The Knives Are Out for Bill Belichick by Sally Jenkins
The Bill Belichick hire was stupid from the start. Such a stain on the University's reputation. A nice read from Sally Jenkins, who always seems to have nice reads:
Ever since Bill Belichick, that aging football Caesar, arrived at the University of North Carolina roughly two years ago with his eight Super Bowl rings, the knives have been out. He is one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, but his hiring was controversial: Despite no experience leading a college team, he was given a five-year, $50 million contract—$30 million of it guaranteed—to vitalize a dowdy old southern program and lift it to championship level. From the beginning, he has been fighting a two-front battle: one on the field, and another against internal opponents, a contingent of powerful Carolina traditionalists who never wanted him there, resent his outsize presence, and wish UNC to remain a quaint, basketball-first school. “It is an internal civil war,” John Preyer, the former chair of UNC’s board of trustees, who helped hire Belichick, told me.