On Friday, he was able to do something that, of late, has been just as impressive — discuss his personal life on television without someone interjecting off-camera.
The first-year North Carolina head coach sat down for an interview on “Good Morning America” with Michael Strahan in which he discussed his life in football, his newly released memoir and, yes, his relationship with his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson.
Strahan, the Pro Football Hall of Famer who was on the 2007 New York Giants team that denied Belichick’s New England Patriots a perfect season in Super Bowl XLII, asked Belichick about Hudson roughly eight minutes into their nearly 10-minute interview.
“She’s been terrific through the whole process,” Belichick said. “She’s been very helpful to me. She does the business things that don’t relate to North Carolina that come up in my life so I can concentrate on football. That’s really what I want to do.”
When asked later what Hudson means to him, Belichick was more succinct.
“We have a good personal relationship. You know I’m not talking about personal relationships, Michael,” Belichick said, with a smile. “You know that.”
While Belichick coaching at the college level for the first time in his distinguished career figured to be one of the most closely followed storylines of the upcoming 2025 college football season, his relationship with the 24-year-old Hudson has driven most of the discussion around North Carolina football the past several weeks.
In late April, while promoting his book, Belichick sat down for a disastrous interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” in which Hudson, sitting off-camera, butted in to tell interviewer Tony Dokoupil that the coach wouldn’t be answering a question about how the two met. According to multiple reports, Hudson interrupted the interview several times and at one point stormed off, delaying taping by 30 minutes.
Hudson, according to Strahan, was not present for Friday’s “Good Morning America” interview.
A report last Friday from journalist Pablo Torre, who spoke to 11 sources on the matter, noted that Hudson had been banned from North Carolina’s football facility and that members of the Belichick family have expressed “deep worry for how detrimental” Hudson can be for Belichick’s legacy and reputation.
In his book, The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football, the 73-year-old Belichick described Hudson as his “creative muse.”
Later in Friday’s interview, Belichick dove into something that has often been ignored over the past several months — his actual North Carolina team.
There have been questions about how an NFL stalwart will adjust to the college game, particularly with the advent of NIL deals and the transfer portal. Belichick alluded to the expected revenue-sharing model that will be coming to college sports in wake of the House settlement and said it could end up being similar to how roster management worked in the NFL with a salary cap. He also said that while there have been some adjustments and learning experiences, he hasn’t had to change the way he coaches in college.
“They’re so eager,” he said of his team. “They’re hungry. They have dreams. They want to be good. I want to help make them good. I want to help make them good on a good team. It’s really been exciting to work with these guys. Some of them don’t have bad habits, either. You can start to mold some of them. Now, some of them don’t have some of the good experience a great player has, but it’s great to work with them. They’ve been very enthusiastic and we’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve got a long way to go, of course.”