL.

Bill Belichick speaks about his foray into College Football with UNC

“What excites you most about working with the young guys again, down at UNC? Is it the opportunity to develop them, you know, into men? Is it more of that, more than anything else?” asked former New England Patriot Fred Taylor. Having witnessed Bill Belichick run an NFL operation first-hand, Taylor did manage to hit the nail on the head. Belichick replied in the affirmative. As well as talked about how things are going so far through the off-season in Chapel Hill.

“That’s definitely a great part of it. You know, those kids are very impressionable, and they want to be good. They want to be in the NFL. And they don’t have a lot of bad habits. They don’t have some of the skills, you know, that the NFL players have, obviously. But they’re not bad habits. They want to be good, they’re very coachable. They work hard and they put a lot into it. We trained for three months from mid-January to mid-April, and we gained 469 pounds of muscle and lost 169 pounds of fat. Well, that’s pretty good buy-in from the team…So I have a ton of respect for that,” said Bill Belichick. Football, begrudgingly, hasn’t been the main point of focus since his move to UNC. Off-field drama featuring his girlfriend Jordon Hudson has taken precedence. So it’s great to hear some sort of positivity around the program.

Bill Belichick will look to “do his job” and keep the main thing the main thing between now and fall. He’s embarking on the next chapter of his illustrious career, and the path he’ll traverse is one Steve Belichick has already walked. But this poetic link tying him to UNC won’t go a far way if performances and results on the gridiron don’t match his reputation and stature. It’ll be fascinating to see how things play out.

The post “Learned a Lot from Him”: Bill Belichick’s Emotional Admission About Father’s Coaching Legacy as He Gets Honest on UNC Future appeared first on EssentiallySports.