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Mack Brown should be a lifer at UNC.
It was certainly an unusual and heavy-hearted weekend on the Carolina campus. A football player who had been battling cancer gallantly for more than two years died just before Carolina kicked it off against Georgia Tech.
However long he coaches the Tar Heels, Brown should remain at the University in some capacity with the students, athletes and/or alumni. And he demonstrated that over the weekend.
How he handled the very difficult heartbreak of the afternoon certainly passed the test as someone who believes in the youngsters who play for him more than their results on the field.
For the last several years, beginning with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brown has talked a lot about the mental health of his athletes and others who are trying to juggle the pressures of football and being students. He is proud that his players are first in the ACC and third in the country in APR, which is academic progress report.
He coached Saturday full well knowing that Tylee Craft might not live through the weekend, and during the time out between the first and second quarters, Brown briefly joined a short ceremony honoring the fallen Tar Heel to hug Craft’s mother, a police officer in Sumter, South Carolina, who made repeated trips to Chapel Hill as her son went through cancer treatment and its ups and downs along the way.
During each visit, Brown and his wife, Sally, and the Carolina football family supported the mother and son in every way possible, with regular visits to the hospital or the SECU family house with Tylee stayed as an outpatient during his treatment.
After the game, Brown spent most of his one-hour press conference talking about the ordeal and how he was trying to help his team and his coaches get through this terrible mid-season tragedy while also readying them to play their last five games of the season.
And the way he emoted, you can’t make up that kind of stuff. Sally Brown, whom Mack said is a cancer survivor since she was 29, could relate as well as anyone to what Tylee and his mother were enduring, and like with many other players the Browns grew close.
UNC has had seven football coaches over the last 36 years and Brown has been two of them. He would not have left for Austin after the 1997 season had Carolina made a reasonable counter to what Texas was offering him.
Twenty years later, Chapel Hill was the only place he and Sally wanted to come back and coach again. His second tenure has not been as successful as he had hoped, but it has met the standards of Carolina football over the years.
Meanwhile, he has been a passionate supporter of his program and his players, even when he can be over the top with what he says. That emotion is authentic because it’s who Mack Brown is.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Andy Mead.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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