There weren’t many coaching positions that were attractive enough to pull Mack Brown out of the broadcast booth and back onto the sidelines. But it turns out that list might have been even smaller for his wife Sally.
“I asked Sally two years ago, ‘where would we go,’” Brown said on Tuesday. “She said, ‘I’ll travel with you three different places; I’ll go to Hawaii; I’ll go to the Bahamas, if they start football, or I’ll go to Chapel Hill.”
Brown was speaking to a packed room Tuesday where he was introduced as the new head football coach at UNC. Brown is replacing Larry Fedora, who was fired after Saturday’s loss to North Carolina State.
Brown led UNC through one of the most successful runs on the football field in school history in the 1990s.
The former and now current Tar Heel head coach said it would be important to build relationships with high school coaches across the state to get the football program back to where it was before Brown left for the University of Texas, where he won a national championship in 2005.
“We had a great relationship with the high school coaches when we left here,” Brown said. “We will renew the ones still out there, and we’ll get to know the new guys. Because that is such a key to getting better.”
With the quick turnaround from Fedora, Brown said he was further behind on knowing the recruiting landscape than any other facet.
“I’d love the large majority of our team to be from in-state,” Brown said. He reiterated throughout the desire to “win at home first.”
“You’ve got to win at home in recruiting before you can go out-of-state,” he said. “Because if the locals won’t come, why would an out state guy that’s really good want to come?”
Brown said he would not hesitate to turn to the university’s heralded basketball program for any recruiting help it could lend.
“We have a tremendous advantage because we have such a great basketball program,” Brown said. “Kids love basketball; and they love to come and see it, and they love to be around it and be part of it.
“Coach [Dean] Smith and coach [Roy] Williams and coach [Bill] Guthridge always helped us recruit.”
Current UNC basketball coach Roy Williams was in attendance for a portion of Brown’s announcement on Tuesday.
There have been many rumors floating around about the high-powered offensive and defensive coordinators that Brown was ready to bring into Chapel Hill. But the new head football coach said, at least as of Tuesday’s press conference, those were just rumors.
“I’ve been out and thought about going back into coaching every year,” Brown said, “so, you’ve got staff in mind.”
But he said he “hadn’t had time” to contact any potential assistants.
UNC has had disappointing seasons the last two years, which ultimately led to Fedora’s firing. But there was an excitement in the air among the former players from Carolina’s football glory days back in Chapel Hill on Tuesday.
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