Bill Belichick: Jordon Hudson handles "business things that don't relate to North Carolina"

The Bill Belichick book tour continued on Friday with an appearance on Good Morning America. In the days since it was announced, the exclusive sit-down lost plenty of its luster, given that Belichick has been doing a bunch of interviews. Typically with folks who weren’t going to pry into the most interesting aspects of Belichick’s current personal and professional life.

ABC’s Michael Strahan, to his credit, went there. Early on, he tried to loosen Belichick up with softballs. He asked specific questions about his book — including one so specific that Belichick was stumped.

Strahan tiptoed toward the third rail by asking what Belichick the NFL coach would think about the post-pro football Belichick. The question sprang from the obvious reality that the New England curmudgeon who tolerated no distractions would relentlessly mock any football coach who was actively creating them.

Said Strahan: “What would the Patriots Bill Belichick say to the UNC Bill Belichick? What kind of advice would you have, if you had any?”

Belichick completely ignored the question.

“Again, for me it’s all about learning,” he said. “You know, I learn every day, and I’ve learned so much being back in the college environment, with whether it be recruiting, the college game, the rules, the hashmarks, some strategy, and just putting a team together.”

Strahan was then far more direct: “A lot has been made also of your professional life, but also your personal life. Because it’s spilled over into your professional life in a lot of ways, and a lot has been made about your relationship with Jordon Hudson. It’s been getting a lot of attention. She isn’t here this morning. But what do you think about all the attention that your relationship has been getting?

“Yeah, well, she’s been terrific, you know, through the whole process, and she’s been very helpful to me,” Belichick said. “She does the business things that don’t relate to North Carolina that come up in my life, so I can concentrate on football and that’s really what I want to do. You know, I acknowledged her in the book, she was very helpful in that with the tribute pages and also given a perspective of the book from kind of a business side, you know, sometimes I get a little football technical and and so, you know, she did a good job of keeping me on balance there.”

First of all, it’s been clearly established (through emails obtained via public-records requests), that she WAS involved in business things that relate to North Carolina. Maybe she isn’t now, but she absolutely was.

And there’s still a story to be told on how and why and when her involvement in North Carolina football ended.

Second, it’s unclear why Belichick regards a 24-year-old (and possibly 23-year-old) with no advanced business education or extensive (or any) business experience as the Mona Lisa Vito of American business.

Strahan kept pressing, gently and with a smiling, positive tone.

“So what does Jordan mean to you?” he said.

“Well, we have a good personal relationship, you know, I’m not talking about personal relationships, Michael,” Belichick said. “You know that.”

Again, it’s one thing for a football coach to create a firewall between personal and professional relationships. It’s another for someone who is trying to get people to buy a book — and who has deliberarely blurred the lines between his personal and professional life — to refuse to talk about his personal relationships.

Strahan then asked a question that goes to the heart of the concerns that people like Charles Barkley have directly raised, and about which family members are reportedly curious.

“Are you happy?” Strahan said.

“Yeah.”

“You look happy.”

‘Yeah.”

In that setting, no one who’s truly unhappy would ever crack and melt and empty the tank on their deepest, darkest feelings. The answer is always going to be positive.

It was the casual asking of the question that was so jarring. “Are you happy?” carries an implication that there’s reason to think the person being asked the question might not be. In fact, someone who is truly happy could be alarmed or even offended that the question needed to be asked.

(“Are you happy?” . . . “Why wouldn’t I be?” . . . “Are you happy?” . . . “Why do you care?” . . . “Are you happy?” . . . “If you keep asking that, I won’t be.”)

The fact that Strahan could ask that question without it seeming inappropriate becomes the ultimate encapsulation of the past 19 days in the professional and personal life of Bill Belichick.

And, yes, it has only been 19 days.

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