From Classmates to Coaches: Bill Belichick’s Former Teammate Leads Renowned Alma Mater’s Football Team

A Massachusetts high school football team is shaking up its coaching staff by bringing in some Super Bowl pedigree and a familiar face to its roster.

Phillips Andover Academy, a renowned boarding school with alumni like Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, has appointed Ernie Adams, a seasoned NFL assistant coach and executive, as their interim football coach.

The connection traces back to the late 1960s and early 1970s when Adams was a student at Phillips Andover. During his time there, he read “Football Scouting Methods,” a book by Steve Belichick, a former Detroit Lions fullback. Coincidentally, Steve’s son, Bill Belichick, joined the school for a postgraduate year in 1970. Recognizing the name, Adams struck up a friendship with Bill that has endured for decades.

Adams has already received congratulations from his longtime friend, who is now entering his second season as head coach for the North Carolina Tar Heels.

“Of course, [Belichick is] an alumnus too, so I know he wishes us well, just like I cheer for [North] Carolina,” Adams shared with the Globe.

Ernie Adams is seen during one of six Super Bowl parades during his time in Foxborough 

Adams (right) was referred to as ‘Belichick’s Belichick’ by author David Halberstam

He also received a vote of confidence from one notable Patriots fan and Massachusetts native.

‘Can I bet my net worth on Phillips Andover to win the NEPSAC next year,’ Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy wrote on X. ‘Old Pink Stripes is gonna have the boys flying…’

Portnoy’s mention of ‘pink stripes’ is an inside joke from the Patriots practice facility that has yet to be fully explained, publicly.

Adams (’71) replaces Trey Brown (’12), who posted a 2-7 record in New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) Class A last fall, losing to rival Phillips Exeter, 48-16, in the season finale.

He is best known for working as Belichick’s lead researcher in New England from 2000 to 2021, winning six Super Bowl titles along the way and earning a reputation as a brilliant, if somewhat shrouded, football mind. Players regularly joked about not knowing his role with the team, and legendary sportswriter and author David Halberstam famously referred to Adams as ‘Belichick’s Belichick.’

But Adams’s football career has not come entirely alongside Belichick.

Ernie Adams is seen watching Tom Brady practice with the Patriots in 2018 

Adams played high school football at Phillips Andover, where he befriended Belichick 

Belichick brought Adams to Cleveland, where they struggled to improve the hapless Browns

Both broke into the NFL in 1975, with Belichick working as an assistant for the Baltimore Colts and Adams taking a job as a Patriots administrative assistant. Adams would later move on to the New York Giants, where he would reunite with Belichick.

And in 1991, he followed Belichick to Cleveland, where the two began an unsuccessful five-year stint with the Browns. It was during his time along Lake Erie that then-Browns owner Art Modell famously remarked: ‘I’ll pay anyone here $10,000 if they can tell me what Ernie Adams does.’

Adams was out of football until Belichick got the head-coaching job in Foxborough in 2000.

Now, after a four-season hiatus, Adams is eager to get back on the sideline.

‘Listen, it’s great,’ Adams told the Globe. ‘[Been] working there the last couple years, so I know all the players. But just standing in front of them [Monday] afternoon when I was introduced to them, these are a great bunch of kids and it was a lot of fun.’

As for any schematic plans, Adams is predictably keeping those to himself.

‘Hopefully the offense we run is one that moves the ball and scores points,’ he said.

Known as one of the most prestigious schools in world, Phillips Andover Academy was founded in 1778 and went on to produce Presidents and Super Bowl-winning coaches 

A portrait of an adolescent George H.W. Bush and a teammate during their time in Andover 

George W. Bush was a cheerleader at Phillips Andover before moving on to Yale 

Jackie Kennedy Onassis smiles at her son, John, on his graduation day at Phillips Andover. With them are daughter, Caroline and Uncle Ted, Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Phillips Andover athletic director Lisa Joel has released her own statement on the hiring.

‘The Phillips Andover experience was formative for [Adams],’ she said Tuesday, as quoted by the Globe. ‘He’s all in. He loves the school, he loves the game of football, and he understands what it means to be an Andover student. He’s a team guy. And he’s incredibly humble and understated.’

Phillips Andover is not known as a football powerhouse. The Big Blue last had a winning season in 2017 and finished 9-0 in 2013, but have produced only a handful of professional players. Zak DeOssie, the son of Patriots and Giants linebacker, Steve, played at Phillips Andover before a successful college career at Brown and 13 seasons as the Giants long snapper.

Other Phillips Andover academy alums include John F. Kennedy Jr., writer Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., actors Jack Lemmon and Olivia Wilde, journalist Buzz Bissinger and famed Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck.