Crisis Forcing Brown To Adapt On The Fly

Mack Brown may have been out of coaching for five years before jumping back into the fray 16 months ago, but when he did, the Hall of Famer didn’t miss a beat.

He’s a man with a plan and is intent daily on attacking the mission.

Like the rest of the world, however, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has forced Brown to significantly adjust his personal and professional manner of going about life and work.

“What an awful time in our history,” Brown said earlier this week during a virtual press conference. “We're all having to find a new normal and start over and there'll be some things that come out of this that we've learned for our lives in the future and we'll probably appreciate things more.”

From the standpoint of a head coach, COVID-19 forced the cancellation of Carolina’s spring practice, which was slated to start March 17, but there are no face-to-face meetings with players of the rest or the coaching staff.

Even in the face of what the nation is dealing with and the curve ball it’s thrown the Tar Heels’ football program, Brown has found a new way to approach things.

“We're all creatures of a routine and they’re out of one, so now we've asked their parents, we've asked them to help,” he said. “We're having Zoom meetings with our academic counselors and us and the players… The other thing is we have staff meetings a couple of times a week…

“What we're doing is talking about recruiting and we're talking about each player. We're talking about the things that we would normally be talking about if we had our meetings and were in the middle of spring practice.”

Zoom is a remote video conferencing program, which is what UNC used for Monday’s online presser. It’s a modern toy, one Brown had never heard of until a couple of weeks ago.

But with some encouragement from his daughter, he dove in and is adapting.

“I am spending more time with Zoom than I am (with wife) Sally,” the head coach joked. “And actually my daughter is a professor at UVA (Virginia). And she's the one that said, ‘dad, you're going to have to get on Zoom.’ And I said, ‘what's that?’ She said, ‘It's really cool. You'll really like it.’ So, we're all having to learn things.”

Jokes aside, the currant state of things has Brown concerned, but it also hit close to home as international travel was in the process of being halted while one of his other children was abroad.

“One of our children was in Iceland and we were worried about them getting back with grandkids,” Brown said. “So, they got back safe but then they got to New York and had trouble getting back to Austin.

“So, you handle your own family situations and then, at the same time, I’ve stayed at the house, I’ve stayed in Chapel Hill, I’ve got to stay where there’s really strong internet. We have a house in the mountains, I can’t go up there right now because the internet’s not as strong there and I need the ability to talk to players, coaching staff, you guys at all times.”

Among the other things Brown has learned is he needs to find more interests outside of sports. A football coach by morning, day and night, he’s also a sports fan when filling in those cracks.

“My interests are sports, my family, my faith and my friends and that's it,” he said. “That's all I got.”

Now he can at least add Zoom expert to that list, too.