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There are plenty of professional athletes who’ve benefitted from the inherent advantage that comes with being born to a parent who also played a sport for a living en route to following in their footsteps.
Unlike many industries, it’s pretty hard to argue players who’ve successfully punched their ticket to the pros can credit nepotism for getting a leg-up on the competition; it’s one thing to land a movie role because a family member pulled some strings, but earning a roster spot is another matter entirely.
However, you could easily argue children who were born to people who coach a sport deserve the “Nepo Baby” label—including New England Patriots linebackers coach Steve Belichick.
Now, it’s safe to assume Steve Belichick has gotten some fairly invaluable insight into the intricacies of football as the son of one of the most legendary NFL coaches of all time.
With that said, it’s also not a stretch to suggest Bill Belichick may have passed over some more qualified candidates when the franchise hired Rutgers long snapper as a coaching assistant back in 2012.
The nature of the younger Belichick’s role within the organization means his glorious mullet and fairly eccentric behavior on the sidelines have garnered more attention than his strategic contributions.
It’s a bit hard to imagine Steve would be gearing up for his 12th season with the team if he wasn’t able to hold his own. The 35-year-old seems to be fairly respected inside the organization, but it doesn’t seem like that has always been the case based on what Devin McCourty had to say about a team meeting that probably didn’t inspire a ton of confidence.
The recently-retired safety spoke about his time with the Patriots on The Chris Long Show during a conversation where McCourty recounted what went down in his first meeting with Belichick after the latter was promoted to coach the players at his position.
Here’s what he had to say via NESN:
“He’s walking in the room, it’s me, Pat Chung, Duron Harmon, Nate Ebner.
We’ve got all these veterans—I’m older than Steve, Pat’s older than Steve, he played with Duron [at Rutgers] and he’s probably the same age as Nate—and he walks in and goes, ‘Yo, I’m going to be honest with y’all. I don’t know what the eff I’m doing right now. My dad told me two weeks ago that I was even going to have this job.’
And now I’m just sitting here like, ‘I don’t know, what’s next?’ And that first year, we all just worked together.”
McCourty emphasized Belichick was able to adapt after being thrown into the deep end, as he added, “I think his growth has come because of the honesty” and praised him for putting in the work to prove he wasn’t simply riding his dad’s coattails.
Of course, those coattails may have gotten Steve in the door in the first, but it seems like it’s worked out for all of the parties involved.