William Stephen Belichick popularly known as Bill Belichick, is an American football coach who is the head coach of the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He was born on April 16, 1952 in Nashville, Tennessee to Jeannette and Steve Belichick.
He was raised in Annapolis, Md. His father, Steve, played fullback for the Detroit Lions in 1941 and coached for 33 years at the Naval Academy. Bill was a standout prep athlete at Annapolis High, where he has since been inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., before enrolling at Wesleyan, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics in 1975.
Belichick lettered in football, lacrosse and squash while attending college at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. He earned three letters in football while competing at center and tight end. As a senior, he was named captain of his lacrosse team. He was inducted into the Wesleyan University Athletics Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class in 2008.
Belichick began his coaching career after graduating from Wesleyan University and accepting a staff assistant position with the Baltimore Colts in 1975. At the age of 23, he was named special assistant to Head Coach Ted Marchibroda. In 1976, Belichick joined Rick Forzano’s staff with the Detroit Lions as an assistant special teams coach. The following year, he was given his first positional coaching assignment as the Lions’ tight ends and receivers coach. In 1978, Denver Broncos Head Coach Red Miller hired Belichick as the assistant special teams coach and assistant to defensive coordinator Joe Collier.
Belichick then spent 12 seasons with the New York Giants (1979-1990) before becoming head coach of the Cleveland Browns (1991-95). He later joined Bill Parcells for several seasons as assistant head coach/secondary with New England (1996) and assistant head coach/ secondary with the N.Y. Jets (1997-99) before returning to Foxborough.
Belichick returned to the Patriots as head coach after three seasons with the New York Jets as the team’s assistant head coach/secondary coach, holding the responsibility of calling the team’s defensive plays. In 1998, the Jets surrendered just 266 points, propelling the team to its first division title. After finishing the regular season with a franchise-best 12-4 overall record, the Jets advanced to the AFC Championship Game. In his first season with the Jets in 1997, his defense surrendered just 287 points, an average of 17.9 points per game, marking a significant 10.5-point per-game improvement from 1996.
Coach Belichick has received prestigious awards from two alma maters: Wesleyan University and Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. At Wesleyan’s commencement in 2002, Coach Belichick received the prestigious Baldwin Medal, awarded annually by the Wesleyan University Alumni Association. It recognizes outstanding contributions to public interest and to Wesleyan. In 2005, he received a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Wesleyan. He was inducted into the Wesleyan University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008. He is proud to remain close to his Phillips Academy roots, where he was bestowed the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1987 and the Distinguished Service Award in 2008. He was also honored at Phillips Academy when the school declared a day in his honor in 2002. Belichick was also among the 2011 inductees for Phillips Andover Academy’s Athletics Hall of Honor.
Coach Belichick has enjoyed several annual offseason visits to New England schools to interact with students. His speaking engagements included visits to Southern Connecticut State University, Boston College, Wesleyan, Brown University, Salem State College, Phillips Andover Academy and a panel discussion on sports at the Fenn School’s Alumni Dinner. He was a guest speaker at the 2006 NCAA Lacrosse All-American banquet held at the Final Four in Philadelphia and at the 2008 NCAA Lacrosse Championship Banquet at Gillette Stadium. In 2004, he received honorary doctorates at Boston University and the New England Institute of Technology, where he also delivered the commencement address to over 900 graduates. In 2008, he addressed a group of 100 Foxborough-area middle school students and hosted them at a screening of the movie “The Express.” Coach Belichick also delivered the commencement address at Suffield Academy in 2011.
Coach Belichick has been honored with numerous awards in recognition of his success with the Patriots. He has earned NFL Coach of the Year honors by the Associated Press three times (2003, 2007 and 2010) and has finished in the top five in AP voting for NFL Coach of the Year Award seven other times (1994, 2001, 02, 04, 05, 08, and 14).
He was born on April 16, 1952.
Bill Belichick stands at 5′ 11″ (1.80 m).
Belichick was married to Debby Clarke, but they divorced in the summer of 2006. They allegedly separated before the 2004 season, which was disclosed by the Patriots in July 2005. Belichick was also accused of maintaining a relationship with former Giants receptionist Sharon Shenocca, which helped precipitate her divorce. Belichick was seen with Linda Holliday of Jupiter, Florida several times in Arizona during the week leading up to Super Bowl XLII.
Bill Belichick has an estimated net worth of $40 million.
Bill Belichick is reported to be earning an yearly salary estimated to be $7.5 million.
Bill Belichick is famous for sporting hoodies on the sidelines.Bill claims he likes the hooded sweatshirt for practical purposes.
What about chopping off the sleeves?
“I have short arms,” he noted.
How Many Super Bowls Has Bill Belichick Won?
Patriots coach Bill Belichick has won five Super Bowls as a head coach.
Belichick’s five Super Bowl wins and eight appearances are both NFL records for coaches. If he collects his sixth Super Bowl win, he will have two more than the next closest man, former Steelers coach Chuck Noll.
In addition to the five Super Bowls Belichick has won as a head coach, he also won two as the Giants defensive coordinator from 1985-1990. The Giants defeated the Broncos in Super Bowl XXI and the Bills in Super Bowl XXV before Belichick left for his first head coaching gig with the Browns.
Belichick stayed in Cleveland for five seasons, going 36-44 during that time. When he left the Browns, Belichick went to the Patriots for a season as the secondary coach before becoming the defensive coordinator for the Jets from 1997-1999. He then went back to the Patriots as their head coach in 2000.
In his Super Bowl trips with New England, Belichick defeated the Rams, Panthers, Eagles, Seahawks and Falcons, and lost hist two matchups against the Giants.
If you sit back & spend too much time feeling good about what you did in the past, you’re going to come up short next time.
Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling.
We’ll continue to work hard to do a better job in every area going forward. I don’t know where those little things will come from but we’ll continue to be diligent on them.
There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick.
We’re always trying to do a better job on that and that’s what we’ll continue to do.
Mental toughness is going out there and doing what’s best for the team – even though everything isn’t going exactly the way you want it to.
Whatever success I’ve had it is because I’ve tried to understand the situation of the player. I think the coach’s duty is to avoid complicating matters.
My personal coaching philosophy, my mentality, has always been to make things as difficult as possible for players in practice, however bad we can make them, I make them.
The less versatile you are, the better you have to be at what you do well.