FOXBOROUGH – Even in the heart of New Jersey, there are few people who actually wax nostalgic about the swamps of East Rutherford. But count Bill Belichick among them.

He was in a nostalgic mood on Friday when reminded this Sunday could be his final game ever at the original Giants Stadium, which like Yankee Stadium, is being replaced in 2010 with a newer, shinier model.

But the HC of the NEP has more than his fair share of reasons to be teary-eyed when thinking of the facility that opened in 1976.

“It would be, yeah. It’ll be a little bit sentimental there,” Belichick said on Friday at Gillette Stadium. “I was with the Giants for 12 years and we won a lot of football games there, we won a lot of big games. We won some championships there. It was a great feeling with the Giants fans, what we accomplished from when I went there in ’79.”

When Belichick arrived with the Giants in 1979 the franchise was the laughing stock of the NFL for one play in that stadium. One play that will live in infamy, long after they tear it down. It was, of course, when Joe Pisarcik fumbled at the end of the game and Herman Edwards of the Eagles returned it for a game-clinching touchdown in 1978.

“It was year after “The Fumble” and it couldn’t probably be a lower point in the franchise’s history than the ’78 season was for the Giants,” Belichick recalled. “In ’79 and ’80 we were trying to be competitive and then ’81 we went to the playoffs and ’82 was a strike year and then ’83, ’84 and ’85, back in the playoffs and then won the championship in ’86.

“That term ‘long-suffering Giants fan’ that we heard in ’79 when we went there, not too many people saying that when I left in 1990.

“Those were great years. It was a great time for me, being the defensive coordinator, coaching special teams,” Belichick continued. “It was a great group of players there, a lot of fond memories from those teams, and the staffs and the coaches that were there as well.”

When the Jets became co-tenants after the 1983 season, it wasn’t quite the same.  Belichick found out why in 1997, when he left New England to become the assistant head coach of the Jets, who were headquartered in Hemstead, NY.

“Of course, we played three years there with the Jets,” Belichick said. “When we were in Hempstead and going to play in Giants Stadium, in all honesty, it still felt like an away game. When we played there, and by the time we bussed back to Long Island, I’m sure the Patriots, the Bills and the Eagles and teams like that were home before we were. We were playing in that stadium but it wasn’t like it was when I was with the Giants in that stadium.

“You had ‘The Fireman’ and you definitely don’t have that with the Giants, it’s different,” he added. “Those were great years in my career. I’ll never forget those. We had a lot of success and I was fortunate to be with a lot of great people, players and coaches. It was a tremendous experience for me that did a lot for me. That string of years together was awesome, it really was.”