University of North Carolina Athletics
Pace: Brown's Return To Carolina Ties Loose Ends
September 16, 2002 | Football
Sept. 16, 2002
The following is excerpted from Lee Pace's latest edition of Extra Points. For more from this week's newsletter, click here.
By Lee Pace
From baby blue to burnt orange.
From loafers to cowboys boots.
From a state with just over 300 high schools to one with nearly a thousand.
From a ram lollygagging behind the bench to a steer.
From a school with good football tradition (Choo Choo and L.T. and Famous Amos) to one with great tradition (Campbell and Nobis and the three national titles under Darrell "Daddy D" Royal).
From fighting to get his sport its proper due in the grand scheme to living in a fishbowl of incredible micromanagement from a state of 21 million people.
Through it all, Mack Brown remains consistent. A little thicker in the middle and grayer on top, perhaps, but just the same nonetheless. Gracious in victory, quick with a quip and a handshake, always a million thoughts racing through his brain and a Southern cadence nimble enough to keep up.
Late Saturday night, Brown walked into the atrium of the old field house at Kenan Memorial Stadium, the same room he'd walked past on more than 3,000 mornings arriving for work at Carolina from 1988-97. His Texas Longhorns had just flattened the Tar Heels, 52-21, and Brown, his staff, players and 5,000 Texas fans had sung the school fight song, raising their forefingers and pinkies in the familiar "Hook 'em Horns" salute. Now he settled into a chair to address the news media, most them writers and broadcasters from the southwest.
"I've never seen a team play that hard down 31-14," Brown said of the Tar Heels. "The crowd was in it, it was an unbelievable atmosphere. For myself, I'm really proud that North Carolina football's in John Bunting's hands and moving forward. We had better players, our guys hung in there, we had better depth, but their guys fought. Give them credit. I was very impressed with the crowd. I'm proud to be a part of the two biggest crowds in school history. I'm just on the wrong side of one of them."
Brown's return to Chapel Hill after five years in Austin was marked with the guest of honor and most everyone else taking the high road, no matter their opinion of Brown's abrupt departure from the Tar Heel sideline in early December of 1997. There was talk of Carolina fans joining in unison to needle Brown with Florida State's signature tomahawk chop -- a jibe at Brown's 0-6 record versus the Seminoles from 1992-97 and 20-3 whipping in that landmark '97 encounter. That bad idea fortunately never built any steam. Journalists poked and prodded for controversy, but no one really felt like opening old wounds.
As Brown said, there's been enough separation between his era at Carolina and today, enough coaches and players coming and going in the revolving door that marked the era of Brown's successor, Carl Torbush.
"There was way too much talk about me coming back here," Brown said. "Hopefully there will be some closure for some people because we won't be playing any more. This university is a great university and football was here before we got here. We had our struggles and I'm proud of what we did here. John's a fighter and he'll do a good job here."
It's been an interesting petri dish of human nature and emotions since Brown took the Texas job, a litany of he-saids/she-saids, arm-chair quarterbacking and speculation over "what if?" I've heard from both Brown and Carolina Athletic Director Dick Baddour their respective accounts of those long hours of negotiations at Brown's home after Chancellor Michael Hooker authorized Baddour to match any financial inducements Texas had made. Who knows -- and this is mere speculation -- but had this been any normal job negotiation, with time to thrust and parry, to collect one's breath and thoughts, to sleep on the issue for several nights, and to do so in private without the scalding lights of a TV truck sitting in your driveway, Brown might very well still be the coach of the Tar Heels. But he had a 3 p.m. deadline that Thursday afternoon to make a decision and, in the end, went with his gut.
Of course, it's a moot point now, and as I wrote in these pages one year ago, things have worked out fine for all concerned. Brown has a dream job at one of the top five football programs in the nation, and Carolina has a passionate, fiery and talented guy skippering its ship, a man who was smitten with the Chapel Hill experience nearly 35 years ago and remains under its spell today.
One thing I have figured out is that Brown cares desperately what people back in North Carolina think of him. I'm not sure why, because his place in Carolina history is secure. His six straight bowl berths, 21-3 record in 1996-97 and consecutive Top 10 finishes is iron-clad among the top eras in school history. He's the toast of the town in Austin, makes more money than he can spend and has a football team so loaded with good players that the Longhorns will compete for the national title now and for years to come. Why worry so much what people back here think?
Brown provided a clue one afternoon last March, talking about the path of his life and digging so deep as to speculate on the final resting places for him and his wife, Sally. Odds are those will be in the state of North Carolina. No wonder the opinions of Tar Heel faithful are important. I knew for a fact Texas would not try to run the score up if it got a big lead Saturday, and, sure enough, the Longhorns did not throw the football once the outcome was secure.
"Except for this game, I'm always a Tar Heel football fan," Brown said.
You're welcome to your opinion of Mack Brown, of course. To me, he remains a most fascinating study.
