Steve Belichick, 86; Naval Academy Football Coach for Three Decades

Steve Belichick, 86, a longtime college football coach and scout who was also the father of New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, died of heart failure Saturday at his home in Annapolis, Md.

A native of Struthers, Ohio, Belichick played football and baseball at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He played a year with the National Football League’s Detroit Lions before joining the Navy during World War II. One of his Lion teammates was Byron White, who would later become a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

After the war, Belichick coached at Hiram College in Ohio, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina before moving to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1956.

He coached at the Annapolis school for 33 years and became a well-regarded football scout of potential Navy opponents.

In 1963, he wrote “Football Scouting Methods,” considered the bible of scouting techniques.

His son, a Super Bowl-winning coach who found out about his father’s death during the night, coached the Patriots to a win Sunday against the New Orleans Saints.