Bill Belichick, the recently hired football coach at the University of North Carolina, said on Thursday that he is committed to the collegiate game and is not searching for a way back to the professional ranks.
A large portion of the football community was taken aback this week when the University of North Carolina hired Belichick, whose stellar NFL career contrasts sharply with a bare collegiate curriculum.
The six-time Super Bowl winning coach told reporters in Chapel Hill, “I didn’t come here to leave.” “I m here to do the best I can for the University of North Carolina and the program.”
The University’s Board of Trustees and Board of Governors must approve Belichick’s five-year deal.
“We’ve been playing football at Carolina since 1888 and I suspect that in those 136 years, there are few days that have been as auspicious as this one,” Lee Roberts, the UNC Chancellor, stated.
In an attempt to emulate the former New England coach’s sideline style, Roberts wore a suit jacket with the sleeves cut off while seated at a table with Belichick and athletic director Bubba Cunningham.
“I ve said many times that we want to be the best public university in the United States and that means excellence in everything that we do,” Roberts stated. “Our college football program is going to be outstanding. We have the best coach, and we want to compete with the best.”
From 2000 to 2023, Belichick led the Patriots to Super Bowl victories in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016, and 2018. In January, he and New England agreed to split ways.
Belichick now aspires to become one of the few coaches who have won everything in both the NFL and college.
-
Pete Carroll re-established USC as a college powerhouse,
going 97-19 over nine seasons
in Los Angeles and capturing a pair of Associated Press national championships. He went on to a successful
14-year run with the Seattle Seahawks
, winning two NFC titles and
one Super Bowl
.
-
Jimmy Johnson
led the Dallas Cowboys
to Super Bowl wins following the 1992 and 1993 regular seasons
.
Before landing in Dallas, Johnson had spent 10 successful years running the sidelines of Oklahoma State and Miami, winning the 1987 AP title for the Hurricanes. -
Former Oklahoma coach
Barry Switzer inherited
Johnson’s Cowboys and led Dallas
to the Super Bowl title
following the 1995 regular season.
His Sooners
won three
AP titles
, in 1974, 1975 and 1985.
Only 11 months after he and the Patriots decided to part ways after an incredible 24-season run that featured six Super Bowl victories under quarterback Tom Brady’s leadership, Belichick made an odd professional decision.
He leads the Patriots and Cleveland Browns with 302 regular season victories, ranking third on the all-time total, only surpassed by George Halas (318) and Don Shula (328).
For a long time, it was thought that Belichick wanted another NFL job in order to get that Shula record.
However, given that he moved to Chapel Hill at the age of 72, Belichick may not have much time left to return to the NFL and accumulate the 26 victories required to catch Shula.
With nothing left to prove, Belichick was questioned about why he was coaching at all.
“Well, it’s better than working,” he said. “It’s not working when you love what you do. I genuinely enjoy what I do. Coaching is something I adore. The interactions with the players are fantastic.
Belichick added that because the NCAA game now has technology, rules, and even a pay scale comparable to the pros, the gap between the professional and collegiate levels isn’t as great as it once was.
Belichick claimed that during his brief hiatus from professional football, numerous college coaches have sought his counsel on how to apply those aspects of game to college.
“I would say that this year, college sort of found me. Belichick remarked, “I didn’t necessarily go and seek it out.”
“I’d say that (those conversations) started to make me a lot more aware of it, because the first thing I had to do was learn about it,” he added.
Belichick takes over a UNC football program that is firmly in the upper-middle division but not very good.
Under the leadership of future Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor, the Heels last won an Atlantic Coast Conference championship in 1980.
Coach Mack Brown, who led all active Bowl Subdivision coaches in lifetime victories, left North Carolina last month.
In his second six-year stay at UNC, Brown, who led Texas to the 2005 national championship, finished 44-33.
From 1953 to 1955, Belichick’s father, Steve Belichick, a veteran assistant coach in the Navy, attended UNC.
According to Belichick, the decision to return to university was motivated by the time spent growing up near a college.
According to the new UNC coach, “this is really kind of a dream come true,” “So as a kid, all I knew was college football, and so it’s great to come back home to Carolina and back in an environment that I really grew up in.”
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