Bill Belichick describes the emotions of following in his father's steps at North Carolina

Throughout his life, Bill Belichick followed in the footsteps of his father, Steve Belichick, as a football coach. Their paths diverged when Bill coached in the NFL, rather than in college like his father. Now, in college for the first time, Bill finds himself at one of the schools his father coached.

Belichick, the new head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, finds himself running a program where his father spent three years as a coach. Still, as he shared during an interview with Good Morning America, his father’s time as a college coach has had a profound impact on him.

“It feels great,” Bill Belichick said. “I grew up around college football at the Naval Academy and some of the great teams there, especially the ’63 team, the ’60 team. Great teams and great players there, you know. [Roger] Staubach, [Thomas] Lynch, Pat Donnelly, and those guys. They were great leaders, great people, and great inspirations to me, and I learned a lot from watching them. So, I’ve always tried to make my team look like those teams. The kind of teamwork, camaraderie, communication, toughness, and resilience that those guys had.”

Steve Belichick was the backfield coach at Vanderbilt in 1952 when Bill Belichick was born. The next year, he’d go to Chapel Hill and take the same job with North Carolina. For three seasons, he coached the Tar Heels and there’s a now-famous photo of him as a young child sitting in Kenan Stadium.

In 1956, he’d move to Navy, where he’d be a backfield coach and scout, holding the job until 1989. That’s where most of Bill’s memories of growing up around football teams comes from. He’d learn plenty from those Navy teams that he’s looked to implement in his own teams and now at North Carolina as a head coach.

“Of course, those were the days where you had two-way players. So, you only had half as much practice time,” Belichick said. “So, the efficiency that the coaches had in practice to get a full practice in, offense, defense, and the kicking game with the same guys was pretty good. I learned a lot there. It’s great to be in college working with young kids.”

The move between college and pros is a difficult one that many coaches fail to make successfully. There are too many adjustments to make. Still, Bill Belichick hasn’t felt the need to change who he is as a coach.

“Not too much. They’re so eager. They’re hungry. They have dreams. They want to be good. I want to help make them good, and I want to help make them good on a good team. So, it’s really been exciting to work with these guys. Some of them don’t have bad habits either, and you can start to mold them up. Now, some of them don’t have good experienced habits that a great player has,” Belichick said. “But it’s great to work with them. They’ve been very enthusiastic and we’ve made a lot of progress. We have a long way to go, of course.”

Belichick inherited a North Carolina team that went 6-7 in the 2024 season. Now, he’s looked to rebuild the roster in the image he has for a program and will look to take a leap forward.