Bill Belichick turned down a coaching job this year … in lacrosse?
"Almost got him. Almost got him. He went to him. He made him say no.”
Former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is taking a break from the NFL sidelines this season, with the six-time Super Bowl champion in New England failing to land a head-coaching gig during the NFL’s latest offseason coaching hiring spree this winter.
Instead, the 72-year-old Belichick will spend a year away from coaching in 2024, with the former Patriots stalwart reportedly set to join Peyton and Eli Manning on their “Manningcast” shows during Monday Night Football on ESPN.
But even though Belichick will remain involved in the NFL to some degree in 2024, there was seemingly a chance that Belichick could have shifted his coaching priorities to another sport near and dear to him this summer.
During an interview with ESPN over the weekend, Premier Lacrosse League president and co-founder Paul Rabil acknowledged that the PLL tried to convince Belichick to sign on as a defensive coach for the 2024 season.
While discussing with Paul Carcaterra about the PLL’s ability to get seven-time NCAA champion coach Bill Tierney to agree to coach the Philadelphia Waterdogs, Rabil said that Tierney tried to convince Belichick to join his staff in Philadelphia.
“Do you know who Bill (Tierney) went to for his defensive coordinator position? Bill Belichick,” Rabil said. “Almost got him. Almost got him. He went to him. He made him say no.”
While it would have been odd to see Belichick on the sideline coaching a sport other than football, lacrosse has been linked to the Belichick family over the years.
“I’d say it’s his second-favorite sport,” Bob Shriver, former lacrosse coach at Boys’ Latin School in Maryland, said of Belichick’s affinity for lacrosse in a GQ profile. “But sometimes you wonder if it’s not his favorite.”
Belichick played both football and lacrosse during his time at Phillips Academy Andover and later during his collegiate days at Wesleyan University. All three of Belichick’s kids went on to play lacrosse in college — with Steve playing the sport at Rutgers and Brian following suit at Trinity before both went on to coach football.
Belichick’s daughter, Amanda, played lacrosse at Wesleyan and has served as the head coach of Holy Cross’ women’s lacrosse team for the past nine years.
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