Amanda Belichick was in fifth grade when she left Ohio in 1995. She didn’t expect to return, let alone return in the same profession as her father.

Back then, Bill Belichick hardly seemed destined to be a Hall of Fame football coach. That idea would have been laughable to Browns fans who soured on Belichick as their coach at the same time Art Modell soured on keeping the team in Cleveland.

But with the New England Patriots, Belichick has become the most successful active coach in the NFL. On Feb. 5, his team will try to win its fourth Super Bowl when it plays the New York Giants in Indianapolis.

Amanda Belichick will be there. It will be a short drive for her, but it has been a long journey. She, too, is now a coach, an assistant for the Ohio State women’s lacrosse team.

Unlike her father, who learned at the foot of his football-coach father, Amanda didn’t plan on a career in coaching.

Like her father, she played lacrosse at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Amanda didn’t have a firm career plan when she graduated with a history degree. She got a job in the admissions office at Choate Rosemary Hall boarding school in Wallingford, Conn., and also coached the lacrosse, ice hockey and soccer teams. She realized there that her heart was in coaching.

University of Massachusetts coach Alexis Venechanos noticed Belichick at lacrosse summer camps, picking the brains of college coaches.

“She was just so eager to learn,” she said.

Venechanos was so impressed that she hired her as a UMass assistant. When Venechanos got the Ohio State job two years ago, her first call after telling her parents was to ask Belichick to accompany her to Columbus.

In some ways, she is clearly her father’s daughter; for instance, she shares his embrace of the grind of coaching.

“There’s no substitute for hard work,” Amanda said. “No one can do it for you.”

Venechanos described Belichick as “one of the hardest-working assistant coaches in the nation. When she’s on the recruiting trail, she’s working hard. She’s staying at the last games at 6 o’c lock in the evening on Saturday in the summertime.”

Yet, Amanda, 27, is hardly a clone of her father. Bill Belichick is known for his dour public personality and want-to-be-anywhere-but-here news conferences.

Amanda is engaging and outgoing. Asked about her father’s famous reticence with the media, she gave an answer that stretched 70 seconds. That probably would be a record for her father.

“I’m pretty open,” Amanda said. Then, with a smile, she added, “But at the same time, I don’t think I gave you very much information (with that answer), either.”

She said the father she knows doesn’t neatly mesh with his public image.

“There are a lot of things that are personal that have nothing to do with sports that we connect on,” Amanda said. “He’s witty, he’s sharp, he’s smart.

“He’s an incredible father. I’m lucky to have him in my life.”

Amanda is in the early stages of her coaching career, but Venechanos believes she has a promising future. The Buckeyes’ season starts next month.

Venechanos described Amanda as innovative and creative, a coach who will meet with players an hour or two before practice to prepare them.

“I care a lot about the people around me,” Amanda said. “I think it’s important to work with people you trust and keep the people you trust with you in your personal life and your work.”

She said her relationship with her father has only grown since she embarked on a coaching career.

“I think we appreciate each other in a different way than we have just as a father and daughter,” Amanda said. “Sharing this has been unique.”

brabinowitz@dispatch.com