Football has never known a control freak like Bill Belichick, the Nixonian figure who ran the New England Patriots as if their facility was a CIA black site. But four months into Belichick’s new coaching tenure, at the University of North Carolina, there is a stunning lack of clarity about who’s actually in charge.
Belichick was not the obvious choice to revitalize the Tar Heels. Not only does he lack any college coaching experience, he is dour, cold and gruff – traits you imagine might turn off a high school prospect who could choose to play for Deion Sanders, Lane Kiffin or another charismatic sideline general instead. Belichick is also 73 and deeply set in his ways, part of the reason why the Patriots fired him in 2023 after 24 years of service. No other NFL team has hired him since: the Atlanta Falcons considered Belichick for their head coaching vacancy in 2024, but wound up passing after Patriots owner Bob Kraft reportedly warned his Falcons counterpart, Arthur Blank, “not to trust Bill”. (The Patriots deny the allegation.)
That’s not to say that Belichick didn’t have anything to recommend him for UNC. He did, after all, win a record six Super Bowls as Patriots head coach. But so far the most discussed figure in the program isn’t a player, coach or Belichick himself, weirdly. It’s Jordon Hudson, Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend.
Hudson isn’t some trailblazing football careerist. She’s a fresh catch, the product of Maine fishing stock, a former cheerleader and beauty queen. (Incidentally, she’s slated to compete in the Miss Maine USA pageant later this month alongside the competition’s first transgender entrant – a political football this story is nowhere near ready for.) As the coach tells it, the romance started on a 2021 flight from Boston to Miami with Belichick (then 69 years old) striking up a conversation with Hudson (20 at the time) as she was reading a book called Deductive Logic for an undergraduate philosophy class. “Thanks for giving me a course on logic!” Belichick gushed in an autograph inside the book. “Safe travels!” (Who knew the coach was a fan of exclamation points!)
Hudson’s relationship with Belichick became public after he left the Patriots, when the couple hard-launched on the 2024 Met Gala red carpet. Sports fans familiar with Belichick’s humorless public persona couldn’t help snickering at the coach playing Hudson’s yoga prop, or the fisherman to her mermaid in an extraordinary Halloween shoot on Instagram – or “Instaface”, as he once gibed. But even as Hudson emerged as a prominent figure in Belichick’s professional life, it didn’t seem as if she would interfere with Belichick’s mission to make UNC a football power.
But then last week Hudson inserted herself into a CBS Sunday Morning interview with Belichick pegged to the coach’s forthcoming autobiography. Most only saw the 25-second clip of Hudson interrupting Belichick just as he was asked how he and Hudson met. “We’re not talking about this,” she snapped off-camera, effectively shutting down that line of questioning. But her response – admirably Belichickian, if we’re being totally honest – has just made rubberneckers more curious about the nature of their relationship. (Pro Football Talk reported that Hudson, a “constant presence” in the interview, actually interrupted CBS’ Tony Dokoupil more than once and even stormed off set, expecting Belichick would follow.) “I might actually reach out to him to make sure everything’s good, but I am concerned from what I’m hearing,” Charles Barkley said while discussing his longtime friend on a recent Dan Patrick Show appearance. “It’s not a good look, right, I’ll admit that.”
Typically when May-December relationships become gossip fodder, the scrutiny falls hardest on the older party. Even though Tom Brady and other former Pats have been publicly supportive of the coach’s new girlfriend, there’s still reason to believe Belichick is the passenger in this relationship. Among other things, viewers were shocked to see Belichick appear on camera in a tattered Navy sweatshirt – which was taken less by internet critics as an extension of the coach’s well-known dishevelled dress sense than evidence of spousal neglect. (Also: was the Tar Heels team shop closed?)
That’s not all. According to the Athletic, Hudson played an instrumental role in shutting down production of the NFL docuseries Hard Knocks after North Carolina agreed to be the first college program featured on the show, costing the school a mammoth recruiting opportunity. Hudson has also reportedly taken an active role in the football program’s public relations, demanding to be copied on email correspondence to steer strategy even though she is not employed by the university. Despite that massive technicality, Hudson is said to have advised UNC’s social media team to promote the accomplishments of defensive coordinator Stephen Belichick instead of stating what many believe – that he got to where he is because he’s Bill’s son. Hudson is even mentioned in the acknowledgements for Belichick’s book, while Kraft – the owner he won six titles with – was left out. (For what it’s worth, Stephen’s wife called Hudson’s conduct in the CBS interview “unprofessional”.) Belichick even lets Hudson on the field for football practices, which he has historically kept off-limits to outsiders.
While Belichick has since issued a lengthy (for him) statement defending Hudson, defining their relationship as “personal and professional”, there’s growing concern that UNC football could end up as the third wheel. A number of high-profile Tar Heel players have signaled their intention to transfer schools, and the incoming recruiting class, while solid for UNC, suggests post-NFL Belichick may even have less star power than previously thought. The more Belichick is in the headlines for what he does away from football, the harder it is to believe this is the same guy who kept the Patriots humming through two massive cheating scandals and the Aaron Hernandez saga.
What’s more, you can’t help wondering if he is indeed making this scene as a pretext to get out of his Tar Heels deal and leave them hanging just as he did the New York Jets. (In an effort to prevent history repeating, the Tar Heels included a $10m buyout clause in his contract.) Only this much is clear: Belichick has already proven to be a far bigger headache than Mack Brown – the 72-year-old former national championship winner who was thought to be too old and dull to remain in the job.
They say it’s never too late to start over in life. But Belichick’s college try has already become exactly the all-consuming, legacy-endangering, off-field distraction that he once so famously disdained. Maybe the threat of Hudson taking over is why NFL teams ultimately passed Belichick over? At the very least it’s the kind of concern the old Bill would’ve red-flagged if it had come up with a player on his radar. When Belichick was in his New England heyday, you would’ve been hard pressed to find much information about the day-to-day status of his team, much less his own personal life. (Heck, we didn’t really meet Belichick’s kids until they started working for him.) All of which is to say: he’s the last coach you’d expect to suddenly lose control over the narrative.
Belichick’s inability to separate the personal from the professional when it comes to his relationship with Hudson doesn’t just bode ill for the North Carolina program. It’s a sign that Belichick may in fact be losing his grip. Right now, Hudson looks for all the world to be the one calling the shots. For football’s biggest control freak, it’s a helluva turnabout.
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