Photo via Twitter

Mack Brown remains a huge part of Carolina football.

The former Tar Heel coach was feted in a private event for former players and special guests over the weekend, as UNC celebrated Brown’s forthcoming induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Brown watched what is now Larry Fedora’s team practice on Saturday, spoke to the players after the scrimmage and then was honored at a dinner and ceremony that evening. Brown may have earned his Hall of Fame nomination on his record at Texas after leaving Chapel Hill in 1997, but he won’t soon forget his time here.

Mack and Sally, his beautiful wife he met early in his fifth season at Carolina, were toasted by former players who told great tales about Brown’s 10-year tenure working the sideline at Kenan Stadium. Many stories were about how Brown handled those first two 1-10 records that led to his last two with a 21-3 mark before Texas offered him the ranch to go to Austin.

In the old Kenan Field House, all who suffered during those miserable rebuilding years walked by a sign every day that read, “It’s Not a Matter of If . . . It’s a Matter of WHEN.” By 1992, the year he met Sally, Brown’s Tar Heels were off to reaching bowls games in each of his last six seasons.

Players didn’t talk about Brown as a great coach or even a CEO who had his pulse on every aspect of Carolina football. They talked about the lessons they learned, some hard ones, from the young head coach with the quick twang.

Jeff Saturday, who went on to snap the ball to Peyton Manning for 13 seasons, said Brown dressed him down after Saturday and his roommate refused to leave the dorm for a fire drill. He made the two players apologize to the campus cop they disrespected and sentenced them to some extra sessions with weight and strength coach Mad Dog Madden.

Dre’ Bly, who also played in the league, said he strutted and celebrated after his first good defensive play as a freshman and arrived at the sideline with Brown in his grill saying, “We don’t act that way here.” Bly said it was a lesson in humility that he carried all the way through is all-pro days.

As Brown’s star rose into the 1990s, UNC knew it could not keep him forever. But Tar Heels are grateful they had him at all.

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