Bill Belichick’s charitable legacy focused on team building

Since 2013, the Bill Belichick Foundation has been the wellspring from which the mighty Patriots coach gave what he had to three topics he cared deeply about: coaching, mentorship and financial assistance to people and causes he believed in.

“The Bill Belichick Foundation aims to provide coaching, mentorship, and financial support to individuals, communities, and organizations. Focusing on football and lacrosse, its mission is to bring the values of the Belichick family — a love of sports, coaching and team building — to the athletic leaders of tomorrow,” the foundation’s website states.

In 2022, the latest year covered in nonprofit filings, the organization generated about $540,000 and spent the vast majority of it, at $498,210, netting $41,756 for the year to build its war chest to more than $1.3 million.

Belichick’s longtime girlfriend Linda Holliday, the former Miss Little Rock and runner-up for Ms. Arkansas in 2001, has presided over the organization since the beginning.

While PEOPLE magazine broke the news on Sept. 14 that Belichick and Holliday had split after roughly 16 years of partnership, her signature still appeared on the Form 990 submitted more than a week later and she still appears listed as president on the organization’s website.

A spokesperson for the organization did not immediately return a Herald request for comment on Holliday’s current standing there nor on where the organization goes from here now that Belichick has also split from the Patriots.

Belichick’s giving doesn’t stop at the Foundation, however.

He is the namesake of the Belichick Scholarship, a full, four-year scholarship to his alma mater, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. The school in 2017 renamed an entrance formerly named the Warren Street lobby to Belichick Plaza, writing that it was “dedicated in recognition of the leadership and generosity of Bill and (daughter) Amanda Belichick,” another alum of the school.

Belichick also established an annual scholarship, as is described on the Foundation website, “recognizing an outstanding student-athlete at Annapolis High School,” which is where he graduated in his native Annapolis, Maryland, where his father, Steve Belichick, coached at the United States Naval Academy.

In honor of his father, Bill Belichick has presented the Steve Belichick Award at the Annapolis Touchdown Club which, according to the Foundation, “honors an Annapolis resident deeply involved in sports without seeking a spotlight for their achievements.”

“Belichick’s biggest hero and greatest influence was his father — the longest-tenured assistant coach in Navy football history,” The Baltimore Sun’s Bill Wagner wrote of Belichick’s appearance there to present the award in 2022. “He is extremely grateful that his father’s legacy is recognized and perpetuated by the Touchdown Club, which established the Steve Belichick Coach’s Award in 2009.”