Mike Bellamy: "I've always dreamed of being here"

Champaign – Even though Illinois head coach Lovie Smith didn’t retain assistant coach Mike Bellamy in 2016, getting back to Illinois remained Bellamy’s goal.

While he was a coaching at Mississippi State and Toledo, his wife, Tanya, and daughter, McKenna, both knew where Bellamy really wanted to be. While his pride was hurt when Smith didn’t keep him on the staff, Bellamy patiently waited for the chance to get back to Champaign.

“I’ve always had dreams of being here at this point,” Bellamy said.

And when the opportunity arose, former players and coaches made sure to let their opinions be heard on who should fill the vacant position.

“All I heard were phone calls saying ‘Mike Bellamy. Mike Bellamy. Mike Bellamy,’” Rod said. “I can’t tell you how many phone calls I got about Mike Bellamy.”

So, Rod knew he at least had to get on the phone with him and try and "feel him out." Going into the conversation, Rod formulated a check list he needed his candidates to completely pass, and after his phone conversation with Bellamy, the boxes were checked off.

“I wanted somebody who in both spots have like-minded philosophy in terms of what we wanted to do offensively. Mike checked those boxes,” Rod said. “I wanted somebody that understood Chicago and understood recruiting to this University. Mike obviously understood that. I wanted somebody who could relate to kids and is a great teacher and resonated with kids. I never heard one bad thing about Mike Bellamy.

“We just kept coming back to Mike. He just checked all the boxes and just knew he was our guy.”

What Rod and Lovie saw in Bellamy is a guy that “bleeds orange and blue” and has in-state recruiting success. In 1989, Bellamy was a first-team All-Big Ten receiver for the Illini before he joined the coaching staff in 2011 after a brief professional football career. He started out as assistant director of player personal and relations.

A year later, Bellamy was promoted to the Illini’s wide receivers’ coach and held the position for three seasons before the coaching turnover in 2016.

Bellamy, once again, plans to use his in-state relationships to impact recruiting.

“My relationship in-state, my success in-state as a player and as a coach recruiting will help,” Bellamy said. “I’ve seen this place when it was successful and we’re that close. You can tell we’re that close. With recruiting and the facility going up right now, it’s going to be easy to tell the kids this is the place to go. You add the expectations on with the facilities, it’s top notch and with this coaching staff, there’s no beating it.”

Everything added up on paper when it came to hiring Bellamy, but Rod still needed to meet the man in person, so the two set up an interview in Champaign on Feb. 12.

The only problem was an ice storm cancelled practically every flight in the Midwest that day. Bellamy couldn’t get a flight out of Toledo, and even considered driving to Detroit to see if there was a flight before discovering that wasn’t an option.

Bellamy and Tanya both agreed that he would just make the five hour drive instead. Rod didn’t.

“I was like ‘Mike you ain’t have to do that. There’re bad roads,’ but he was like ‘nah, I’m not missing this,’” Rod said.

The drive ended up taking Bellamy 8 hours because of traffic in Indiana. He couldn’t believe all the adversity he’d faced that day and felt his desire for the job was being tested.

“That’s what it totally felt like,” Bellamy said. “Who could have ever thought that the flight was cancelled, the rent-a-car place (was closed), the traffic… It was a test of my will. A test of my patience. And it’s a testimony for me right now.

“Some of the guys said, ‘that’s resilience, and it showed how much he wanted the job.’ But the thing about it is I wanted the perfect situation and perfect opportunity and it was.”

The fact that Bellamy had even made the trip impressed Rod.

“It just tells you how bad he wanted to be here, and it sure made an impression on me, I can tell you that,” Rod said.

When he finally arrived and sneaked through the backdoor to not draw any attention, the staff asked Bellamy where to go out to dinner. Bellamy didn’t hold back and chose Alexander’s Steakhouse. To his defense, he said he warned them.

It was on this day and during this meeting where Rod told Bellamy that summed up both side’s thoughts on his hire, and signified Bellamy's achieved goal of making it back to Champaign.

“It doesn’t make sense how much sense it makes.”