Editor's note: This article is part of the Program Builders series, focusing on the behind-the-scenes executives and people fueling the future growth of their sports.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- On mornings like this, the Southern Part of Heaven earns its moniker. Dew on the grass. A cloudless Carolina blue sky.
Everything, for seemingly the first time in nine months, is calm.
Or at least it is until 9:19 a.m., when an airhorn blares in the distance and shatters the stillness. A mad dash suddenly breaks out as a tarp-covered chain link gate swings open, and reporters scurry through like they're late for the last train. Every camera lens turns practically in concert toward the farthest practice field on the right -- toward one man, specifically, sporting calf-high white socks and chunky white sneakers.
Even without a camera's zoom, you can make out the silhouette of the most interesting story in college football: North Carolina coach Bill Belichick, here, in the flesh, twirling a whistle around two outstretched fingers, same as he always has.
Alas: During a 12-minute viewing period, Belichick never inches closer, nor allows his players -- sans names on the backs of their jerseys -- to do more than glorified stretching. The coach's military-grade information lockdown has followed him to school. But even with so much unknown, fascination abounds.
"Excitement for us is honestly every day: our meetings, our practices, our opportunity to get better," Belichick says later, straight-faced as ever. "We're ready for it."
Belichick is, of course, arguably the best football coach of all time, a six-time Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots whose professional accomplishments may never be topped.
And yet, he's here. At UNC, of all places: a program with one double-digit-win season in the past quarter century and no discernible football footprint. No disrespect to the few NFL legends who've matriculated through Chapel Hill, such as Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers, but the school's 157-156 record over the past 25 seasons speaks for itself. One-off spikes of success have been just that.
"To be candid," says UNC chancellor Lee Roberts, who spearheaded hiring Belichick in December, "I feel as though football wasn't really where we wanted it to be."
Which is exactly why North Carolina -- a basketball blue blood through and through, one still drafting off Michael Jordan's origin story -- finally made the all-in bet it did on Belichick.
Days before one of the most storied openers in Tar Heels history -- a standalone, prime-time Labor Day clash with TCU -- that commitment is coming to life. It's a makeshift football tailgate the second you enter UNC's student store, with copies of Belichick's book underneath a Carolina blue canopy tent. It's rows of black CHAPEL BILL hoodies, fittingly directly across from an equal number of vintage Jordan jerseys. Hats, T-shirts and sweatshirts with Belichick-themed slogans serve as window-dressing for Franklin Street shops. It's even visiting high schoolers stealing full stacks of commemorative Belichick newspapers out of The Daily Tar Heel boxes littered around campus.
In Bill, UNC trusts.
"Hopefully we can put a good product on the field," Belichick says, "and make the nights the type of games that people wanna come to the stadium to see."
Naturally, there are layers to the Tar Heels' logic. Even hidden amid the pines, UNC cannot ignore that the modern college sports climate is defined by football-driven conference realignment -- plus the cartoonish paydays that have stemmed from it -- and schools now paying athletes directly, as much as $20.5 million this year. Given all that, how could North Carolina afford to keep punting on the most profitable sport it supports? On the meal ticket it uses to subsidize its proud Olympic sports programs?
"When you hire somebody like Bill -- or not somebody like Bill, you hire Bill -- it just says, hey, we're making a statement," says athletic director Bubba Cunningham. "Now let's make it work."
That, of course, is easier said than done. Belichick, 73, has never coached a game in college (and was available because no NFL team hired him the past two offseasons), but he obviously deserves the benefit of the doubt. The bigger question? Can one man reverse a program's fortunes, propel it into the future and create the long-term football culture that has been so sorely lacking in Chapel Hill?
Like most, when Steve Newmark first heard in November that Belichick was interested in UNC's opening, he "wasn't quite sure whether that was serious information."
But in early December, Newmark heard straight from the future Pro Football Hall of Famer, when Belichick made his pitch for the job to a four-person committee tasked with steering the Tar Heels' football future.
Belichick's football strategy -- how he wanted to recruit, which positions he'd prioritize -- was as thorough as expected. But everything else? About donor engagement, third-party revenue opportunities and post-graduation support for players?
"Quite frankly," says Newmark, a former NASCAR executive and Chapel Hill native set to succeed Cunningham as North Carolina's AD next summer, "it changed the dynamic of the entire search process."
More specifically, it put the onus back on UNC -- and in many ways, forced the Tar Heels' power players to confront both their reality and their future ambitions.
To even land Belichick -- to say nothing of giving him the resources he'd need to succeed -- North Carolina knew it would have to do something it historically hasn't: spend. It traditionally doesn't crack the top 25 in athletics expenses, yet still won national championships in four sports over the past seven seasons, earned a 12th College World Series berth and made a record 21st Final Four in men's basketball.
"We've always out-performed our resources," Cunningham says. "But the table stakes for participation are rising, and we've always wanted to be elite and competitive -- and so this is the next step."
Think the Tar Heels would've scrounged together $10 million for a coach's salary -- a top-10 mark nationally, and double that of Belichick's predecessor, Mack Brown -- for any of its other candidates, like Army's Jeff Monken or Tulane's Jon Sumrall? Or guaranteed assistant coaching salary pools on par with Georgia and Ohio State, two of the past three national champions?
In turn, Belichick has already turned Tar Heels football into something of a rocket ship, at least financially speaking. For the first time in a long time, the hottest ticket in Chapel Hill isn't for hoops at the Dean Dome. UNC sold out football season tickets -- including newly developed premium seating areas -- faster than it ever has, and expects to earn $7 million more this season alone in ticket sales compared with last year. The school estimates an additional $750,000 increase from merchandise and concessions. Since Belichick's hiring, the Rams Club -- UNC's athletics donor group -- has grown to a record 22,500 members, and the $18.1 million it raised in the 2024-25 fiscal year is an all-time high, up 37 percent from the year prior.
Belichick has done his part in flaming donor support, speaking to alumni groups across the country: locally in Raleigh and Charlotte, but also in Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Nantucket. Another session will accompany an October game at Cal.
There's also been heaps of offseason media coverage (even if plenty of it centered on Jordon Hudson, Belichick's girlfriend). Hulu will chronicle UNC's season in a docuseries, months after HBO's "Hard Knocks" came close to doing the same. The school received 183 media credential requests for the TCU opener, unofficially the most ever.
"In a lot of ways," Roberts says, "it's already been tremendously successful."
To assist its new coach, UNC is attempting to create an atmosphere more in line with college football's elite tailgates, a la Bevo Boulevard at Texas or The Grove at Ole Miss. Introducing "Chapel Thrill," a pregame concert series -- and Modelo Kickoff Club -- that will see a massive stage and beer garden eclipse the storied Wilson Library on North Carolina's main quad.
"Because interest and appetite is so high right now, (we feel) a responsibility to accommodate that demand in a different way," says Rick Barakat, hired in March as UNC's first chief revenue officer. "We think it's a, build it and they will come."
Week 1 will serve as something of a test case, then. Amplifying matters is ESPN is hosting a pregame show live from campus with Nick Saban (one of Belichick's closest coaching friends), Tedy Bruschi (a three-time Super Bowl winner in New England) and Pat McAfee (whose show Belichick frequently appears on), among others.
There is no real comp for North Carolina hiring Belichick to turn around its football program.
The last time UNC truly swung for the fences in football? Back in 2007, when it hired Butch Davis, then three years removed from a four-year stint with the Cleveland Browns. Unlike Belichick, though, Davis' college football bona fides were undeniable; he went 51-20 at Miami from 1995 to 2000 and built maybe the most talented roster in the history of the sport.
"I want to have a great football program," Davis remembers then-UNC chancellor James Moeser, who had previously been at Nebraska, telling him. "We're going to do everything we can to try to win."
Renovation and expansion of Kenan Stadium followed, and despite Moeser leaving in 2008, Davis felt that former AD Dick Baddour was keeping prior promises. Progress on the field followed, steadily, with a wave of momentum cresting before 2010. With a loaded roster, featuring nine players who would be selected in the 2011 NFL Draft, North Carolina drew an unheard of 30,000 to its spring game.
"The board of trustees was like, this is off the charts," Davis remembers. "We're doing great."
And then, the anticipated breakthrough started unraveling.
In July 2010, the NCAA began an investigation into impermissible benefits to players and improper contact between agents and athletes. The NCAA soon also stumbled upon allegations of academic fraud, kick-starting a broader university-wide scandal that marred North Carolina's reputation for over seven years.
Instead of challenging for the school's first ACC title in 30 years, Davis' Tar Heels went 7-5 with a roster depleted by player suspensions. Within seven months, Davis would be fired, and Baddour forced to resign.
"It was just like, no, no, we're finally getting this back together again," Baddour says. "It's so hard to do in football -- and some people haven't gotten over that."
Beyond that, the last time North Carolina was consistently relevant in football was during Brown's first stint in town in the 1990s. UNC finished sixth nationally in 1997 -- its highest AP finish of the modern era -- but even then, the Tar Heels were never quite serious national title contenders. When Texas came calling for Brown after the '97 regular season, Baddour says UNC financially matched its offer -- but Brown left and got his title, in 2005, with the Longhorns.
UNC's best seasons since the Brown heyday ended up being outliers. Gene Chizik -- the defensive coordinator on UNC's only teams to reach the ACC Championship Game (2015 and 2022) -- says difficulty stoking passion in the Tar Heels fan base may be a contributing factor.
"At other places when we've done really well ... there's a ton of excitement," says Chizik, who won a national title as Auburn's head coach in 2010. "They're there two hours before the game. I'm not going to say that never happened (at North Carolina), but I'll say it was not commonplace."
And when it is there, it's fleeting.
"That edge, teams like Alabama and Ohio State, they keep that -- and once you get a hold of it, you can't let it go," says former UNC running back and Charlotte native Elijah Hood. "And we experienced it (in 2015), but we kind of fumbled it a little bit."
But not anymore. The Tar Heels are banking on Belichick to change that.
Ken Huff was an All-America offensive lineman in the early 1970s who played on one of just eight teams to win at least 10 games in 137 years of North Carolina football. Now a Chapel Hill business owner and football donor, he has high hopes for the Belichick era -- however long it lasts. He'd take a consistent top-20 program that gets into the expanded College Football Playoff with some regularity.
"I see great success in the next three years," Huff said. "Then North Carolina could be at the point where it's a destination for a lot of coaches, as opposed to a stopover."
Ultimately, UNC pulled the ripcord on Belichick now because it's never been more important for schools to be good at football.
"Football drives everything because everything is controlled by money, and all the money is in football," former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese says. "That's why you have seen a number of so-called traditional basketball schools embrace football. Do they embrace it because they love football? It's a matter of opinion, but I never saw it that way."
Kansas opened a renovated football stadium last Saturday that was part of a $450 million capital project, just days after the school received another $300 million gift from David Booth earmarked for football. Indiana made a stunning run to the Playoff last year and rewarded first-year coach Curt Cignetti with an eight-year contract extension that pays him about $8 million per year.
Down Tobacco Road, even Duke is showing it's serious about football. After three straight winning seasons, the Blue Devils landed coveted Tulane transfer quarterback Darian Mensah with a deal that could be worth up to $4 million over its duration.
For North Carolina, it's Belichick.
His hiring has helped UNC move forward from a conservative past. Field logos and jersey patches may be coming, not to mention a potential naming rights deal for Kenan Stadium. Barakat says that this season, UNC will announce "many new, significant, six-figure-plus sponsorships" directly tied to Tar Heels football.
"That's indicative," he adds, "of the impact of the Belichick hire."
"The cultural things that we loved at the University of North Carolina, they don't really matter anymore," says Baddour, noting a controversy in 2004 about exploring in-stadium advertisements. "To me, being an old guard, we have to let the old guard go. We do. It doesn't mean you always go to the pro ranks -- I don't mean that -- but I mean that you've got to have the mentality of, how do we thrive? Thrive, not survive."
Even the coach leading the team synonymous with the school understands why UNC needed to make this bet.
"Does better football elevate every other sport? 100 percent," former UNC star and current men's basketball coach Hubert Davis says. "It's important that football is really good."
Davis then points to UNC's 28 total sports -- seven of which, like field hockey and women's soccer, have won national titles -- and the role football (as well as his program) plays in supporting their success. UNC remains one of just three schools nationally, along with Stanford and Texas, to have ever won the Director's Cup, given annually to the best overall athletic department. Men's basketball won three national titles in the past two decades alone.
And then, there's football.
There is very real concern -- not just in Chapel Hill, but throughout college sports -- that those who don't invest will be left behind when the next football-centric reorganization occurs.
"This is your audition," says Bob Thompson, a sports media consultant and former Fox Sports Network president. "People are going to be looking at, what's your commitment to the program? What kind of money have you put in? What do your facilities like? What's your long-term plan?"
As the flagship school in a growing state, and with its recognizable brand, North Carolina has always been considered well-positioned for a promotion. But where's the cutoff?
As every school and conference searches for new revenue streams, the ACC has abandoned its equal revenue distribution system for one that pays schools based on performance (success initiative) and on television ratings (brand initiative). Between the two, Clemson -- one of the schools North Carolina likens itself to -- projects it could add an extra $20 million per year over the next six years.
You don't think North Carolina wants in on that?
"To the extent your coach provides appeal, you can call it the Deion Sanders effect, I think Belichick certainly combines it with this soap opera of his personal life," says Thompson. "Everybody's going to watch it."
Days before UNC's opener, Belichick reveals in a round-about way that South Alabama transfer Gio Lopez will be the Tar Heels starting quarterback. Wait? Did he? Just a week ago, Belichick chided media members for asking about who would be QB1. A reporter follows up this time to confirm with the coach what seemed like an announcement.
"I thought we just did," Belichick deadpans, a smirk escaping from atop a navy North Carolina quarter-zip.
As the room of reporters erupts, Belichick can't help but flash a toothy grin, thrilled at his own comedic timing. A subtle remark, sure, but also a telling one. Would the Belichick who NFL fans came to know over the course of 20-plus years have made that crack? Or would he have "We're onto Cincinnati"-ed the reporter without a second glance?
For all the investment UNC made in Belichick, the coach, too, had to meet the Tar Heels in the middle. He may not be offering up detailed depth chart breakdowns, but he addresses familiar faces with a "Nice to see you." He's bought pizza for fraternity parties, twice. He's appeared at men's basketball and baseball games, spoken at lacrosse practices, and slowly integrated himself into a college campus in his own way.
He is becoming, as UNC hoped, the most famous ambassador Tar Heels football has had in quite some time -- if not ever.
What remains to be seen is whether Belichick -- especially with his first team, which didn't earn any preseason Top 25 votes and was picked to finish eighth in the ACC -- can improve the culture of football fandom in Chapel Hill. That, as much as winning, may be his toughest task yet.
But the past nine months have proven that Belichick, already, has fundamentally changed the way North Carolina wants to operate. He was the only potential hire who could galvanize the entire UNC universe, and he has -- even if the Tar Heels are still figuring out how to ride their new trajectory.
"We're the only one that's got Bill Belichick," Barakat says. "We're the only one that has a six-time Super Bowl-winning coach."