Chansky's Notebook: Mack and The Media

Getting the media is another example of the new Mack Brown.

If you remember when a 37-year-old coach took over the UNC football program before the 1988 season, the same guy 30 years later has a different outlook toward his job as a senior head coach.

Brown has talked about his last few trying years at Texas, where what you did for me yesterday didn’t matter much. When the 10-win seasons and national championship contenders disappeared, the Longhorn faithful seriously debated Brown’s future.

Mack ended all that by saying he cared too much about Texas football to divide the alumni and fan base, so he stepped aside. As an analyst for ESPN and watching dozens of other teams and coaches, he began to see the box he was in over 25 years on the sideline.

Besides becoming too much of a CEO coach and relinquishing what he says was too much control to his assistants, Brown also learned more about the media than he had ever known or even tried to understand. He gained respect for the day-to-day job of reporters. He now has a far greater sense for what they have to do.

“They’re job is to tell a story,” Brown says. And the better the story, the more facts they have to get about the subject matter. That became apparent as a studio analyst and a color commentator. There was a story happening out there, and now he had to tell it.

In many ways, Brown’s job with the media was easier than the profession he had held all of his adult life. He knew the story because he had lived it, and he was able to translate what was happening on the field and the sideline and with the players to the audience.

Whereas he might have been reluctant to expose secrets of the trade, Brown saw it as his job and did it well. No other ESPN analyst had played for and won a national championship. He didn’t have to guess what the coaches were doing as a lead-up to the big game. He simply told the story of what Texas did, and it was easy.

From that experience, Mack realized what the media was trying to do without having any true insider knowledge. They had to piece the story together from interviews with players and coaches. And he concluded it was far more difficult than just watching.

So when the new Mack meets with the media now, he is more likely to ask what they need than saying stuff he wants them to hear.