There is a sickness creeping into the bedrock of American football, and it wears the tweed jacket of a university compliance officer. Yesterday, the University of North Carolina announced that defensive coordinator Steve Belichick, son of head coach Bill Belichick, will resign in late October following an internal investigation. The school’s brass released a statement claiming the younger Belichick engaged in "certain actions" that disregarded the university’s core values. I read that press release twice over my morning coffee, waiting for the bad news. Instead, I found myself overwhelmed with a profound sense of jealousy.
My own son, Brayden, is twenty-eight years old and works in user experience design for a mid-sized healthcare portal. He has never disregarded a core value in his life. He listens actively, he respects administrative boundaries, and he frequently talks about the importance of work-life balance. It makes me absolutely sick. If Brayden had even an ounce of the sheer, unadulterated contempt for institutional norms that Steve Belichick apparently possesses, he might actually be a man I could introduce to my friends at the country club.
Let’s look at the facts of this so-called "turmoil" in Chapel Hill. The administration is clutching its pearls because a football coach focused entirely on football rather than whatever holistic wellness seminars the dean of students is peddling this semester. Back in my day, if a defensive coordinator wasn't actively violating at least three municipal ordinances by Tuesday afternoon, it meant he wasn't watching enough film. You do not stop a modern spread offense by fostering a nurturing environment. You stop it with a terrifying, borderline-feral obsession that makes the HR department extremely uncomfortable.
People are up in arms about the nepotism. The critics say Bill Belichick only hired his son because of their bloodline. To that I say: who else are you going to trust? When it’s third-and-long with the season on the line, you don't want a coordinator you found on LinkedIn. You want the man who shares your DNA, who ate his cereal in silence across from you for eighteen years, and who understands that a Cover-0 blitz is more important than basic human empathy. That is not nepotism. That is simply trusting the intangibles.
This entire investigation reeks of an academic superiority complex. The school forced Steve into a "medical leave" back in August, which we all know is just university-speak for putting a guy in timeout because he yelled at a sophomore too loudly. And let us not forget that General Manager Michael Lombardi also resigned earlier this month. The front office is being systematically purged of anyone who actually understands the grimy, miserable, beautiful reality of winning football games.
We simply cannot employ a defensive coordinator whose entire developmental philosophy violates the fundamental bylaws of the university's student wellness charter.
I have sat in draft rooms, I have stood on freezing sidelines in November, and I have shared a scotch with men who would sell their own grandmother for a reliable edge rusher. Not once in any of those rooms did anyone ask if a prospect was aligning with the university's mission statement. The mission statement is to score more points than the other team. If your defensive coordinator has to alienate the entire faculty senate to shave a half-second off the opponent's time in the pocket, you give him a raise and a dedicated parking spot.
Steve Belichick is being martyred because he refused to pretend that college football is an extracurricular activity. He treated it like the ruthless corporate bloodsport it is, and the university punished him for stripping away the illusion. They want the television revenue and the bowl game prestige, but they want it delivered by men who smile at donor dinners and use the correct collegiate letterhead.
When North Carolina is giving up forty points a game in November, I hope the chancellor finds comfort in the school's pristine core values. I hope they read the student handbook aloud in the locker room at halftime while the opposing offense runs roughshod over a defensive line that has been taught to respect boundaries. As for me, I will be staring at my phone, waiting for a son who will never call to ask for bail money, knowing I failed to raise a real coach.