Chucking Belichick

By BRUCE LOWITT

Bill Belichick, sick and tired of the threats to his safety by University of North Carolina Boosters who are sick and tired of the Tar Heels’ failure to achieve a winning record for all but seven of the past twenty-eight seasons, said he has approached the University of Massachusetts to inquire about its not-vacant head coaching job “because no one up there gives a shit about football if it isn’t the Patriots, so, y’know, no pressure on me.“

Besides, he said, the Minutemen just completed an 0-12 season, the only team among the NCAA’s 136 schools to finish winless in 2025, “so there’s nowhere to go but up. I mean, my four wins in twelve games this year should make me look like the second coming of Bear Bryant to them, right?”

For the moment, just how desperate Belichick is to escape from North Carolina depends on how much – or little – he’s willing to work for at UMass, and whether he views it as a plus or minus to coach a team that plays in 17,000-seat Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium, as opposed to Chapel Hill’s 63,000-seat Kenan Memorial Stadium, where raucous crowds often rained boos and profanities … and beers … down upon him and his team.

Considering that the UMass stadium on the Amherst campus was less than half-filled for most home games – 3,714 attended the 21-3 Homecoming loss to Western Michigan and 6,043 watched the final home game of the season, a 45-14 blowout by Bowling Green – “I think it would be a pleasure,” Belichick said, “to play a game where most fans are preoccupied with mapping out trips for apple picking, hayrides, and pumpkin patches instead of watching the game in front of them.

“Besides,” the 73-year-old former Patriots coach added, “I think I could work out a deal with (current UMass coach) Joe Harasymiak and the University that would be very profitable for both of them. And I’ll bring along Jordan (Hudson, his 24-year-old girlfriend) as an unpaid assistant coach. She says she wants to be in charge of player expansion, whatever that means.“

Belichick, with a net worth of about $60-million, earned $10-million for the first year of his five-year contract with UNC. Harasmyiak’s five-year UMass contract signed a year ago is worth about $1.35-million annually, plus Name, Image, and Likeness funds.

Belichick’s performance, both his record and his surly, dismissive press conference after UNC ended the season by getting routed 42-19 by rival N.C. State, led to a near fistfight between current UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham, who supported the university’s decision to hire Belichick, and Steve Newmark, who will become the AD next summer when Cunningham transitions to an advisory role involving special university projects.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Newmark told Cunningham, “your first project should be dumping that crusty piece of crap who turned this university into a national punchline and our football team into a punching bag. …

“If Belichick doesn’t want to buy his way out of Chapel Hill,” Newmark added, “I’d be delighted to kick in a few million of our endowment dollars to get rid of his Name, Image, and Likeness everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line.”

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