Amanda Belichick, daughter of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, is “making a name for herself as head coach of the women’s lacrosse team at Holy Cross,” according to the Boston Herald.
A graduate of Wesleyan with a degree in history and the success of a distinguished college lacrosse career, Belichick did not initially see herself walking in her father’s shoes. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she told the Herald. “If you asked if I was going into coaching, I would have said, ‘No way.’ I wasn’t running away from it, but I wasn’t running toward it either.”
Nonetheless, her career began at UMass as an assistant coach in 2010 before she moved on to Ohio State. She then found herself working as a “jack of all trades” coach at Choate before at last coming to Worcester to head Holy Cross’ Division 1 women’s lacrosse team. “My job is to give the players the opportunity to build confidence and feel good about themselves,” Belichick said. “It’s about mentoring them in ways that help them the rest of their life. A coach’s job is more than just X’s and O’s.”
According to the Herald, “What’s also clear is she knows where she’s going and where she hopes to lead Holy Cross. It’s the same place she took Wesleyan, which rose from 49th in the nation before she arrived to as high as No. 17.” She’s here to “build a program that leads young players to follow their own bliss on a lacrosse field, the place where she found hers.”
“I really feel this is a destination job,’’ Belichick said of Holy Cross. “There’s a sense we can build something here. You get a great education and the chance to play at the highest level of our sport.”
This “Holy Cross in the News” item is by Emma Collins ’16.
