There aren’t many people in the NFL who predate New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick at this point. One of them just got inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Gil Brandt, who’s now an NFL Media analyst, got his due for being an executive for the Dallas Cowboys from 1960 to 1989. It turns out, he’s known Belichick since the Patriots head coach was 12 years old.
“And some of you cannot fathom, like the 12-year-old kid who dad, Steve, was a coach at Navy,” Brandt, 86, said in his speech. “He would run routes on the practice field for quarterback Roger Staubach during my scouting visits to Annapolis in the early ’60s. How was I to know that little boy that loved football so much would be a six-time Super Bowl champion named Bill Belichick, who finds his name listed among the best to ever coach the game and has been a great friend over the past half-century.”
Belichick would have been 12 years old in 1964. That’s the same year the Cowboys drafted Staubach. The math adds up. Belichick’s father, Steve, coached at Navy from 1956 to 1989.
Bill Belichick undoubtedly will join Brandt in the Pro Football Hall of Fame five years after he retires.
