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With Bill Belichick, the only bad publicity is no publicity.
For Carolina’s new football coach and icon of the sport, the news keeps coming ad infinitum. Every day there is another spin on the same new story.
With absolutely no verification, the Belichick-back-to-the-NFL rumors keep coming ever since the Hoodie said at his introductory press conference that “I didn’t come here to leave.” Zero NFL teams have shown interest in snatching him away from college football.
Belichick’s new general manager Mike Lombardi continues to say he and his boss are “1000 percent” committed to coaching the Tar Heels. Yet the Cowboys fired Mike McCarthy and it started again.
He has not filled out his coaching staff to which Lombardi says they are being “diligent, not slow.” Meanwhile, Belichick and his son Steve have been seen at high schools up and down the East Coast.
That may be a new strategy for the six-time Super Bowl champion, coming out of the closet so to speak to build his profile across a new landscape while recruiting assistants are chosen “diligently.”
Remember, the biggest brand in pro football is now working for one of the biggest brands in college athletics. He may have been a recluse in New England for winning so much. Now he is showing the new face of Carolina football to a new public, which has inspired NFL Films to do a special on his first season in Chapel Hill.
Thursday’s story was that Belichick has only signed a “term sheet” proposal from UNC, which is very common for college coaches, many of whom go to work without signing anything more. To some would-be lawyers, this could give BB a chance to get out of a $10 million buyout by abandoning Carolina before June 1.
“There’s been no conversation about anything,” Lombardi told CBS Sports this week. “This is the best job we could have at the time of our lives and we’re going to really embrace it and work hard to make North Carolina proud.”
The other point of this is integrity for a guy who, as we all know, had fines and suspensions from the NFL commissioner’s kangaroo court for breaking rules that are broken all the time.
Belichick, ironically, may have more loyalty to a program for which he has yet to coach a game than for the backroom antics of a league that resented his success for more than two decades.
In the NFL, coaches are fired after one season all the time and at mid-season for losing too much. Belichick has to know he would be considered a pariah to the college game for leaving the Tar Heels at the altar before spring practice or even after one season.
August 30th can’t come soon enough to see him on the sideline at Kenan Stadium against TCU. Only then may the publicity turn all good until the next “bad news” arrives.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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