Bill Belichick: A Super Bowl god's fall from grace

Key Highlights

• When he will quit is becoming an even bigger one. Belichick's Hall of Fame exclusion 'ridiculous'[]"He's going to have one of the biggest challenges of his coaching career trying to get year two to be better than year one in North Carolina," said Dan Roche, an award-winning sports anchor with the BBC's US media partner, CBS News. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"If they struggle again, I think that will basically be the end of the coaching career of Bill Belichick," he continued. For years, the trend in college football has been that coaches typically leave the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for greater prestige and bigger salaries in the NFL. But the college league – which generates over $1.3bn (£940.5m) in revenue – is starting to catch up."North Carolina decided to roll the dice and invest a lot of money in its football program," said Greg Barnes, senior reporter at Inside Carolina, a website dedicated to North Carolina University sports. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd with that came Belichick, who signed a five-year $50m (£36m) deal to join the Tar Heels."That kind of money is unheard of for North Carolina football," Barnes said, notwithstanding that the contract went to 73-year-old Belichick who previously had never coached a single game of college football. Most sports experts who've followed his career suspect he's not in it for the money. For Belichick, they say, it's part love of the game, part love for coaching, and part an affliction that has ailed many great sports figures: an inability to know when to say goodbye."I can't recall many head coaches who have said, 'Okay, I've done it all, and now I'm going to walk away'," Roche said.
• "I just think they don't have it in them."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBelichick's rise and fall in the NFLBelichick was born into a football family. His father, Steve Belichick, had a long college coaching career, including 30 years at the US Naval Academy and two years at North Carolina. The younger Belichick's understanding of football was also nurtured.