“IT’S A LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN FOOTBALL. LACROSSE IS A SPORT YOU LIKE TO PRACTICE.
...FOOTBALL IS MORE OF A GRIND- IT-OUT KIND OF SPORT AND SOMETIMES PRACTICE ISN’T THE MOST FUN THING, BUT LACROSSE IT ALWAYS WAS. I ALWAYS LOOKED FORWARD TO LACROSSE SEASON.”
Growing up in Annapolis, what drew you to the game of lacrosse?
LACROSSE’S MOST FAMOUS FAN New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick follows the sport with an
undying passion rooted in his childhood BY COREY MCLAUGHLIN
Bill Belichick has led the New England Patriots to four Super Bowl wins and dynasty status in a National Football League free-agency era where most thought it wasn’t possible. He will one day — whether the famously tight-lipped coach wants to or not — likely be asked to give a speech upon his induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Those are deep and meaningful
honors, no doubt, but — and this is no joke — they might only rank evenly with what Belichick calls “one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever had in my life.”
Is he lefty or righty in lacrosse? It happened one April day at
Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in 2007, after Belichick asked to warm up goalie Jesse Schwartzman during practice. “Is he lefty or righty? And he didn’t know,” Belichick said last spring while tossing around EKEMR SR XLI 4EXVMSXW TVEGXMGI ÁIPH in Foxborough, Mass., during an interview with ESPN commentator and US Lacrosse Magazine contributor Paul Carcaterra. “I’m like, ‘There we go.’” The Hoodie says he’s never even
42 US LACROSSE MAGAZINE November 2016
I loved it. Navy had great teams and it seemed like half the team was made up of football players. Those were back in the days when guys would come to the Naval Academy, had never heard of or seen lacrosse and by their sophomore year, they were All- Americans. Because there were so many football players on the team I started following it. Coach [Willis] Bilderback had national championship after national championship throughout the ’60s.
Everyone talks about Jimmy Lewis, the Navy attackman. How good was he?
Pretty good. His stick was tight like a tennis racquet. Jimmy Lewis and Jim Brown, those were the two superstars. Almost every weekend in the spring from when I was about 13, there would be a lacrosse game. We had tickets to Navy games, or we’d climb the fence at Homewood Field or Byrd Stadium.
Ultimately you go up to Wesleyan College in
Connecticut. What was your college lacrosse experience like?
USlacrosse.org
©PHOTO CREDIT
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