Alan Truex: Mack Brown, CEO/Coach, goes for second act at Carolina
LLANO, Texas – Everyone who’s over 60, including myself, is cheering at least a little for Mack Brown in his return to coaching after admitting to burnout and then spending four undistinguished football seasons in a broadcasting booth.
Ageism being rampant in our society, Brown needs to show that at 67 he can go back to North Carolina and run a college football program as well as he could do at 53 when he delivered a national championship to the University of Texas.
He’s not off to a roaring re-start. Instead of hiring a young, rising coordinator to groom as his successor in five or six years, Brown turned his defense over to fellow 67-year-old Greg Robinson, who in his last coordinator’s gig, in 2014 at San Jose, had the 64th- best defense in yards allowed per play.
This move came just a few days after Brown promised that “if I’m hired I will bring established coordinators like Kliff Kingsbury and Gene Chizik.”
Truth is the Mack Brown coaching tree is one of the smallest in the forest. At Texas he did not have the best and brightest staff. A UT grad, I was not always fond of Brown’s decisions and methods. He’s the ultimate players’ coach. He makes Pete Carroll look like a hard-ass. He forgave his players of all transgressions, of which there were way too many on his watch.
The players were treated like princes. When they thought they were being subjected to too much criticism, they told Brown they wanted to boycott the media. He said fine, if you don’t want to talk to reporters, you don’t have to.
I couldn’t imagine what Darrell Royal would have said about a scheme to dodge accountability. Can’t imagine there ever would have been such a proposal to DKR. He believed in facing the music, no matter how unpleasant it might be.
Brown struck me as being short on swagger – at least by Texas standards. He canceled a season-opener just weeks before a season opened because a game in Hawaii seemed treacherous.
The Rainbows at the time were ranked about 80th in the country, but the beaches and hula dancers could be a lethal distraction. There was too much risk. Coach Brown didn’t even mention hurricanes, monsoons and volcanoes.
This unexpected withdrawal did not go over well an hour’s drive from the historic dirt yard where Col. William Travis dragged his sword and proclaimed the principle that Texans won’t back away from any foe. Especially disgusted were the Longhorns’ traveling party. Sportswriters showed up at Brown’s next preseason practice wearing Hawaiian shirts.
In retrospect, Brown did the right thing for his team. Considering the slackness in the reins that guided the players, they likely would have drifted into trouble in paradise.
I suppose he must be credited for keeping mostly tight lids on potential eruptions. He employed a highly paid “fixer” – a conduit to all local law enforcement – who would clean up messes that his student/athletes continually created on the Forty Acres.
His successor, Charlie Strong, was appalled to find a program that was so unmoored. There wasn’t a looser ship in the French Navy. In his first week in Austin, Strong promised he was going to “change the culture.”
No more raping, no more skipping classes. Accountability was in. Strong expunged criminals, troublemakers and malingerers, but then there wasn’t enough talent to compete at this echelon.
If Brown’s 16-year tenure at UT did not end well, it won’t be forgotten that in his prime he was as good as anyone, certainly worthy of the Hall of Fame, which he entered last January on the first ballot. He had nine consecutive seasons of 10+ wins –- the second-longest streak in FBS history.
He was, unquestionably, No. 1 in recruiting. Born in Cookeville, Tenn., he’s a folksy charmer, invariably polite and even-tempered. No coach was more effective talking to family in a living room, and that’s likely to remain the case.
It wasn’t just gab. He devoted more effort and thought to the recruiting process than Royal or anyone else did. He gave away tickets by the dozens—many to high-school coaches who became his most valuable allies.
It was said that Brown didn’t know X’s and O’s (Steve Spurrier sarcastically referred to him as “Mr. Football”), but in fact he was respected for his creativity as offensive coordinator at Iowa State when he was 28.
As head coach at UNC, beginning in 1988, he grasped the concept of delegating, something too many head coaches in the NCAA and NFL fail to do. At Texas he was CEO of a sprawling multi-layered football factory. He concentrated on what he did best: marketing and recruiting, which may be the same thing.
Brown has never had to wrestle with an insecure ego. It was so Mack Brown when one of his first actions after replacing Larry Fedora was to tell the son of the fired coach that he’s welcome to remain in his quality-control position.
Another plus with Brown: hard to beat in bowls. He’s the best I’ve seen at motivating kids through a month of intense football drills when they’d prefer to be home feasting and partying.
One year when he sensed players not taking the bowl prep seriously enough, he announced that “all jobs are on the line” and the depth chart for next season “is being written now.”
So the ‘Horns stormed into the ubiquitous Holiday Bowl like it was the Orange and their britches were on fire. They won it, as they did most bowls coached by Mack Brown, whose postseason record is 14-8.
He also was vigilant about letdowns and “traps.” To make that point, he and his assistants hung oversized rat traps from their necks.
I expect Brown will enjoy coaching at lovely Chapel Hill with a fraction of the pressure of a Texas fan base with its bloated sense of entitlement. He said upon accepting the Tar Heels job – for $3.5 million times five years – that “for me it’s more fun to fix than to maintain.”
History suggests no easy fix. Others have not fared well at this same play – going home again: Johnny Major (Pittsburgh), John Robinson (USC), Bill Snyder (Kansas State), Bill Walsh (Stanford). “I’ve lost something,” Walsh said. “I don’t know what. Maybe it’s because I’m 60.”
Mack Brown probably knows more football and more psychology now than he ever has. But does he have the energy and hunger and quickness of mind he had a decade ago? I hope so. I will feel better if this goes well for him.
