Extra Points: Making History

Bill Belichick ended football practice on August 14th by gathering his team around for a quick history lesson. He told the Tar Heels there were three of their brethren to have been named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Two were household names and easy picks: Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers.

The third name was a bit more obscure to these 20-something football players: Chris Hanburger, a linebacker who ran roughshod over the league in the burgundy and gold of the team known in the 1960s and into the '70s as the Washington Redskins.

Chris who?

Belichick went on to tell the players that Hanburger was a two-time All-ACC player and five-time All-Pro selection and played both offense and defense.

"And what round was he drafted in?" Belichick quizzed the team.

"First?" someone ventured.

"Eighteenth," Belichick answered in bold-faced italics, the emphasis being that a player overlooked in hundreds of draft selections before him could still have the resolve and tenacity to make the  Hall of Fame. The Tar Heels then sang Happy Birthday to Hanburger, who that day was celebrating his 84th birthday.

That's part and parcel of the Belichick way during a career spanning five decades beginning in Baltimore in 1975 and including notable stops with the New York Giants as defensive coordinator, Cleveland as head coach and of course New England for his legendary run over 24 years.

History matters.

Last week before season opener against TCU, Belichick harkened back to the 1930s and the Horned Frogs' rich tradition built around players like Sammy Baugh and Davey O'Brien and Coach Dutch Meyer. His father Steve had a massive library of football history books. He's fascinated by military history and has a collection of military strategy books himself. Belichick has been known to quiz players on the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day.

And in the spring of 2017, he enthusiastically agreed to narrate a PBS documentary D-Day: Over Normandy because of his respect for men and women who served in the military. His father was in the Navy and did tours during World War II in Europe and the Pacific before launching a coaching career that included a three-year stop at Carolina from 1953-55 before moving to a decades-long stint at the Naval Academy.

"Every day of my childhood, I was immersed in the tradition of the United States Navy," Belichick says. "I was, and remain, inspired by their discipline, teamwork and courage, especially the sailors who fought on D-Day and in the Pacific theater, where the U.S. Pacific Fleet sacrificed so much for ultimate victory. The Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines made one heck of a team in World War II."

It's no wonder, then, that in Belichick's first nine months running the Carolina football program that he and General Manager Michael Lombardi have embraced the century-plus of players and teams that have come before. Lombardi, who worked as a scout under Coach Bill Walsh at San Francisco in the 1980s, cites Walsh's proclivity to remind his staff and players that "Marines fight for Marines."

"History means something," Lombardi says. "When organizations understand the meaning because we as leaders explained the history, the new members will strive to match the prior excellence. We tell our players every day—Tar Heels fight for Tar Heels."

Belichick and Lombardi arrived in Chapel Hill  in December 2024 and found a Kenan Football Center with relatively little historical memorabilia as the previous Hall of Honor on the first floor of the facility had been removed in a 2020 building makeover. They have taken bas-relief busts of five noted former Tar Heel coaches and players out of storage and mounted them on a wall on the first floor of the building and have commissioned a sculptor and foundry to produce six more. They have added photos, trophies and artifacts in various display cases around the building and have an array of mannequins depicting Carolina uniform combinations in the works.

Belichick and Lombardi have welcomed all the former Tar Heels back to campus, with Lombardi speaking often about the need to further the program's connections to its history. Belichick has personally rummaged through storage rooms in the building for interesting memorabilia, most notably finding a vintage No. 22 Charlie Justice jersey from the late 1940s and displaying it in his office.

"Coach has gone out of his way to reinvigorate the ties between the current program and its noble, proud history," UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts says. "We've been playing football here since 1888 and on that field in Kenan Stadium for 98 years. Bill's father coached here, and he cares a lot of about the history of the game and the history of our program."

When Belichick first entered the head coach's suite on the fourth floor in December, he found a little omen that perhaps he was in the right place in making the jump from a career in professional football to the college ranks. On the wall was a small plaque  identifying the rooms as the "Don McCauley Head Coach's Suite," the endowment and tribute for the legendary Tar Heel tailback of 1968-70 vintage coming from his teammate, quarterback Paul Miller.

Belichick's mind drifted back to 1975, his first year in coaching when he was a $40-a-week jack-of-all-trades for head coach Ted Marchibroda and the Baltimore Colts. McCauley, who rushed for 1,720 yards for the Tar Heels in 1970 to set the college single-season record, was in his fifth season in Baltimore. And there were two former Tar Heel offensive linemen on the team, second-year man Robert Pratt and the rookie Ken Huff.

McCauley and Huff each remember how the 23-year-old Belichick, one year removed from the football and lacrosse teams at Wesleyan College, stood out for his work ethic and how he seemed to be smart beyond his years. Belichick did each player a "service," as Vito Corleone would say, staying late after practice to throw passes to McCauley so McCauley could improve his ability snare a ball just inside the chalk and keep his feet inbounds, and helping Huff, a late arrival to training camp because of having participated in the old College All-Star Game, get acclimated with the playbook and logistics around training camp.

"I remember how hard he worked, how serious he was and how focused he was on making sure the little things were done right," McCauley says. "It was Bill's idea to have me work on keeping my feet inbounds, turning and finding the ball in the sun. Those things never occurred to me. That was Bill. Always an idea to get better. He was always thinking. You could see that mind racing."

"Bill was the first in the NFL to break film down by situations and down-and-distance," Huff says. "He would cut and splice reels of film together so that each side of the ball knew what the opponent that week liked to do in every situation. It was incredibly tedious work. That spoke to his attention to detail even then."

McCauley and Huff both live locally and reached out to Belichick in late February and scheduled a visit. What they thought might be a 15-minute "how-you-doing-great-to-have-you-here" fist bump turned into a two-and-a-half-hour stroll down memory lane, the coach sitting amidst unpacked boxes in his office, content in the moment to reconnect with a part of his coaching history. Huff happened to see his phone buzz through with a call from old NFL teammate and ace running back Joe Washington, so he answered the call, put Washington on the speaker phone and the four of them reminisced for 15 minutes.

"Bill attacks everything with a keen eye," Huff says. "He knew exactly what he was doing when he came here, and I think he was ready for it. It was a new challenge for him. People like Bill relish a challenge. We could tell, he's excited to be here."

Beyond his father having coached at Carolina, Belichick has connections to the program by having coached Lawrence Taylor with the New York Giants in the 1980s and having studied that 1980 Tar Heel team that won the ACC championship in scouting potential pro players. He can easily reel off the names of noted defensive mainstays like Buddy Curry, Donnell Thompson, Paul Davis and Calvin Daniels.

"I am very respectful of what they have done before here," Belichick says. "That 1980 team gave up 120 points on defense and nearly half of that was to Oklahoma. That's pretty good."

The Tar Heel brain trust pays homage to all the great players who've wore the Carolina blue while adding the asterisk that there haven't been that many great teams—witness the 45-year gulf since a conference title. That's the goal with new regime, always with history as a guide.

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) has been writing about Tar Heel football under the "Extra Points" banner since 1990 and reporting from the sidelines on radio broadcasts since 2004. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

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