Livescore
It sucks to get old. Joints ache. Sickness lingers. Vision gets clouded.
For those of us not considered the greatest coach of all time, getting old sucks in a different way. Just like the body breaking down, a winning percentage only endures for so long, too. The energy, preparation and runway needed to keep winning is limited.
Everything has a shelf life — except the 72-year-old Bill Belichick, it seems.
The ultimate basketball school, North Carolina, just made one of the ultimate sports power moves of all time. It landed arguably North America’s greatest-ever coach of a team sport to guide a middle-of-the-road ACC football program.
Red Auerbach may want to have a word or two about that above designation, but, ah, that’s just basketball.
The home of MJ, Dean, Ol’ Roy and countless hoops All-Americans just admitted the obvious down on Tobacco Road: Football is king. And Bill Belichick is the king of football.
It still feels like that pinch-me moment where you can’t believe it’s true. There has to be something more that we’re missing. Sure, it’s obvious Belichick may be laying the groundwork for his son Steve to succeed him. Sure, Carolina might be a jump stop for Belichick before another run at the NFL and the victories record.
The Tar Heels go in with their eyes wide open — in shock, probably, that it actually worked. A sedate campus with an honored ACC pedigree just bought into a ruthless genius. And ruthless wins these days as college sports makes the clunky transition from some sort of amateur model to one that looks a lot like the NFL.
Who better to lead us there than Belichick, even if it’s the septuagenarian version of The Hoodie? However it ends up, the hire changed the school, the program and maybe college sports.
But it’s the decision to invest by North Carolina in the first place that made it possible. The salary is high for Carolina but (college) industry standard: $10 million annually over five years, with the first three guaranteed. However, sources tell CBS Sports the NIL investment has grown fivefold to $20 million, on a level with Ohio State.
That investment got the Buckeyes another loss to Michigan but a possible redemptive playoff run. Carolina? TBD. The point is they’re suddenly playing 3D chess, the same as the other football factories.
It’s obvious UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts — a Duke grad, for gosh sakes, who has been on the job for four months — ain’t playin’. Neither was the board of trustees. Once Belichick showed he was serious, everyone in their orbit had to realize there was history to be made.
That is the vision of North Carolina’s administration going all in. By all accounts, when he realized the NFL wasn’t going to be an option for a second year in a row, Belichick wanted this job like it was another Lombardi Trophy.
Belichick still has skills to flaunt. It just happens to be at a place that has won at least 10 games eight times in its entire history. Belichick did that each year from 2003 to 2019 with the Patriots.
A 400-page “organizational bible” was revealed during those first interviews. Belichick has promised a complete NFL makeover. He plans a staff populated with some of the old Patriots’ familiar names.
We’ve heard this “pipeline to the NFL” talk before. Herman Edwards was hired by his former agent and Arizona State AD Ray Anderson. They crowed about a “New Leadership Model” reflecting an NFL approach.
“Either this is going to be a wild success, the selection of this coach, or it’s going to fail miserably,” former Arizona State executive senior associate AD Jean Boyd said at the time.
It failed miserably.
Of course, Edwards, another former NFL coach, is not Belichick. Not even close. The upside here is that Carolina gets Deion-like shine for a couple of years and chases a playoff berth. I mean, if Curt Cignetti can do it in short order, how hard can it be for a guy who has won six Super Bowls?
This becomes a national story that crosses platforms from SportsCenter to CNN to Stephen Colbert. You can’t ignore the entertainment factor. You also can’t ignore reality. You’re not 100% in on this historic hire unless you can 100% look in the mirror and admit how it could also go horribly wrong.
Belichick was slipping at the end, with three losing seasons in his last four with the Patriots. Please, let this not be Willie Mays with the Mets, Joe Namath with the Rams or MJ himself with the Wizards.
“Will be the best move they’ve ever made or set them back a decade,” an agent told CBS Sports in a fantastic spill-the-beans article Wednesday night.
With Belichick, you get the whole package: legendary coach, unparalleled excellence, control freak. Belichick passed those qualities on to Nick Saban, who refined them at the college level. But Saban won his first national championship at the age of 52. He then won seven in 17 years, retiring last year at 72.
That’s the same age as Belichick as he begins his college career. That also has to explain, in part, why the North Carolina board agonized mightily over the hire. The hypocrisy of firing a 73-year-old college lifer (Mack Brown) and hiring a guy seven months younger with no college experience is rich.
Age. It sucks, depending on your amount of Super Bowls won.
There is no doubt Belichick can still coach. But how much of the game is really coaching these days? Half the job is re-recruiting your roster each December. As fascinating as the portal tracker may be for some, it is stocked with its share of failures, has-beens and the misled listening to a marketing agent taking 20%.
Belichick will have to wade through that, too.
In the NFL, the talent comes pre-packaged and evaluated. At 18, prospects are coming to college unrefined and entitled. These days they are increasingly arriving with their hands out.
Read Ian O’Connor’s fine profile of Belichick. The coach used his hammer as a pitiless leader who would cut players perceived to be in their prime. The locker room was not always pleased.
There is a different dynamic in a college locker room. At least in the NFL, salary is slotted by the draft process. Those cherished second contracts are earned. There is more and more anecdotal evidence of college locker rooms fraying because first-year freshmen who haven’t played a down are getting more than senior veterans.
Belichick’s success will largely hinge on how he maneuvers through that portal/transfer era and his ability to game the system. Deion has done it in the short term. Cignetti did it. Lane Kiffin did it — all of them to different degrees.
None of them have won championships — national or conference. Relevancy, yes, that was achieved. So the question has to be asked: What does North Carolina want out of this relationship?
Belichick is definitely motivated to coach. It’s also obvious this isn’t a 10-year decision. It may be a one-year gamble until some NFL team calls.
And if the talented Steve Belichick slowly proves himself to be the son-in-waiting, that would make this move look brilliant.
All of that has to be evaluated next to the time factor. Joints ache. Vision fades. Belichick knows what he wants.
Does the North Carolina administration clearly see the future? Or is The Hoodie worth it at any price?
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