With a sportcoat, even a grin, UNC coach Bill Belichick does the banquet circuit
There aren’t many firsts left for Bill Belichick after three decades as a head coach. Sitting between Duke’s Manny Diaz and N.C. Central’s Trei Oliver, being served a bone-in chicken breast in pastry in a hotel ballroom, this was a new one.
The Pigskin Preview is a part of every coach’s life — for N.C. State’s Dave Doeren, 13 summers in a row — and when Belichick took the North Carolina job, this came with it. Even, to an extent, written into his contract.
So he sat between Diaz and Oliver for two hours, in a gray plaid blazer and dark-blue tie, answering questions when prompted. And he even brought jokes.
Asked about how he got started in coaching, he talked about how he applied for 125 college grad-assistant jobs but couldn’t find a job out of college.
“So I went to work for the Baltimore Colts for $25 a week,” Belichick said. “That worked out OK.”
Belichick was less than 24 hours removed from going through the day-long wringer at ACC kickoff in Charlotte, for which there’s no like-for-like NFL comparison although the week of daily availability leading up to the Super Bowl or the coach breakfast at the owners’ meetings certainly comes closest.
Kickoff is a lot for one day: There’s a podium session in an auditorium, a breakout session at a table, an early morning scrum for local media and most coaches take a swing through radio row, although Belichick did not. His presence made it even more of a circus than normal, but there’s no break in the schedule. Back to the Triangle, back into the spotlight.
The fans and sponsors who buy tables at the Pigskin Preview, a classic preseason luncheon to benefit the local Bill Dooley chapter of the National Football Foundation and its scholarship program, don’t care that coaches may be fully talked out from the ACC event. This is the only time they may see these coaches in this environment, and they want their money’s worth.
“We have 70 new players on our team from last year’s team,” Belichick said, repeating his talking points from Charlotte. “A lot of new faces. We’ll see how it all comes together. I’m excited to start the year against TCU on Labor Day but we have a lot of work to do between now and then. We’ll see how it all comes together.”
Given the timing, there were even a few rumors Belichick might send UNC general manager Michael Lombardi to this in his place, or his son and defensive coordinator Steve, who may handle the weekly radio show on his father’s behalf, much as Duke’s assistant coaches used to deputize for Mike Krzyzewski. Steve previously filled in for Bill at the state high-school coaches clinic in February.
There was indeed a coach missing Friday, but it was East Carolina’s Blake Harrell, who was at AAC media days in Charlotte and sent offensive coordinator John David Baker in his stead. Belichick was there, in person, mingling with his local peers for the first time.
“Why don’t you ask coach Belichick how it felt sitting next to Trei Oliver up there?” Oliver joked afterward.
But this is as much a part of the job as calling plays or recruiting. It’s not just glad-handing boosters. It’s representing the university, mixing and mingling with the general populace. NFL coaches are insulated, protected, buffered. Belichick had a lot of buffers. UNC has added a few around him, but there’s still a degree of interaction with the public that’s not only unavoidable but required.
It was even written into his term sheet back in December: “Upon reasonable request from the University, Head Coach will engage with the Educational Foundation (Ram’s Club), including a minimum number of appearances consistent with other Head Coaches, and maintain effective relationships with students, faculty, staff, and friends of the University.”
Friday, Belichick was the last of the five coaches to arrive, but his photographs with the winning bidder on the UNC helmet took a little longer than some of the others so he was not the first to leave. After the photos were completed, he walked out a side door of the ballroom escorted by a pair of PR people. He walked out into the heat, back to football.
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This story was originally published July 26, 2025 at 8:53 PM with the headline "With a sportcoat, even a grin, UNC coach Bill Belichick does the banquet circuit."
