41 Facts About Bill Belichick

William Stephen Belichick is an American professional football coach who is the head coach and general manager of the New England Patriots of the National Football League.

Bill Belichick is often referred to as a "student of the game", with a deep knowledge of the intricacies of each player position, and is known as a renowned American football historian.

Parcells and Bill Belichick won two Super Bowls together before Bill Belichick left to become the head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1991.

Bill Belichick remained in Cleveland for five seasons but was fired following the team's 1995 season.

Bill Belichick is the NFL's longest-tenured active head coach, as well as the first all-time in playoff coaching wins with 31 and third in regular season coaching wins in the NFL with 294.

Bill Belichick is one of only three head coaches who have won six NFL titles.

Bill Belichick was named the AP NFL Coach of the Year for the 2003,2007, and 2010 seasons.

Bill Belichick has been selected to the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team, NFL 2010s All-Decade Team, as well as the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team, and is the only active head coach on the latter team.

Bill Belichick was named after College Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Belichick Edwards, who was his godfather.

Bill Belichick is of Croatian ancestry and his paternal grandparents, Ivan Bilicic and Marija Barkovic, emigrated from the Croatian village of Draganic, Karlovac, in 1897, settling in Monessen, Pennsylvania.

Bill Belichick was raised in Annapolis, Maryland where his father was an assistant football coach at the United States Naval Academy.

Bill Belichick has said his father is one of his most important football mentors, and Bill Belichick often studied football with him.

Bill Belichick reportedly learned to break down game films at a young age by watching his father and the Navy staff do their jobs.

Bill Belichick graduated from Annapolis High School in 1970 with classmate Sally Brice-O'Hara.

Bill Belichick enrolled at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, for a postgraduate year, with the intention of improving his grades and test scores to be admitted into a quality college.

Bill Belichick attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut where he played center and tight end.

Bill Belichick was dismissed along with head coach Tommy Hudspeth and the rest of the coaching staff on January 9,1978.

Bill Belichick spent the 1978 season with the Denver Broncos as their assistant special teams coach and defensive assistant.

In 1979, Bill Belichick began a 12-year stint with the New York Giants alongside head coach Ray Perkins as a defensive assistant and special teams coach.

Bill Belichick added linebackers coaching to his duties in 1980 and was named defensive coordinator in 1985 under head coach Bill Parcells, who had replaced Perkins in 1983.

From 1991 until 1995, Bill Belichick was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Bill Belichick had two stints as the head coach of the New York Jets without ever coaching a game.

Six days later the Patriots and Jets reached an agreement that allowed Parcells to coach the Jets, and Bill Belichick became the team's assistant head coach and defensive coordinator.

However, Bill Belichick was the New York Jets' head coach for only one day.

Parcells and the Jets claimed that Bill Belichick was still under contract to the Jets, and demanded compensation from the Patriots.

Bill Belichick was awarded the NFL Coach of the Year Award.

Bill Belichick is the only coach to accomplish the feat as the Dallas Cowboys had two head coaches in the stretch they won three of four from 1992 to 1995.

In 2007, Bill Belichick led the Patriots to the first perfect regular season since the introduction of the 16-game regular season schedule in 1978, only the fourth team to do so in National Football League history after the 1934 and 1942 Chicago Bears and 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Gary Myers, New York Daily News columnist, stated Bill Belichick should have been suspended by Goodell for the Patriots' next game against the Jets.

The sanctions against Bill Belichick were the harshest imposed on a head coach in league history until the New Orleans Saints' Sean Payton was suspended for the entire 2012 season for covering up a scheme in which bounties were paid for deliberately knocking opponents out of games.

Bill Belichick's Patriots began the 2013 season with much upheaval on the offensive side of the ball with the injury of Rob Gronkowski, the arrest and subsequent release of Aaron Hernandez, the departures of Wes Welker to the Denver Broncos and Danny Woodhead to the San Diego Chargers in free agency, and the release of Brandon Lloyd.

On May 13,2019, Bill Belichick announced that he would assume another role as the Patriots' defensive coordinator starting the 2019 season.

On October 27,2019, with the Patriots' win over the Cleveland Browns, Bill Belichick obtained his 300th win, regular and postseason combined, as a head coach.

Immediately after the game, Brady and Bill Belichick shared a quick embrace on the field before Brady greeted his former teammates and other members of the Patriots organization.

Bill Belichick is far and away the most successful coach in Patriots history; his 262 wins with the franchise are more than quadruple those of runner-up Mike Holovak.

Bill Belichick has led the Patriots to 17 divisional titles, including five consecutive titles from 2003 to 2007 and eleven consecutive titles from 2009 to 2019.

The track record of Bill Belichick's coaching tree has been characterized as poor.

Bill Belichick married businesswoman Debby Clarke in 1977, but they divorced in the summer of 2006.

Bill Belichick was accused of maintaining a relationship with former Giants receptionist Sharon Shenocca, which helped precipitate her divorce.

Bill Belichick has three children with Debby Clarke Belichick: Amanda, Stephen and Brian.

Bill Belichick indicated that he was flattered to be considered for the honor, but declined the award in a statement issued the next day.