Mack Brown credits advice from Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno for still coaching into his 70s

At this week’s ACC Kickoff event in Charlotte, North Carolina head football coach Mack Brown laid down a brief but emotional speech on why the vocation of coaching called him back and keeps him going, even at 72 years old.

College football has never been a younger man’s game more so than right now, where constant stamina is required for head coaches to keep up on NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignment, fallout from the House v. NCAA settlement, and a slew of other things outside the realm of on-field coaching.

However, Mack Brown spent a few moments on the ACC Network set Thursday explaining the reasons well beyond the football field which keeps him chugging in his older years.

“The people ask now, ‘Why are you doing this?'” Brown said before answering that question by recalling some wise words from former coaching legends Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno.

“I was meeting with Coach Bowden and Coach Paterno on a Nike trip. Coach Bowden was 84 and Coach Paterno was 85. I said, ‘What are you all doing?’ I was in my fifties. I said, ‘Well, why don’t you go play something?’ Paterno said ‘I got no hobbies, I got 17 grandkids. I don’t wanna go spending all my time with (my) grandkids.'”

A funny response from Paterno, but Bowden’s answer hit Brown a little harder.

“So I asked Coach Bowden, ‘why are you doing this at 84?'” Brown continued. “And he said, ‘I have a purpose, and the purpose is to help these young people with their lives.’ He said, ‘When I get done coaching, the next significant thing that will happen in my life will be my death.’ And I thought that’s pretty strong.”

Much like Bowden, Mack Brown feels called to lead young men. He then shared passionately about his own team:

“The way I feel is — I love these guys. I don’t like these guys. I love these guys,” Brown said. “They’re so nice and they’re such good people and they work so hard and they’re so mature that my life right now has a purpose — that I get to see them every day and I get to talk to them and I get to help them grow.

“I feel such a purpose, more than any time in my life, that I can help them with their lives, and that’s pretty powerful. That’s why I got back into coaching. I even feel more strongly about that now.”

Mack Brown is a teacher and a leader at heart, who’s still finding more joy now than ever before doing what he loves: coaching young people in football. Those last two paragraphs from him are a pretty good summation of the type of coach UNC has in Mack Brown.