Former Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) allegedly started the push to get Bill Belichick hired at the University of North Carolina by contacting political allies in the area.
Rubio, who is now the secretary of state under President Donald Trump, was one of the first allies to hear from former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick about pursuing a position with the University of North Carolina.
Belichick won six Super Bowls in the NFL with the New England Patriots before being let go. He eventually signed a five-year, $50 million contract to become the head coach of UNC.
However, the road toward that monumental deal is said to have been rather unorthodox and involved political strings being pulled at some of the highest levels.
‘There’s a chance Belichick would come to Chapel Hill.’
Belichick reportedly sent out the word to his political connections, including former Senator Rubio, who then contacted other allies in North Carolina. Rubio is said to have made a call to Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) in hopes that he could get in touch with some of his own contacts at the university.
In an in-depth report, ESPN spoke to Tillis, who explained that Rubio, a big sports guy, called him to talk about Belichick.
“Rubio follows the sports world pretty closely, and he called me and said, ‘There’s a chance Belichick would come to Chapel Hill,'” Tillis told the outlet.
Tillis recalled, “[Rubio] said, ‘He wants a school with a great academic reputation, and he wants to try to build a program to bring them a national championship.'”
The senator revealed he then told Rubio, “Well, let me go [make some calls].”
Tillis explained that he immediately got on the wire with Phil Berger, the North Carolina Senate president pro tempore. He reached out to the Senate president for his strong connections at UNC, but Berger reportedly did not immediately take the idea seriously. Berger allegedly even laughed at the thought of Belichick wanting to go to North Carolina — until Tillis reassured him that the proposal was real.
When approached by ESPN, UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts was not willing to comment on any influence that Rubio, Tillis, or Berger may have had.
He did say, however, that he has been “really pleased” with the support the school has received “across the board” since hiring Belichick.
“We expected the response to be positive, but it has been even more overwhelmingly positive than we imagined,” he explained. “We obviously wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think it was a wise investment, and it’s still early, but we couldn’t feel better about where we are with that.”
ESPN claimed that an inside but unnamed source confirmed that the “push to land Belichick” all stemmed from the actions “with the politicians.”
While Belichick’s foray into college football came as a surprise to many, insider reports described his departure from the NFL as a rather contentious one. Belichick allegedly grew tired of NFL owners and was even told that he didn’t deserve to be “empowered.”
Sources close to the coach said he was “disgusted” by what the league had become.
Rumors circulated in January that Belichick had been contacted by his former star quarterback Tom Brady — who is now a part owner of the Las Vegas Raiders — but rumors that the coach would join Brady in Las Vegas have largely died down. At the same time, however, the NFL season is still far away, and Belichick’s contract with North Carolina reportedly included a $10 million buyout if he leaves before June 1, 2025.
That price tag is something a prospective NFL team would likely be willing to pay.
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