General

Belichick Coaching Tree is Also Family Tree

Mar 8, 2010, 8:45 PM UTC

As most familiar with Bill Belichick know, he had the benefit of being raised by a father who was a college football coaching assistant at Vanderbilt and the Naval Academy. Bill has often credited his father with instilling in him many of the coaching values he continues to embrace to this day. Maybe it wasn’t just a good parenting job from Steve Belichick, however, that led his son to become one of the most respected head coaches in the NFL. Now that Bill’s 25-year-old daughter, Amanda Belichick, is making her way as an assistant coach for UMass’ female lacrosse team, you have to wonder if there’s a bit of genetic determinism at work.â†µâ†µâ‡¥“She always worked really hard,’’ [Bill] said. “Her lacrosse career is her lacrosse career, not mine. She paved her own way. I’m really proud of that. I’m just glad she’s happy with what she’s doing. We talk sometimes. We talk about coaching no different than I would with [St. Louis Cardinals manager] Tony La Russa or [University of Florida football coach] Urban Meyer.’’â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Amanda is more specific.â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“He says, ‘You should work on this, because if I was scouting you I’d do this.’ Or, ‘Figure out how to stop that.’ Stuff that we kind of know, too, but it’s nice because there are so many moving parts on the sideline it’s always helpful.’’â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µIt’s not only ample coaching experience that Bill has to draw on. He also played lacrosse in the ‘70s for Wesleyan. Amanda said that growing up it was the game most practiced during family gatherings because she as well as her two brothers and her dad could take part. Both brothers, like their father, play lacrosse competitively. The older at Rutgers, the younger for a high school team.â†µ

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â†µOf course, Amanda is quick to distance herself as her own person, not just the daughter of a famous coach who received one of her first coaching jobs at the college where her father attended.â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥“He’s not my rock as a coach,’’ she said. “He’s not the first person I call. There’s been a lot of other influences in my life. I’m just like a lot of college assistants out there. I come to work. I work hard. I had to do a lot to get here.’’â†µâ†µâ†µShe did, however, cite one very important lesson from dad that might strike a familiar chord with outsiders: “I’m not going to give out the secrets. I learned from him that things that happened with your team don’t need to be vented to everybody else.”â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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