UNC Lacrosse Has a Friend in New Football Coach Bill Belichick

When Bill Belichick arrived in Chapel Hill last week for a press conference introducing the six-time Super Bowl champion as the head coach of the North Carolina football team, his first stop was not Kenan Memorial Stadium but rather Dorrance Field. He left a handwritten note for Joe Breschi.

“My first stop on campus is the lacrosse office,” Belichick wrote, according to Breschi. “Look forward to seeing you.”

Breschi and his North Carolina men’s lacrosse staff were attending the IMLCA Convention in Florida when Belichick and the university agreed to a five-year, $50 million contract that has been the talk of college football.

“What I’m really excited about is our hire of Coach Belichick,” Breschi said in an interview with USA Lacrosse Magazine on Monday. “Not only the buzz around him coming, but what it does for us recruiting dual athletes.”

Belichick, who played lacrosse at Wesleyan and has championed the growth of the sport through the Bill Belichick Foundation, has already offered Breschi his full support from the football side.

“We’ve lost a lot of [recruits] who play two sports,” said Breschi, mentioning Troy Reeder (Penn State/Delaware) and Ricky Miezan (Stanford) as examples of North Carolina lacrosse commits who opted to play football elsewhere absent the opportunity to do both in Chapel Hill. “Now that we have Belichick, he’s like, ‘Whatever you need for the lacrosse program, let me know.’ To have a lacrosse guy in that role is enormous.”

The Tar Heels’ top lacrosse recruit in the current high school senior class — St. Anthony’s (N.Y.) and Team 91 Long Island Shock midfielder Gary Merrill — was just named New York’s Gatorade Player of the Year in football. A 6-foot-1 quarterback, Merrill accounted for 3,717 yards and 51 touchdowns as a rusher and passer for the CHSFL runner-up Friars.

Merrill committed to North Carolina for lacrosse but waited to sign his national letter of intent until the football window opened earlier this month.

“Part of the deal was him having a chance to play both,” Breschi said. “Luckily, Belichick is in the fold and he’s like, ‘Yeah, whatever you need.’”

Belichick is close friends with Breschi’s defensive coordinator, Dave Pietramala. They met in 2006, when Pietramala was the head coach at Johns Hopkins and the two bonded over hours-long conversations about culture, leadership and life.

Since then, Belichick has become inextricably linked to his other favorite sport. His son, Steve, played lacrosse at Rutgers. His daughter, Amanda, is the head women’s lacrosse coach at Holy Cross. The New England Patriots became a haven for former lacrosse players like wide receiver Chris Hogan, cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino and staffer Chris Mattes. Whenever NFL reporters wanted the notoriously terse football coach to talk more, they’d ask about the stick-and-ball game he grew up playing in Annapolis.

That’s at least how the conversation between Belichick and Breschi started when they sat together at Pietramala’s wedding in July. Then Belichick asked about North Carolina football. His father, Steve, was an assistant there from 1953-55 before a 33-year career at Navy. Belichick had a keen interest in how the program operated.

When North Carolina fired Hall of Fame coach Mack Brown last month, none of the college football pundits pegged Belichick as a candidate to replace him. The school’s move on Belichick shocked almost everyone. Not Breschi.

“I texted him when the job opened, ‘Hey, I know we had that conversation. Let me know if you need anything,’” Breschi said. “He said, ‘Yeah, I’m interested in speaking with them.’ The board of trustees got involved.”

As Belichick noted in an interview with “The Pat McAfee Show” on Monday, North Carolina does have a pair of football players on the lacrosse roster in Tar Heels kicker Ryan Hornyak and former Texas Christian wide receiver Drew Scott.

With a famous lacrosse ally now running the football team, expect plenty more where that came from.