University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Whistle To Microphone
November 23, 2016 | Football, Featured Writers
By Lee Pace
To a Tennessee native, that desert state out west next to California with all the casinos and race horses is pronounced, “Ne-VAH-duh.” And so it was that Mack Brown was saying the name of one of the schools in his first college football game as a television analyst—the New Orleans Bowl in December 2014 between Louisiana-Lafayette and the University of Nevada.
It turns out the locals in Reno, Las Vegas and points beyond pronounce their state, “Nev-AD-uh.”
“Well, I'm getting yelled at in the first quarter because I'm saying the name wrong,” says Brown, a native of Cookeville and later a resident of a half dozen Southern states. “I told them, 'Hey, give me a little help here. Someone tell me.' I had no idea. They toss you in the water and say, 'Go swim.'”
Brown in two-plus years has learned to navigate the waters of ESPN and the broadcast booth quite well and on Friday will bring those coach-turned-broadcaster skills to Chapel Hill as part of the announcing team for the Carolina-N.C. State game. Brown, the Tar Heel coach from 1988-97 before leaving for Texas and a 16-year run, will work with play-by-play announcer Adam Amin and sideline reporter Molly McGrath.
“I've known and liked Larry Fedora and Dave Doreen since before each of them got to their current jobs, so I'm looking forward to calling this game,” Brown says. “I came back to Chapel Hill in the spring of 2015 to speak at Larry's high school clinic and I've walked around the stadium, but I've not seen a game there since I left for Texas. I'm exited to get back and see some of our old players who are still around. It should be fun.”
Brown will spend Thanksgiving morning and midday with wife Sally, their children and grandchildren at their home in Linville, then drive to Chapel Hill and arrive by late afternoon. As soon as Friday's game is over, he's off to the airport and a flight to Hartford to be ready for Saturday's studio work in Bristol.
Brown spent his first year in 2014 with the sister networks of ABC and ESPN doing Saturday studio work and then did his first game as an analyst during the bowl season. The last two seasons, he's called a Friday night ESPN game, dashed to Bristol and been part of ABC's studio crew throughout Saturday afternoon's menu of regional and national games.
“I enjoy both the studio work and the games,” Brown says. “I'm a football nut and I'm right in the middle of it all. In the studio, we watch 24 games at a time and you're seeing every play, every game across the country. You never see that much football as a coach.
“And I love doing the games. It's the closest thing to coaching you can do. In the press box, I put myself back on the sideline, what would I do if was the coach?”
Coaches are nothing if not creatures of habit, and the flow and structure of the season and game preparation is something most of them relish. What Brown misses in game-planning as a coach, he replaces with preparation for each week's broadcast. Videotape study, conversations with coaching friends, reviewing game notes supplied by team sports information directors and meetings with head coaches and coordinators the day before games provides a deep reservoir of material to draw on—not to mention his three decades as a head coach. His bosses and colleagues give Brown high marks for having mastered the dicey act of talking in concise, 10-to-12 second bites.
“One thing I've learned is that media people work much harder than they're perceived,” Brown says. “You prepare to call a game like you would a game plan. My bosses want me to tell the story of the game for both teams and to have no bias—no matter where I've coached or who my friends are in coaching. To do that, you've really got to study the video. They want me to anticipate what Dave or Larry are going to call next and what happens in the game. It's not an easy thing to do. You have to go on the things you've seen them do and what you feel like is going to happen because of their past.”
Brown has plenty of memories where the Carolina-State rivalry is concerned, from losing five in a row from 1988-92 and then reeling off five consecutive wins once the Tar Heels revved into high gear in the mid-1990s. He remembers the shock of the 12-9 loss in Kenan Stadium in 1990 on a 56-yard Wolfpack field goal and then turning the tide with lopsided wins from 1993 on.
“Even after they beat us with the long field goal, I knew we were getting closer,” Brown says. “We had been so far behind when we got to Chapel Hill. That field goal game is kind of indicative of what Dave Doeren is going through this year. If not for a missed field goal at Clemson, they would have beaten the No. 2 team in the country. The Florida State game came down to one or two plays.”
There will be no shortage of former Tar Heels from the Brown era around Kenan Stadium Saturday—from athletic department staffers Rick Steinbacher and Corey Holliday to Tar Heel Sports Network color analyst William Henderson. Brown coached against Larry Fedora when Fedora was the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State and later counseled Fedora on the idea of pursing the Tar Heel head coaching job. Carolina defensive coordinator Gene Chizik was on the Longhorn staff when they won the 2005 national title.
“I've studied a lot of video on Carolina from the last three or four games,” Brown says. “It's been fun to watch. I've known for a long time what Larry can do offensively. And I knew what Gene would do here defensively. He's as good as anyone on defense. He's taken the defense to a new level. They're so much better, it's amazing what he's done in two years.
“And I think Carolina will keep getting better. As we know from my time there, when you start winning, you can recruit so much better.”
Among the many facts Brown will come armed with Saturday is the one saying that victories over State and a bowl opponent would give the Tar Heels back-to-back 10-win seasons—for the first time since Brown's own teams won 10 and 11 games, respectively, in 1996-97. (Imagine if you could put the offenses from 2015-16 averaging 465 yards a game with the defenses from 1996-97 allowing just 217 yards a game.)
“This is a great time in Carolina football history,” Brown says. “You've got your athletic director in Bubba Cunningham. You've got your coach in Larry. You've got your staff. You're soon going to have a new indoor facility, which is so important. We thought when we were there 20 years ago Carolina should be one of the top programs in the country. It's no different today and I'm excited to see where the program is.”
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace has covered Tar Heel football for 26 years through “Extra Points” and a dozen as the Tar Heel Sports Network's sideline reporter. He has just published a book on Kenan Stadium, “Football in a Forest.” Follow him at @LeePaceTweet and contact him at leepace7@gmail.com.
