You either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Bill Belichick blew right past the latter part and now we all can't take our eyes off the train wreck that is his college football coaching tenure.
Belichick is in his first season as head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, and it's not exactly going the same as his illustrious NFL career. At 2-2, the Tar Heels have only managed to beat two lowly opponents in Charlotte and Richmond. Their losses were by a combined score of 82-23 to the Big 12 conference's TCU and UCF.
To add insult to injury, it's just plain uncomfortable watching Belichick's girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, practically call all the shots and stomp all over the once infamous disciplinarian.
We're watching Bill Belichick's legacy be obliterated in real time
There have been plenty of iconic coaches who have left the juggernaut they built and just fizzled out with their next teams. Bill Parcells never saw the success he created with the New York Giants when he led the New England Patriots, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys.
But seeing Belichick leave the NFL entirely — after already having a humiliating end to that tenure - and lower himself to the college level with absolutely no experience is just painful to watch.
Unless North Carolina runs the table in the ACC, this season will be drawn up as a complete failure, and it's not clear Belichick will continue his experiment into a second year. We still don't even know if this was all just a time waster in order to get Belichick back into the NFL.
333 career regular season wins, eight total Super Bowl wins and three Coach of the Year Awards are mighty impressive, but sports is all about "What have you done for me lately?"
Lately, Belichick is not an attractive coaching prospect. Oh, what could've been had he just rode off into the sunset and enjoyed retirement as a perpetual guest on the Pat McAfee Show like everyone enjoyed. Instead, he's grinding it out for a mid-level ACC team that's about to enter conference play. And based on what we've seen, it might be more likely to get worse before it gets better with Belichick and his Tar Heels.