By Scott Salomon
Coaches keep taking shots at North Carolina’s Mack Brown, the coaching icon who is getting up there in age. They say he is going to retire to try and sway a recruit. There’s only one problem: Brown is the only one still standing. He’s not going anywhere, any time soon.
“Every coach recruiting against us says I’m going to quit,” Brown said at ACC Media Days to Travon Mills of ABC 11. “And six of them have been fired that said that already. So they ought to be worried about themselves.”
Brown is soon to turn 73 years young. He has celebrated 35 opening days as a head coach. He is the Last of the Mohicans.
Yet, opposing coaches still take their shots. Brown retaliates by winning. He has taken North Carolina to five straight bowl games. He’s also getting his recruits.
He was asked at the Media Days why doesn’t hang it up. Brown then recalled a story about a time he was with Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno.
“People ask now, Why are you doing this?”, Brown said. “I was meeting with Coach Bowden and Coach Paterno on a trip. Coach Bowden was 84; Coach Paterno was 86. I said, ‘What are you all doing? Why don’t you go play something?’ Coach Paterno said, ‘I got no hobbies. I got 17 grandkids. Sally actually said, Do you know all their names?'”
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“He said, ‘Sure I do.’ His wife, Sue, said, ‘He knows Joe, but he may not the rest of them.'”
“I asked Coach Bowden, Why are you doing this at 84?”
“He said, ‘I have a purpose. The purpose is to help these young people with their lives. He said, When I quit coaching, the next significant thing that will happen in my life will be my death.'”
Brown agrees with Bowden, a coaching legend in his own right.
“I thought that’s pretty strong. The way I feel is I love these guys. I don’t like these guys – I love these guys. They’re so nice and they’re such good people, they work so hard, they’re so mature that my life right now has a purpose that I get to see ’em every day and I get to talk to ’em, I help them grow,” Brown said. “If they do something that I messed up, it’s worse now because of social media. We messed up, nobody knew. They mess up, it’s out there, public.”
Brown is going to continue coaching until it is no longer meaningful. Which means Brown is going to be hangin’ around a while.
“I feel such a purpose, more than any time in my life that I can help with their lives. That’s pretty powerful as you start looking at it,” Brown said. “That’s why I got back into coaching. I feel even more strongly about that.”
