BILL BELICHICK IS ALLOWING HIS 24-YEAR-OLD GIRLFRIEND TO TARNISH HIS IMAGE
He needs to win and recruit well at North Carolina to advance his coaching legacy, but Jordon Hudson is too aggressive in controlling interviews and social media and must go away on a blocking dummy
If Bill Belichick wants to be remembered as the greatest NFL coach, a man who won six championships with Tom Brady as his quarterback, he must hide his girlfriend. He is becoming best known for 24-year-old Jordon Hudson, who is 49 years younger than The Cranky Old Man and trying much too hard to control TV interviews and social media. The way his college coaching experiment will work is if he wins games, recruits well and anchors his remarkable achievements.
She likes yoga classes. She enjoys cheerleading. She will be competing in the Miss Maine USA pageant next month. Tuesday, she wore a ring on her wedding finger while joining Belichick at an American Museum of Natural History luncheon in New York. If there’s a ceremony to plan, try that. Please do something.
At this point, after Hudson took over a Sunday CBS interview with snide comments to an interviewer, it would shock me if prominent prospects and their parents are serious about attending North Carolina. Shouldn’t Belichick be looking at accomplished coaches and their significant others. His close friend, Nick Saban controlled the Alabama program as Terry helped in the background. The best NBA coach, Steve Kerr, adores Margot and handles the media on his own. Ryan Day went through hell at Ohio State and dealt with press conferences himself until he won the national championship. The best publicists and buffers work for their teams.
Why is Belichick, who has handled reporters from Boston and across the country for decades, letting Hudson interfere? This is a man who dealt with Spygate and Deflategate scandals with brusque mannerisms, often telling reporters to shoo away from his team by commenting, “We’re on to Cincinnati.” Did he not realize moving to college football would command similar national attention, particularly when an interviewer wants to know how Bill and Jordan initially hooked up? Instead, he refers to Hudson as his “idea mill and creative muse.” Bill must be having a good time as a septuagenarian.
“How did you guys meet,” newsman Tony Dokoupil asked on a pleasant show called “CBS Mornings.”
“We’re not talking about this,” Hudson said.
“No?’ Dokoupil said.
“No,” she said.
This explains why Dokoupil introduced Hudson during the segment, with the program showing her sitting near Belichick in the studio. “Jordon was a constant presence during our interview,” he said.
It’s not the first time Hudson has pushed the media envelope. She demanded North Carolina, which traditionally has dealt with famous coaches and athletes, monitor the school’s social media outlets for comments about Belichick? “Is there anyone monitoring the UNC Football page for slanderous commentary and subsequently deleting it/blocking users that are harassing BB in the comments?” Hudson asked in February.
Belichick followed up. “I cannot believe that UNC would support my being called a ‘predator,’ ” he wrote.
Did the couple not think rival programs would act rudely and crudely about their love relationship? College kids will talk about 73-year-old Bill and his dating life? Belichick is surprised by the hype, which is covered by gossip sites. This probably wasn’t the best time to release a book — “The Art of Winning: Lessons From My Life in Football,” — which is why he appeared on CBS.
He wrote a message earlier this month about a published story. Hudson shared his email Tuesday. Why, Bill, why? “All, I don’t think this is fantastic, but it will probably hype the book, which is clearly the ongoing theme here … This is about what I expected from the media. We went through how important it was for me to put ‘I f–ked up’ in the book, and of course, that is the feature of this article — which is mostly about admitting mistakes and talking about a Super Bowl mistake. I am fine with putting mistakes in the book, but I am certainly not surprised that of 260+ pages, that is is what they would highlight.
“And of course, the ‘I f–ked up’ is the click bait they used for the story. We’ll see what the title of the article is, which I noticed has been conveniently left out — do we have approval on that. I would approve this article if we can also approve the headline, which is actually more important than the article.”
The headline is more important than the article? The book, Belichick said, was “to be presented as a look at my professional life and how I did my job on the way up to, and as the leader of a (New England Patriots) organization that grew from a $500 m franchise to an $8 billion organization. This book is about how I did my job, and lessons from my 50 years in and around the NFL — not a bathroom book that highlights my mistakes.”
He met Hudson on a plane four years ago. He said he ‘’isn’t too worried about what everybody else thinks” about the relationship.”Just try to do what I feel like is best for me and what’s right,” he said.
When the season begins, Belichick will become the centerpiece of media coverage. Megyn Kelly is concerned about his mental health, saying, “If the situation were reversed and it was an older woman dating a controlling younger man, we’d be accusing him of elder abuse and asking whether he’s guilty of coercive control, and whether this woman is OK. And honestly, I’ve got all those same questions here.”
Bill Belichick, controlled by a 24-year-old woman when he once controlled Brady.
The first game is in four months, against TCU in Chapel Hill.
By then, she should be on a blocking dummy.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.