Bill Belichick is widely considered the greatest football coach of all time, even by Tom Brady, the future Hall of Fame quarterback who quarterbacked all six of Belichick’s Super Bowl winning New England Patriots teams.
Since he was fired as Patriots head coach following the 2023 season after 24 years at the helm of the New England NFL juggernaut, Belichick’s personal, off-field life has put him the news as least as much as his football career.
Belichick’s Mixed Coaching Record
In particular, the 73-year-old Belichick has become the object of what could be called morbid public curiosity, for his romantic relationship with Jordan Hudson, an ex-cheerleader 49 years younger than he is — and who appears to at least to some extent to be a cause of his breakup with longtime girlfriend Linda Holliday, who was a mere 11 years Belichick’s junior.
One fact that could call Belichick’s “GOAT” status into question is that, outside of his years with Brady on the Patriots, his coaching record has been, at best, mixed.
In his six Patriots seasons without Brady at quarterback — including 2008 when Brady was out with an injured knee, and 2000 with veteran QB Drew Bledsoe starting every game — his won-loss record was 45-54, and he took the Patriots to the playoffs only once, in 2021.
As head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 1991 through 1995, he compiled a 36-44 record and made zero playoff appearances.
New Phase of Coach’s Career Begins
Starting on Monday, Belichick puts his GOAT reputation on the line once again, this time in the college ranks, as head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, who take on Texas Christian to open their 2025 season and the new phase of Belichick’s career.
But his gal-pal, Hudson, has already proven to be a distraction, even reportedly getting herself banned from UNC facilities, though the school denied that report.
As for Belichick, he has said that Hudson “doesn’t have anything to do with UNC football.” But why is he even forced to make that statement? No such controversies arose in the 16 years he was dating and, for at least some of that time, sharing his Nantucket home with Holliday.
Why did they break up?
Reports Indicate Hudson Relationship Linked to Breakup
Holliday, a former local TV correspondent on Boston-area stations WBZ and WSBK, has never spoken publicly about the reasons for the split, since the breakup went public in September of 2023. Like Belichick — who began dating Holliday after splitting with Debby Clarke, his wife of 29 years, a year earlier — the breakup with Belichick was not her first rodeo.
Holliday had been married three times before dating Belichick.
Given reports about when Belichick first became romantically involved with Hudson, it seems likely that the coach’s new flame was at the root of the breakup with Holliday.
Belichick Dated Hudson 2 Years Before Relationship Went Public: Report
Though Belichick and Hudson were reported to have met on an airline flight in 2021, their relationship was believed to have become serious in 2023, when a security camera video that went viral showed a shirtless Belichick leaving a house believed to be Hudson’s residence.
According to reporting from independent journalist Pablo Torre, however, “the first time people spotted Jordon Hudson around the Patriots, around Bill Belichick, was when he was the coach of the Patriots … In the fall of 2021, it wasn’t 2023. They’ve known about her showing up as early as the fall of 2021. She was sitting, I was told, in Bill’s outdoor seats at Gillette [Stadium] … she was spotted in those seats as early as that.”
If Torre’s reporting is accurate, it sheds new light on the reasons why Holliday would want to end her relationship with Belichick that began in 2009.
While refraining from public statements, Holliday has apparently not made a secret of her resentment toward Hudson — and Belichick. At a Halloween party last year, she dressed as the character “The Bride” from the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill.
The not-so-subtle subtext seemed clear, but in a later Instagram message, Holliday urged people to “for the love of God, laugh a little. Lighten up. Everything isn’t an attack.”
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This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Linda Holliday, Bill Belichick’s Ex-Girlfriend: Why She Broke Up With Him appeared first on Heavy Sports.