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William Stephen Belichick (born April 16, 1952) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). Belichick has extensive authority over the Patriots' football operations, effectively making him the general manager of the team as well. He was previously the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.
Belichick's father, Steve, was a longtime college football scout and coach who worked for 34 years at the U.S. Naval Academy. Bill often studied football with his father, and has cited him as one of his greatest mentors. He went on to play football and lacrosse in high
William Stephen Belichick (born April 16, 1952) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). Belichick has extensive authority over the Patriots' football operations, effectively making him the general manager of the team as well. He was previously the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.
Belichick's father, Steve, was a longtime college football scout and coach who worked for 34 years at the U.S. Naval Academy. Bill often studied football with his father, and has cited him as one of his greatest mentors. He went on to play football and lacrosse in high school and football, lacrosse, and squash at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He was captain of the lacrosse team in his senior year.
Belichick began his coaching career in 1975, and by 1985, he was the Defensive Coordinator for New York Giants head coach, Bill Parcells. Parcells and Belichick won two Super Bowls together (XXI and XXV), before Belichick left to become the head coach in Cleveland in 1991. He remained in Cleveland for five seasons, and was fired following the team's 1995 season. Belichick then rejoined Parcells, first in New England where the team lost Super Bowl XXXI, and later with the New York Jets.
After being named head coach of the Jets in early 2000, Belichick resigned after only one day on the job to accept the head coaching job for the New England Patriots on January 27, 2000. Belichick has led the Patriots to 14 AFC East division titles and 11 appearances in the AFC Championship Game. He was named the AP NFL Coach of the Year for the 2003, 2007, and 2010 seasons. Since then, he has coached the Patriots to seven Super Bowl appearances. His teams won Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLIX, and LI and lost Super Bowls XLII and XLVI. Belichick's appearance in Super Bowl LI broke the tie of six Super Bowls as a head coach that was shared with Don Shula, as well as being a record tenth participation in a Super Bowl in any capacity, overtaking the tie of nine that he shared with Dan Reeves. This also tied him with Neal Dahlen for the most Super Bowl wins in any capacity with seven. In addition, the appearance in Super Bowl LI was the Patriots' ninth Super Bowl appearance in franchise history, which is the most of any team.
Belichick is the NFL's longest-tenured active head coach, and currently ranks fourth all-time in regular season coaching wins in the NFL at 237, and first in playoff coaching wins with 26. He completed his 40th season as an NFL coach in 2014 and won his fifth Super Bowl as a head coach following the 2016 season, surpassing former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Chuck Noll as the only head coach to win five Super Bowls. He is one of only five head coaches with four or more titles in NFL history. He is also the only head coach in NFL history to win three Super Bowl championships in a four-year span.
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.
He has three children with Debby Clarke Belichick: Amanda, Stephen, and Brian. Amanda is a 2007 graduate of Wesleyan University, where she, like her father, played lacrosse. After college, she worked at Connecticut preparatory school Choate Rosemary Hall as a lacrosse coach and in the admissions department. In 2009 she became an assistant coach for the University of Massachusetts Amherst women's lacrosse team, before joining the Ohio State Buckeyes in the same position the next year. After serving as interim head women's lacrosse coach at Wesleyan, she was named head women's lacrosse coach at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts in July 2015. Stephen played lacrosse and football at Rutgers University on scholarship. Stephen was hired as an assistant coach for the New England Patriots in May 2012; as of 2016, he is the team's safeties coach. Brian attended Trinity College where he played lacrosse. In 2016 Brian was hired to the Patriots' front office as a scouting assistant.
Belichick is of Croatian ancestry. His father, Steve Belichick (born Stephen Biličić), played for the Detroit Lions and was an assistant coach and scout with the United States Naval Academy football team for 33 years. Bill reportedly learned to break down game films at a young age by watching his father and the Navy staff do their jobs. His paternal grandparents, Ivan Biličić and Marija (Mary) Barković, emigrated from Karlovac, Croatia (from the village of Draganić) in 1897 and left for the USA, where they settled in Monessen near Pittsburgh.
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