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Has Bill Belichick made college football too daunting of a challenge?
When he was the best coach in the history of the game in New England, Belichick controlled everything and did it his way.
Getting into the NFL playoffs every year was a given for the Patriots and reaching nine Super Bowls while staging some of the greatest comebacks the sport has ever seen was expected. His three losses to the Giants and Eagles went down to the last possessions and could be blamed on mistakes made by some of his most dependable players.
He has yet to coach a college game, but so far it looks like a whole new gig. He has constructed a roster of Mack Brown leftovers and recruits, traded two dozen incoming and outgoing transfers in the portal and signed what was left of the high school class of 2025 into a team that even he has no idea how it will play versus TCU on Labor Day night.
If that is not enough for the national media to cover, having a 24-year-old girlfriend has dogged him from literally his first day on the job. He has addressed it briefly to the media and to his own team, explaining, “She helps me with personal stuff and has nothing to do with football. I am here to coach and the players are here to be coached.”
Yet her acceptance will hinge on how the Tar Heels do against the Horned Frogs, fair or not fair. If the Tar Heels win, she will be a mere distraction; if they lose, she will be blamed by some. The loyalist of fans spin it as just more publicity with a little palace intrigue.
The story won’t go away until some of his players become better known than she is. The New York Times, for goodness sake, has given Carolina football more coverage since December than it did over 16 years of Mack Brown, the publicity magnet. Belichick would be better off lightening up and making jokes about his grand daughterly-aged love child.
It has reached Nantucket, where Belichick has a home and a boat and a one-time dedicated fan base that has turned on him. His former girlfriend, the 60ish Linda Holliday, is the charity queen of the exclusive island that has a not-for-profit on every corner. And Holliday is getting far more interest than anything Belichick can do these days.
So the three months until kickoff can’t come soon enough. All reports are that Belichick will operate like the championship curmudgeon coach did in New England, appearing only at press conferences required by Carolina or the ACC. If he does his weekly “live” radio show that is in his UNC contract, it won’t be held at a local watering hole like it has since Brown’s first tenure, rather in the confines of a private studio.
In the NFL, his team did the talking. Around here, that gab has long begun.
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Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Anthony Sorbellini
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.
Chansky’s Notebook: Palace Intrigue Chapelboro.com.
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