Mack Brown goes in depth on building relationships with players today

As North Carolina prepares for a a home date with Georgia Tech, coach Mack Brown is dealing with far more than just Xs and Os. Following the recent tragedy and shooting at Virginia, he’s had to have some tough conversations, the kind of conversations that force you to reflect on building relationships with players in today’s day and age.

The math is different than in the past.

“I mean it’s changed so much. It’s a great question and it’s one of the reasons I think that people questioned whether I can come back and coach at 71 years old or not, because can you relate to the kids?” Brown said. “And can you talk to them on your level? And can you get them to listen to me? Those are all valid questions. Those are all good questions.

“I don’t think kids have changed that much, the game’s changed so much with social media, early recruiting, you start looking at transfer portal, you start looking at NIL. All those things are new and different, and what I’ve found is they want you to be, they want you to care about them and they want you to be honest with them.”

Being honest with them means taking some of those difficult topics head on.

Mack Brown addresses shooting at Virginia

The fourth-year North Carolina head coach is in the middle of his best season since he returned to the program, at 9-1 and ready to play Clemson in the ACC Championship Game in a few weeks.

But there’s been an unavoidable topic this week, given the tragic news that struck college football over the weekend.

Following the deaths of three Virginia football players in a shooting on the outskirts of campus, Brown has spoken with his players about the incident. He said he broke down a little when the topic came up.

“I address issues every day with them. Every time a college football player gets in trouble or a pro player gets in trouble, I send it on Teamworks to them and say, ‘Make good decisions.’ Every time,” Brown said. “We address mental health a whole lot. We address drugs and alcohol a whole lot. We address the Virginia situation and you’ve got players on our team who were close to some of those guys that lost their life. So that’s heavy. That’s tough. So we addressed it and said it’s really hard.

“And I sat there and told them, ‘I don’t want to lose you all and we love every one of you. We want to help every one of you. If you stay here, we want to help you prepare yourself for life after football.’ The hardest thing, I think, for a head football coach, is that it’s every minute of every day you’re having to give everything you’ve got to all of these young people to make sure that you can help them stay happy, stay out of trouble, move forward, understand what goes on in your life.”

The dynamics socially have shifted

Every coach is interested in building relationships with players, but the way that happens these days might not look quite the same as in the past.

To Brown’s eye, the social media dynamic has changed quite a bit.

Any internal strife is never far from going public, creating an even bigger echo chamber and crescendo of noise. Coaches have to be careful what they say, but they still have to look out for their guys.

“If they say something inappropriate all we can do is say, ‘C’mon, here’s why that’s not right. Don’t do it. Apologize for it and let’s move on,'” Brown said.

The North Carolina coach has also given some more — hauntingly — particular advice in light of the shooting at Virginia.

“I told them, ‘Don’t go to the wrong parties. People used to shove and push and fight and yell at each other when I was in school. Now you get shot at the wrong party. So if you walk into a place and you don’t feel comfortable, get out of there. Get out of there,'” Brown said. “But it’s constant.

“And we’ve got 120 players. There’s 53 staff members. So you’ve got issues every day. Somebody’s mad every day, somebody’s getting something hurt or wrong. It’s just you worry about them driving, you worry about them being on scooters on campus. So you’re just constantly talking to them like they’re your family, because they are an extended family.”

Building relationships with players means being realistic about the transfer portal

Perhaps the biggest sea change in college football these days is the one-time free transfer rule and the NCAA transfer portal. Players are looking for new opportunities at breath-taking rates.

Brown understands that dynamic and is trying to facilitate as best as he can without sabotaging his active roster.

“I told the guys after practice this morning that the transfer portal opens up on Dec. 5 and there will be some of you that are graduating and not playing a lot, you’re going to want to still play and we’ll help you go somewhere else,” Brown said.

“And there’s some of you that aren’t playing. And if you’re unhappy and you’re not playing and you want to go somewhere else, let’s finish the season. I don’t even care if you go in the transfer portal and keep playing for the bowl game. That’s fair because we’re all trying to figure out the guidelines now, the transfer portal, so we don’t want the guys to wait too long. But it’s their life.”

The way Brown sees it, there are almost two rosters within your team. You might think of it as the depth chart and the scout team, in a sense.

In the interest of building relationships with players and keeping things honest, Brown has explained his view of this dynamic to his players.

“What we’ve told them is there’s really two different dynamics on this team, is you’ve got the group on the field with us playing, and we’ve got to play the guys that we feel like can win the game,” Brown said. “That’s what you have to, you’ve got to win games. Whether you agree with us or not, we’ve got to.

“You don’t have to agree with us, because you think you’re better than we think you are at this time, or we would be playing you. So if you don’t like that, don’t be angry. Transfer. And we’ll help you do that. And we told the other guys the same thing. If you’re going to stay, you’ve got to play good.”

The overall message, though, is that Brown wants North Carolina to be a family. He wants his players to feel like they’re right at home, with authority figures who will tell them the hard truth but also be there for them.

“Off the field we’re going to take care of all of you,” Brown said. “We’re going to try to help every one of you.”