North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick’s relationship with his 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, has been the talk of the town lately.
The topic has become a big enough story that Paul Finebaum, Peter King, and several NFL executives and insiders have criticized Belichick for his actions.
Recently, a story circulating the internet claimed that North Carolina had banned Belichick’s girlfriend from team facilities, but this was quickly disputed.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel reached out for some clarification on the situation and spoke candidly on SportsCenter, detailing that Hudson was not banned and that UNC hired a PR specialist to help Belichick deal with some of the backlash.
“Made a few calls to North Carolina today to kind of take the temperature of where things were,” Thamel said. “I think the most important thing I gleaned today is they pushed back very hard at the notion of Jordon Hudson being banned from the facility, as was being reported today. I was simply told, unequivocally, that’s untrue.”
“I do think from talking to people at North Carolina today, there are some lessons that they have learned,” Thamel continued. “They hired an internationally famous celebrity to be their head coach, and with that, everything’s amplified. His hire was one of the biggest stories in sports, and these recent brush fires have been amplified because he is Bill Belichick and he is known throughout the world.”
“One thing I was told today is that North Carolina is doing to help better manage Belichick and the publicity that inherently is going to surround him is they’re going to bring in a PR specialist – a veteran NFL PR guy they’re in the process of hiring,” Thamel said. “A guy named Brandon Faber, who worked with the Bears. And he is going to work just with Bill Belichick, along with doing some NIL and branding for his UNC PR. That’s in addition to another PR person they’re bringing in to handle the regular teamwork.”
Thamel finished his thoughts by noting improvement on Hudson’s side of things, saying, “Another observation that I’ve made, and others have made, since the initial CBS This Morning interview is Jordon Hudson has clearly taken a step back from the amount she’s posting and the amount she’s tying herself to UNC. I just think there are some lessons learned for everybody here about the size of the spotlight around Bill Belichick.”
In the end, when all the dust settles, Belichick’s time in Chapel Hill will be judged on wins and losses. Unfortunately, that all feels like a long time away, with the offseason drama continuing to make headlines.
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