The recent big news from Carolina Football has brought new attention to Steve Belichick’s time as assistant football coach with the Tar Heels from 1953-1955. We’ve been looking through official records, newspapers, and other sources to see what material we could find about Bill Belichick’s father and his three seasons in Chapel Hill.
The University Archives does not collect personnel files for university employees, but past employees do sometimes show up in other records. In the case of Athletic Department staff, especially coaches, media guides and newspaper articles are often the most helpful sources.
Steve Belichick joined the Tar Heel coaching staff in April 1953, coming to Carolina from an assistant coaching job at Vanderbilt. Belichick was praised for his work coaching pass defense. According to Athletic Department records, he would be paid $500.00 a month. (The University Archives no longer collects these kinds of detailed personnel records, but they sometimes show up in older collections.)
According to a Daily Tar Heel feature on Belichick published later in the fall, he had a difficult time finding housing in Chapel Hill, which delayed the move of his wife and son, then just around one year old.
The 1954 Chapel Hill phone directory shows that the Belichick family eventually found rental housing on N. Hillcrest Street in Carrboro. Hillcrest Street was located near present-day Hillcrest Avenue off of Estes Drive Extension.
The annual football media guides included a paragraph about Belichick for each of the three seasons he coached in Chapel Hill. Young William Stephen Belichick is mentioned in a couple of these.
In January 1956, Belichick left UNC for a coaching job at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he would remain for more than 30 years. A department personnel form shows his annual salary was $6,600 when he departed Carolina.
Great find!