Bill Belichick Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: Bill Belichick
OCCUPATION: Coach
BIRTH DATE: April 16, 1952 (Age: 61)
EDUCATION: Phillips Academy, Wesleyan University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Nashville, Tennessee
Full Name: William Stephen Belichick
AKA: Bill Belichick
AKA: William Belichick
ZODIAC SIGN: Aries

Best Known For

Bill Belichick is head coach of the NFL's New England Patriots and widely considered one of the best coaches in football history.

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Bill Belichick

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Bill Belichick. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 04:12, May 18, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/bill-belichick-20967651.

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Bill Belichick. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/bill-belichick-20967651 [Accessed 18 May 2013].

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"Bill Belichick," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/bill-belichick-20967651 [accessed May 18, 2013].

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"Bill Belichick," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/bill-belichick-20967651 (accessed May 18, 2013).

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Bill Belichick [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 18] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/bill-belichick-20967651.

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Bill Belichick, http://www.biography.com/people/bill-belichick-20967651 (last visited May 18, 2013).

AMA Style

Bill Belichick. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/bill-belichick-20967651. Accessed May 18, 2013.

Synopsis

American football head coach, Bill Belichick was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1952. The son of a longtime college coach, Belichick got his own start in coaching in 1975 when he took a job with the Baltimore Colts. By the 1980s, he was the defensive coordinator for the New York Giants and praised as one of the brightest minds in the game. After a rocky stint as head coach of the Cleveland Browns in the early 1990s,

Quotes

"I think practice preparation is always an indicator of game performance."

– Bill Belichick

the New England Patriots hired Belichick in 2000. He's guided the franchise to three Super Bowl victories.

Early Career

Widely considered one of the best coaches in NFL history, Bill Belichick was born William Stephen Belichick on April 16, 1952, in Nashville, Tennessee. The only child of Steve and Jeannette Belichick, Bill showed an early aptitude for the game of football, a trait he no doubt inherited from his father, a longtime assistant coach and college football scout.

Belichick studied how his father dissected game film and drew up plays, and often accompanied him to coaches meetings. By his early teens, Belichick was a regular part of the team's practices, and was well-versed in the game's schemes and formations.

After graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Belichick enrolled at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he played lacrosse and finished with an undergraduate degree in economics.

Following his graduation from Wesleyan in 1975, Belichick took a job with the Baltimore Colts for $25 a week, serving as a sort of gopher for head coach Ted Marchibroda. From there, Belichick hooked on with a number of NFL teams, including the Detroit Lions and Denver Broncos, as he attempted to climb the league's coaching ladder.

In 1979, Belichick was hired by the New York Giants to coach the team's special teams unit. Belichick ended up staying with the club for 12 seasons, eventually taking over as defensive coordinator under head coach Bill Parcells, who steered the franchise to a pair of Super Bowl victories.

Head Coach

After the Giants' second Super Bowl win in 1991, Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell hired Belichick as his new head coach. Belichick's time in Cleveland proved rocky. Demanding of his players and hardly a friend to the media, Belichick had difficulty winning over the team's fans and its mercurial owner. Following the 1995 season and Modell's announcement that he was moving the franchise to Baltimore, Belichick was fired.

He quickly found work with his old mentor, Bill Parcells, who at the time was head coach of the New England Patriots. The pair worked in New England for the 1996 season—that same year, the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl, but lost to the Green Bay Packers. The following year, Belichick followed Parcells to the New York Jets, where Parcells had been hired as head coach.

In early 2000, Belichick got another shot to direct a franchise, when New England Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, named him head coach. While old Browns fans snickered at New England's decision to hire him, Belichick quickly demonstrated why Kraft had wanted him.