Lauren Schultes, a UNC alum who is excited to watch Bill Belichick coach the Tar Heel football team this season, stood in her South Boston home ton on Aug. 18.
Lauren Schultes, a UNC alum who is excited to watch Bill Belichick coach the Tar Heel football team this season, stood in her South Boston home ton on Aug. 18.Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
It’s a great day to be a Tar Heel.
The catchphrase is well known at the University of North Carolina, and with football season just around the corner, it especially applies toTar Heel fans in the Boston area.
For years, many of them watched the New England Patriots become one of the greatest dynasties in sports history with coach Bill Belichick at the helm.
Now, in a stunning twist of fate, Belichick is a Tar Heel, and hopes could hardly be higher.
“The day they announced they got him, it was a surreal moment,” said Pranav Medikonduru, a UNC senior who grew up a diehard Patriots fan in Westford. “It was pretty sick.”
When he was 8 years old, Medikonduru dressed up as Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for Halloween and reveled in the team’s success. He headed south to UNC for college, drawn by its sports tradition and school spirit, and when he learned Belichick would join him on campus for his senior year, it felt almost too good to be true.
It “made so much sense,” Medikonduru, 21, said.
Since UNC hired Belichick in December, the school’s enormous fan base has new faith that the football program, which has long played second fiddle to the school’s championship-winning men’s basketball team, can reach the next level.
Belichick is such a legendary figure that droves of Patriots fans will likely tune in to UNC football this season, maybe for the first time, to see the 73-year-old stalk the sidelines in Carolina blue.
At Jimmy’s Pub & Restaurant, a sports bar in Mansfield that’s about seven miles from Gillette Stadium, owner George Pantos expects a surge of interest in UNC football this year, even in a region that is generally lukewarm about college football.
“I’d be a fool not to have it on the TV,” said Pantos, 68, who has owned the bar for 44 years.
Pantos also predicted New England sports gamblers, familiar with Belichick’s ability, will place a good number of wagers on the Tar Heels this season, which begins Sept. 1 with a home game against Texas Christian University.
“That’s what I’m excited about, seeing how he can take raw talent with his team and make them stars and turn them into leaders,” said Lauren Schultes, a member of Boston’s UNC alumni club.
An assortment of items from Lauren Schultes' college days at her home in Boston.
An assortment of items from Lauren Schultes' college days at her home in Boston.Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Club president Jen Redman said the group is hoping for higher turnout at Tar Heel football watch parties at Warehouse, the downtown sports bar where they’ve met for years.
“We’ll definitely do watch parties for Dook and NC State games,” Redman, 37, said in a text message, careful to use the derisive spelling of the team’s archrival.
For Patriots fans who miss the team’s glory days, seeing Belichick back on the sidelines will offer a bit of nostalgia.
“I’m still mad that he’s gone and that Brady’s gone,” Pantos said.
Still, many fans say they realize UNC will not likely become a powerhouse overnight.
Belichick recruited nearly two dozen new players to the team and brought in a new coaching staff, including his sons Steve and Brian. Having never coached at the college level before, Belichick will have to adjust to a game that’s far different than the NFL, fans said. There’s also a cloud of gossip surrounding his relationship with girlfriend Jordon Hudson that only adds to the drama, fans said.
“There’s just so much curiosity about what could possibly happen,” said 22-year-old Ben Mihailovhich, a UNC senior who grew up in Stamford, Conn. “There’s so much anticipation.”
Patriots fans who start to follow UNC will become familiar with Kenan Memorial Stadium, nestled behind tall trees in a lush section of the Chapel Hill campus.
Off campus, where locals are an extension of the school’s friendly charm, Carolina blue fire department engines drive past biscuit spots, indie music venues, and college bars like He’s Not Here and Might As Well.
History runs deep at Carolina, and school spirit is intertwined with its abundance of national championships across major sports. An Air Jordan insignia inside Carmichael Arena declares that “playing at Carolina is an honor, winning is a tradition.”
Bill Belichick watched his new team during practice in March.
Bill Belichick watched his new team during practice in March.Chris Seward/Associated Press
Belichick is following in the footsteps of his father, who coached UNC’s football team in the 1950s before spending decades at the US Naval Academy, where he helped lead the team to six bowl games.
“What Carolina really thrives on is that sense of home, of someone coming home,” Schultes said. “But that can only take you so far.”
Some fans said they have been apprehensive over Belichick’s relationship with Hudson, who is nearly 50 years his junior, and the intense media coverage it has generated. Some pundits have suggested that Belichick had ceded too much control to his girlfriend, whom he hired to be his personal relations manager.
“What should be a very exciting time is now becoming almost like a headache, anytime UNC football is brought up,” said Alex Jablon, another member of Boston’s UNC alumni club.
UNC graduates and current students said they hope Belichick gets off to a fast start so that news coverage can shift from his personal life to the team’s success.
But if the team fails to execute, Belichick’s $10 million annual salary and other football program spending could become viewed as excessive, said Mihailovich, who works as a sports broadcaster for the university’s athletics department.
“It’s either going to be an amazing success and one of the best investments the university has made, or people are going to say this was not a great idea, that the university paid too much money,” he said.
When the season kicks off, most fans expect the Hudson controversy to recede, and the main question to take center stage. Can Belichick, widely considered the greatest coach in NFL history, lift UNC to new heights?
“I’d give up a basketball national championship if we won a football national championship,” Medikonduru said. “That’d be the best way to finish my four years at UNC.”
Claire Thornton can be reached at claire.thornton@globe.com. Follow Claire on X @claire_thornto.