Annapolis resident Jeannette Belichick, mother of Patriots’ coach, dies at age 98
Jeannette Belichick, the mother of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and a longtime Annapolis resident, has died. Shewas 98.
Patriots spokesman Stacey James said Belichick died Monday night of natural causes in Annapolis.
In an email shared with friends from Annapolis, Bill Belichick said his mother began to decline toward the end of last week. He visited her for the final time on Friday. Jeannette Belichick would have turned 99 in October.
“Therewasn’t a kinder orsweeter person than my mom. We are all blessed she touched our lives,” Belichick wrote in the email.
Belichick said his mother would be buried alongside her husband at theUnited StatesNaval Academy cemetery. Due to the pandemic, the service will be for immediate family only.
Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh began his post-practice news conference Wednesday afternoon by offering condolences to Belichick and his family. “It’s a sad day,” Harbaugh said.
Belichick was preceded in death by her husband, Steve, who died in 2005 at age 86. In addition to their son, Bill, she is survived by three grandchildren: Holy Cross College women’s lacrosse coach Amanda Belichick and Patriots assistants Stephen Belichick and Brian Belichick.
Both Ohio natives, the former Jeannette Munn met SteveBelichick in the 1940s at Hiram College, where she taught French and Spanish, and hewas a football, basketball and track coach. They were married in 1950 and had their son, Bill, in 1952.
Following her husband’s assistant football coaching stints at Vanderbilt and North Carolina, the couple moved to Annapolis when Steve took aNavy coaching job.
Bill Belichick donated to Hiram College in honor of both of his parents in 2015. It established a reading room named for his mother in the school’s library and purchased resources to aid the foreign languages department.
It added his father’s name to the college’s fitness center.