{"id":208301,"date":"2025-10-08T05:14:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T05:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/208301\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T05:14:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T05:14:06","slug":"a-bill-belichick-assistant-coach-at-north-carolina-has-been-suspended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/208301\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bill Belichick assistant coach at North Carolina has been suspended"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s going from worse to clusterfudge in Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n

Bruce Feldman of TheAthletic.com reports that one of North Carolina coach Bill Belichick\u2019s assistants has been suspended<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That punishment has been imposed on first-year secondary coach and recruiting analyst Armond Hawkins, who came to UNC with defensive coordinator Steve Belichick from Washington.<\/p>\n

Hawkins, per the report, provided extra benefits by giving a player\u2019s family members sideline passes to a game. (Given the way the Tar Heels have been playing, is that really a \u201cbenefit\u201d?)<\/p>\n

Feldman doesn\u2019t mention whether and to what extent Belichick knew about the extra benefits. It\u2019s an allegation that lands in the general neighborhood of the kind of thing that could potentially lay the foundation for a termination of Belichick\u2019s contract for cause \u2014 especially if the basis for the suspension wasn\u2019t an isolated occurrence.<\/p>\n

It would be foolish to think someone at UNC hasn\u2019t at least entertained the possibility of moving on from Belichick without owing him upwards of $20 million. It\u2019s also possible, based on the current state of the program (as outlined in jarring detail<\/a> on Monday by Pat Welter of WRAL.com), that a major donor will decide to write the check to fund the full buyout in order to give the program an escape from another two years of dysfunction, drama, and blowouts.<\/p>\n

Wherever the money may come from, the amount of Belichick\u2019s buyout must ultimately be weighed against the potential damage to the program and the reputation of the institution if Belichick stays for another year or two.<\/p>\n

However things play out, it feels like significant changes are inevitable for North Carolina football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s going from worse to clusterfudge in Chapel Hill. Bruce Feldman of TheAthletic.com reports that one of North…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-208301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}